Experience with Job agencies

I've had a brainwave (it doesn't happen often) and have thought of a way to bypass annoying job agencies and make a small profit in the meantime.

What I need though is opinions of the most annoying aspects of job agencies / job hunting, your bad experiences / good experiences.

What I hope to achieve is a system that benefits the job seeker and benefits the companies seeking employees with the minimum amount of fuss and hassle. No extortianate charges to the companies, constant updates to the job seekers so they know which companies have their details, which are no longer interested etc.

I cannot explain more at this moment in time but you're experiences will be very helpful to me and I will take this into consideration when the business plan is complete.

Scott, Jay, mail me for more info.

My recent experiences with Job Agencies is that they ask some really in depth question. The most difficult I find is the "rate yourself on a 10 scale for thes eskills"... who is going to give themselves a 10.

Everything you say is being passed on to their client...

Cheers
James

First thing first... Online job searching in this industry is a bust. I haven't seen a system out there yet that is effective. I have quite a few ideas for this but that's something else.

Agencies often don't know the individual they're looking for. They try to match up skills, but often there are other aspects they can't pick up on because they simply don't know the jobs aspects.

Job searching on sites like monster.com and workopolis becomes frustrating when doing a "keyword search". There needs to be smarter systems to do this. Set up an automailer on workopolis and see how much non web design related job postings you get sent if you use the search "web design".

Pay services are a definite no. If someone is out of a job and looking, they don't want to pay to find something. Stay away from those. This is the same if you're looking for info on freelance contract boards.

Again, I don't know if you're looking for comments on sites like guru.com and the likes but here's one anyway. There needs to be a system developed to avoid the horrible undercutting that occurs. It harms us in the long run.

I do like getting daily or weekly mailings of new jobs that are posted, as long as they relate to my field.

I've got a bunch of other ideas but i'll leave it at that for now. :)

One thing you have to watch is the questions about have you been to any interviews laterly or where do you work now .

As I have found (here in the uk) they use this information to either contact your place of work or the companies you had interviews at to see if they have vacancies.


Sales boys are back stabbers so watch your back....


I have found the best way is to do a bit of cold calling so get out there and get knocking on those doors guys a nd girls..............

I found...

that they're all crap!!! Most of its hype.

When the dotcom boom was still around last year (but fading fast), my agency I use really hooked me up with some nice gigs. Around 9/11 everything dried up. This year, I have found every gig with the exception of one completely through networking...

And yes, they definately try and use you to get contacts. For a few of my gigs I've gotten on my own - they have never been able to get in the door with those companies and I've flat out refused to open it for them.

My recommendation is to find an agency, but keep networking. If you luck out - both will balance each other out and you'll be able to live on more than Ramen! Hahahaha!

like everything there are good agencies and bad agencies

Back in 2000 I was lucky enough to be represented by a couple of good agencies and they got me some wxciting work...
Bad agencies can do this too but often also give you a headache...

Always be careful of those agencies which don't even interview you before sending you for jobs!

But some industry specific agencies are totally on top of what they are doing... some are just sales types, bungling around.

nice post razor :)

There are a few things that I like/dislike but it is not entirely for just agencies, so if I ramble, bare with me :)

One thing I really REALLY dislike is "you can only view this job if you pay us a heap of money" agencies. They call themselves the best, and say that only the best designers would be on their books anyways... It drives me nuts - especially if they advertise on an open/free job site.

I dislike people saying "x years of experience". I only have two and a bit years of experience. But I am in charge of every aspect of design in this company. If I had spent the last two years as a junior designer doing menial tasks, then I could understand it... but people will not look at me because of my low years... regardless of my skills. Even agencies have said "oh, ONLY 2 years..."

Jobs that do not say "with training available" or something along those lines. I learnt Typesetting through Quark, but my company uses PageMaker and I am now a wiz at that... however jobs say "Quark experience a must"... why not just send a suitable choice employee to get basic training to make sure they can grasp the skills.

I had a whole heap of stuff running through my head but I have forgotten... so I will be back... perhaps... later.

The single most annoying thing is that you often end up in a bidding system, whereby some sad !*%* will say "I'll design the whole site for £100", then an even sadder !*%* will say "well...I'll do it for....£30!".

The clients will 9 times out of 10 go for value over quality - which is mad but true.

I can't see any way of bypassing this particular problem - but if you can do it, I'll be in!

The very weakest link of any agency is the staff. When I was looking in London, I couldn't help but ask myself where do they get these people from? I mean, are the qualifications along the lines of 'I can pick a phone out of a lineup of other common household objects and I can also make coffee'?

You get intelligent people to talk to the applicants, people who actually understand what is needed for a position, cost vs benefit vs experience and you'll be well on your way. Of course, these 'thinking' humans also charge extra/expect more for their time, but that's where the other services fall down, cheaping out on the help.

Of course, this is for a locally-based walk-in operation. If you're looking to go on-line, the market is already saturated with idiot placement companies and jaded, disillusioned, desperate applicants. I wouldn't go there, unless you have something really, really special in mind.

the biggest problem with any agency is the impersonality of it all

whilst sending a cv out blind to a company is almost the same at least you have the benefit of writing a letter describing what you think are the points that make you qualify

the agency knows very little about you that can be easily verified and most companies that rely on agencies for employees have high turnovers of staff e.g. call centres

lists of skills for matching purposes are a waste of time too if there is no demonstration of work done

as far as contract bidding sites go i think they are a complete waste of time - they should have cut-off points for certain types of work and be policed by the professionals themselves - although i can't see that happening somehow

Quote:

---

Originally posted by scrote
as far as contract bidding sites go i think they are a complete waste of time - they should have cut-off points for certain types of work and be policed by the professionals themselves - although i can't see that happening somehow

---

That's a very good point. I don't know if places like guru.com would initiate a system like that but if they did it would help things out a lot.

A good example would be the client would be required to enter a budget estimate and the bidding wouldn't be aloud to go below say 25% of that budget for example. The budget would be hidden to the bidder.

It would be hard to educate the client as to what they should bid however. That could be overcome by giving budget outlines that they could follow that would guide them to estimate a proper budget.

Or the system could even be developed to have a minimum bid amount for certain project types.

Anwyays this is getting away from the initial purpose of this post I think. :)

This is brilliant, very helpful, I have had a very wide ranging experience of job agencies in the UK (My salary has increased twofold in 11 months), the posts so far are very interesting and useful.

My idea, to date is still an interesting one and I think can still be a very lucrative one, but I am not going to make a comittment without the proper planning and feasibility study. Thankyou so far for all your help and experience, it will not go un-noticed.

Jay, Scott, I will email you in the next few days