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Introduction
Recruitment
Agencies serving the IT, Electronics and Software professions
have a bad name amongst people who use them, or have used them
in the past, a selection of expressed opinions are as follows:
Ineptitude and lack of knowledge of the
industry for which they are serving.
Ineptitude and lack of knowledge of the
job functions for which they seek candidates.
Ineptitude and lack knowledge of the
profession of the candidates they seek, to fulfill the job
functions.
Agencies employ personel of the 'salesman
type' and do not train them for their role.
They do a keyword search of a database of
CV's without actually reading the CV to ascertain the
candidates background mand match it to the clients
specification.
Agencies send CV's to clients and then do
not keep the candidate informed of the progress of the
application.
Agencies call candidates with a job
specification having done a keyword search of their database
and then expect the candiate to do the matching process –
this is due to their lack of knowledge and laziness.
Agencies call you with a job
specification which is totally unsuitable to your rank,
education and experience, they don't know what these words mean
anyway.
Agencies call you and say “I am not
technical, our technical consultant is on holiday, I have a job
specification that may interest you”. They then proceed
to read it out like an automaton with obvious lack of
understanding what it all means.
Agencies call you and always begin by
asking “how you are”. This is obviously a ploy to
ascertain your mood because they know they are extremely
annoying due to the reasons above.
When you object or complain about an
agencies ineptitude they try and pretend that they are
providing some form of social service and are trying to help
you, when really they just want the commission from a
placement.
If you call an agency, they pretend the
person required is not there and ask you to leave your number.
They then never contact you.
If you call an agency about a CV that has
been submitted, they never admit that there was no interest and
try to string you along for weeks and say things like 'the
manager is on holiday'.
The Solution
The industry is regulated to a certain
extent, but it isn't working. I intend to start campaigning and
lobbying parliament to this aim. Also I now refuse to have
anything to do with agencies unless they can demonstrate their
quality, knowledge and training for the function they advertise.
If
you agree with me and have had similar problems then please
email
me with any additional points you have.
Complaints
against agencies can be made to the Department of Trade and
Industry: www.dti.gov.uk
DTI
Employment Agency Standards (4140)
1 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0ET
They can be banned from trading for up to
ten years and have fines of £5000 imposed.
Are you an Agency?
Why
not take the test
and prove that you are not
one of 'those agencies' that require cleaning up. If you want to
deal with me in the future, you will have to complete the Agency
Test and return it to
me.
If you like, I can provide basic training
to your organisation so that you can at least pass the test.
However so far I have had no takers.
Please
Contact
me
if you have any comments.
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