Which Recruitment Agency to use?

[Michelle J]

I've applied for a few permanent jobs over the last couple of weeks and have realised that it's a fairly drawn out process in WA so am now considering 'temping' in the meantime, can anyone recommend which agency to use for administrative jobs please??

[JaynBev]

Michelle,

Good luck with agencies, we started looking back in August last year before moving out this month. In the end we just spent hours on seek.com.au applying direct to companies as agencies got us nowhere.

There is someone on here (DeanHewit i think) who's agency based & just set up, he might be able to help you out.

regards

J

[phil]

The thing I've found with 9/10 agencies is that unless you ring them every day telling them which of their on-book jobs they should put you forward for, they'll do nothing.

[deanhewitt]

The thing I've found with 9/10 agencies is that unless you ring them every day telling them which of their on-book jobs they should put you forward for, they'll do nothing.

Hi Phil,

Slightly negative towards agencies, I presume from your comment you have never understood what they actually do. I agree there are a few bad people that work in some of them and this is due to bad management.

We receive about 100 emails per day with resumes from all over the world asking for jobs. We respond to every single one of them.

Our role and the consultants role is to be out with clients building a relationship and to get to know their business before we decide to deal with them. We have to make a decision on whether they would be a good and safe employer for our candidates.

This takes time and a lot of $$ invested. On average to go and meet with MD's and CEO's of these companies can take many phone calls and many meetings to agree on a definitive partnership.

On average a consultant will spend about 60% of their time out of the office meeting with clients to gain their business. If they are not doing this then they have no jobs to offer people.

Everyone that calls of email gets a response as I oversee most of this. If we then had to call every single person everyday that we have received resumes for when would we actually have chance to phone companie, arrange meetings with companies, complete safety inspections on each company, agree TOB and rates etc

Then we have to look through all of the resumes that we have and peoples details (bear in mind a lot of these people are not even in the country) phone them up to see if they are still looking to change careers, rewrite their resumes in to set structured format, interview the candidates, gain references, skills test, liaise with the client and arrange interviews then go through the contracts with those who are successful.

T place one candidate in permanent positions here takes on average 6 weeks and about 40 hours of work on each placement. If you are dealing with many placements this takes up a lot of time.

Anybody good that works in recruitment will know that a normal working week does not exist, were you aware that a lot of these guys are on 24/7 call as companies can phone at all hours and our phone normally starts about 0500 and stops for a while about 2200 and this is just from clients looking for staff.

We would love to be able to call every single person that has ever sent us a resume or phoned in but we would need a call centre bigger than Telstra and what would we have to tell them sorry we havent got any jobs because we spend all day speaking to people telling them we havent got any jobs and havent had time to actually speak to companies to find people jobs.

I know it sounds bad that we dont call every one all the time but on the other hand do all of the people that send in resumes take the time to call us to let us know when they have found a job and keep us updated.

I hope this gives you a clearer understanding of why it isnt possible to phone everyone and keep them updated and if anybody wants to spend a week with us to see what goes on then they are more than welcome.

[phil]

Thanks Dean. I get that they work hard. It's just that in my dealings with around 6 agencies in Perth, all bar one of them gave no indication they were doing anything. Only if I rang them to ask if they'd put me forward for a job they'd listed on their website would anything (seemingly) happen. The other one was in constant contact with me and actively trying to find me employment. And she did - multiple offers. There's some good and some bad ones out there.

[deanhewitt]

couldnt agree more, I went around a lot of them to have a nosey and was shocked how poor the initial interaction was and not even any eye contact. I think with some but probably not all, consultants here have the impression that because there are a high number of jobs available that they have either lost, or never had the intelligence to understand that our candidates are our livelihood and we need to treat people with respect.

I never found that when I visited around 50/60 agencies to weigh up the competition and was horrified in many or most cases. I get a lot of consultants emailing me for jobs but I only head hunt the staff I want as I have normally done a lot of research on the person before making an offer.

You will always be able to tell someone who has had to work for their career as they will go out of their way to assist where possible. These are usually people from the UK for example where over the last 5 ot 15 years in recruitment in the UK you have had to fight for every piece of business you have won and have had to prove yourself different from everyone else.

[vero1971]

Hi Phil,

Slightly negative towards agencies, I presume from your comment you have never understood what they actually do. I agree there are a few bad people that work in some of them and this is due to bad management... I hope this gives you a clearer understanding of why it isnt possible to phone everyone and keep them updated and if anybody wants to spend a week with us to see what goes on then they are more than welcome.

Thanks Dean, your message is positive and reassured me

[Cozzy]

Great information as always Dean. Good show mate!

[deanhewitt]

Thanks all, even if we cant help out immediately we will help anybody in any way we can and receive a number of emails and calls each day from the UK and we are only to happy to help.

With some people we have recently helped we even picked them up from the airport and then took them for their interviews as we know it can be a little scary.

Our candidates are our lifeline and we never lose this fact.