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I don't know about the rest of the world, but recruitment agencies in SA normally charge the company 30% of the successful applicants salary for the year.
Now, that's WAY to much.
From my experience, these ppl don't do sh!t. They've probably got some Access 97 app that they run a query on and voila!
Cheers,
Simon
"Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
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It is almost the same in the UK, but I would say even worse - recruitment agents seem to have no idea what they are doing. I have been looking for a new job for about 3 months now and I can only say recruitment agencies are the biggest rubbish I have ever seen.
Martin
--------------------------------------------
C'mon we all know computers are experimental devices and should only be used for playing games.
Using them for alternative stuff like business, is clearly not using them for what they are intended.
Colin Davies
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In my experience recruitment agencies only give you jobs that'll make them the larger commission. I always specify the distance I'm willing to travel, yet they always find me positions further away. They soon stop offering when I tell 'em I'm not interested in travelling too far.
Michael 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana
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Right, and they tend to offer you jobs you are not interested in as well.
Martin
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C'mon we all know computers are experimental devices and should only be used for playing games.
Using them for alternative stuff like business, is clearly not using them for what they are intended.
Colin Davies
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Martin Ziacek wrote:
I have been looking for a new job for about 3 months now and I can only say recruitment agencies are the biggest rubbish I have ever seen.
Yep - when I was looking for my current job 4 years ago I sent my CV to 24  agencies...and only 2 of them were worth bothering with.
I was offered one position through each agency (both with the same salary) - one in Telecoms, and the other in Marine Acoustics.
I've been here 4 years now, which is a pretty good indication that I chose wisely.
Andy Metcalfe - Sonardyne International Ltd
Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++
"I would be careful in separating your wierdness, a good quirky weirdness, from the disturbed wierdness of people who take pleasure from PVC sheep with fruit repositories."
- Paul Watson
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Andy Metcalfe wrote:
I've been here 4 years now, which is a pretty good indication that I chose wisely.
I am pleased to hear you are happy in your job.
Andy Metcalfe wrote:
...and only 2 of them were worth bothering with.
And who are those two agencies?
Martin
--------------------------------------------
C'mon we all know computers are experimental devices and should only be used for playing games.
Using them for alternative stuff like business, is clearly not using them for what they are intended.
Colin Davies
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One was Orion Recruitment in Reading, and the other I'm afraid I can't remember.
They both specialised in tech/engineering companies rather than the usual financial stuff though - which suits my preferences - I couldn't ever see myself working in the financial or general business sector!
The big outfits who advertise in the glossies (we all know who they are  ) totally missed the mark...their loss. 
Andy Metcalfe - Sonardyne International Ltd
Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Add-In for Visual C++
"I would be careful in separating your wierdness, a good quirky weirdness, from the disturbed wierdness of people who take pleasure from PVC sheep with fruit repositories."
- Paul Watson
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Thanks.
Martin
--------------------------------------------
C'mon we all know computers are experimental devices and should only be used for playing games.
Using them for alternative stuff like business, is clearly not using them for what they are intended.
Colin Davies
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SimonS wrote:
Now, that's WAY to much.
Well, as long as it's not from my pocket, I don't care how much they get.
SimonS wrote:
From my experience, these ppl don't do sh!t. They've probably got some Access 97 app that they run a query on and voila!
From my experience they know where the jobs are. I got 3 jobs in last 4 years arranged by agencies and quite happy with it. Also, they know exactly how money much the company can be asked for my salary, and since more money for me means more money for them - I get more than I would negotiate myself.
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George wrote:
Well, as long as it's not from my pocket, I don't care how much they get.
Sorry but wrong, it hurts you more than just your pocket.
We don't use recruitment agencies specifically because of that 30% charge. We would rather give the guy we hire a 30% bonus if he does well, than pay some lame agency for 5 minutes of phone work.
Therefore if you were using an agency, we could not hire you. More companies are doing this everyday as a way to cut costs.
Also some companies will drop the initial salary they offer you and only bump it up after a year to pay as little to the agency as possible. So you do suffer.
As for the negotiation bit, maybe you found a really great agency but I have always talked agencies down from their expected salary. They are desperate to flog people off to companies, so if you stick to your guns they will cave in and also convince the poor chap I am hiring that what we are offering is the best out there.
Agencies will say quite a bit to get you to sign up with a company. I even had an agency phoning me after I had signed with Bluegrass trying to convince me to take another job, they kept saying "oh but Bluegrass is family run, that is always problematic, quit and lets get you this other job."
"I pity dem fools"
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
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Paul Watson wrote:
We don't use recruitment agencies specifically because of that 30% charge. We would rather give the guy we hire a 30% bonus if he does well, than pay some lame agency for 5 minutes of phone work.
Anybody who was looking for a job on his own knows that it takes much more than just 5 minutes to actually find a job. Agency has a large database of jobs and candidates, but it takes time to match the right jobs to the right people, not to mention the effort in collecting the jobs database itself.
It is full time job to be oriented in the market, often different areas and technology to pick the right combination that will place a person and allow to pay the bill for the agency workers as well.
Paul Watson wrote:
Therefore if you were using an agency, we could not hire you. More companies are doing this everyday as a way to cut costs.
I don't think I want to actually work for the company that "cuts costs". Such a place is likely to impose long working hours, small benefits and small salary with no overtime pay. Simply put - sweat shops is not my favorite working place, thank you. If your company can't afford to employ agency to find the best people then there is nothing for me to do there. 
Paul Watson wrote:
Also some companies will drop the initial salary they offer you and only bump it up after a year to pay as little to the agency as possible. So you do suffer.
On the other hand, companies always try to drop the initial salary, no matter how you approach them. The agent is the only other person than yourself interested in you getting more money. I always get better offers thru agency than I could manage to scramble myself. The difference is huge, more than 100%. So, even if they take some money, for me it was always worth it.
Paul Watson wrote:
As for the negotiation bit, maybe you found a really great agency but I have always talked agencies down from their expected salary.
Maybe, but it appears as the starting point is much higher and so I get a better deal anyway. I typically call two or three agencies and let them to compete - works like charm. (They usually ask me if I use any other agency at the same time, and it always makes them work faster if they know there is another one involved ).
Paul Watson wrote:
Agencies will say quite a bit to get you to sign up with a company. I even had an agency phoning me after I had signed with Bluegrass trying to convince me to take another job, they kept saying "oh but Bluegrass is family run, that is always problematic, quit and lets get you this other job."
As with everything, you need to know how to play the game.
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I HATE recrutiment consultants. Their amoung a set of 'professionals' that try to be all pally with you, but wouldn't pee on you if you were on fire!
Recriutment consultants and Estate agents, IMHO, are complete scum; their the sort of folk that did get an education, but in something about as useful as a book on BASIC, you know the sort of thing: painting by numbers or National Lottery studies, and as a result they have decided to make it damn hard work for you to find a decent job or a home that you could be proud of.
Dylan Kenneally
London, UK
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I would agree that most recruitment agencies don't know much about technical things. Half the jobs they offred me was either not interesting at all for me, or requiring much more experience and knowledge than what I had on my CV.
But the advantage is that they know the market better than I do and have been able to get me a much better rate of interviews than what I had by contacting people through direct letters or through Online jobs (even though I was looking for very recent jobs that usually where not out of date).
I didn't had any chance for knowledge as I was just arriving in the country (Ireland).
At the end, I got a good job (not as paid as I hoped at first, the market was already going down, but really interesting) from one of them. So even if they don't know anything about technical matters, they can be very useful to get contacts in a place you are not familiar with.
Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns.
- Carl Gundlach
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The thing that I hate about recruiting agencies is that they feel that they need to sell me to their client and the other services that they supply. I feel that I sell myself very well, I really only need the recruiters to find me the companies that have job openings.
The last round of job searching that I did was tough. I considered going to a few recruiting agencies, but what I would usually find is the jobs that they posted on their websites, were simply copied directly from the target companies websites.
So with a little web-search I could usually find the company and contact them directly, potentially increasing the amount of my salary if I were to get that job.
The only time I have considered talking to recruiting agencies is for contract jobs that were only listed through the recruiter.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!
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I found my current job using an online job platform, it's better than looking in newspapers, because you can get more info on the job and the company
When I was young my mother told me to clean up my room, I told her -1!
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Well, it was the opposite for me. The jobs posted on the papers(on certain days only) have much more information than those online. Perhaps this varies in different countries.
Weiye, Chen
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Stefan Spenz wrote:
online job platform
Which one?
I'm not a real reverend, I just play one on CP.
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It was a german platform, JobPilot24[^]
When I was young my mother told me to clean up my room, I told her -1!
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What happened to the previous poll, lasted only one day?
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It was kind of ambiguous.
Todd Smith
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Nishant S wrote:
Well, considering that you have a history of active-poll-removal I don't see why you were so surprised
Right...
Nishant S wrote:
p.s. You remember how you once made a big fuss about continuos .NET polls and got one removed after 18 hours?
Sure I do. I only hope that would become a standard procedure and any polls about .NET would get removed so quick.
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God, my memory's gone to Hell.
I can't even remember what the poll was yesterday. 
Must be the VB.NET syntax I've been staring at ...
Cheers,
Simon
"Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)
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SimonS wrote:
Must be the VB.NET syntax I've been staring at ...
Yup, that would rot your brain alright.
It was to do with what you'd look for in a software vendor.
Christian
We're just observing the seasonal migration from VB to VC. Most of these birds will be killed by predators or will die of hunger. Only the best will survive - Tomasz Sowinski 29-07-2002 ( on the number of newbie posters in the VC forum )
Cats, and most other animals apart from mad cows can write fully functional vb code. - Simon Walton - 6-Aug-2002
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...was not really for programmers, imho.
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