With over 1,500 comments left I think it is fair to say that job hunters are making their opinions heard.
And an opinion that is often repeated is that recruitment agencies suck.
Go to http://www.careerpsychometrics.com/buzz/ and read the comments for yourself. Do you think this industry deserves such a castigation?
So what are the complaints? Well it’s not the obvious “they didn’t offer me the job”. No it’s more fundamental than that. Here’s my paraphrase of the short list.
1) They didn’t acknowledge my application.
2) They didn’t actually have vacancy advertised
3) They did not provide s rational reason for rejecting my application
4) They clearly didnt know what they were doing.
5) They had no understanding of the job role or what I do.
6) Ageism is rife; normal even
7) Prejudice is rife
If I was to summarise further, rudeness and incompetence covers most of it. Is this acceptable?
What do the industry bodies have to say to this? I openly invite their comment, though as we have documented, this not an industry that is known for getting back to you.
Perhaps a league table of agencies, created by Job seekers would have some use. I can’t believe all agencies are this bad so perhaps my members and Job seekers will help compile an agency directory.
Thoughts welcome.
I had this recruiter mail me on Saturday night about a post. Sunday, the next morning, the guy calls me at home about the post and asks for my CV etc etc… all very URGENT, you know. I sent it to him, curious about the post because I had a suspicion I knew where it was for and it would have been my dream role. I was based at a client site quite far from home and that was a busy week for us. This guy and his partner send over ten mails in one day and tried to call me during the day but I could only reply to them in the afternoon. They had some huge matrix for me to fill out, like I don’t have other work to do. He later has the nerve to call me at 8pm to ask if I can do the matrix and send it to him. Tuesday afternoon he wants me to go to an interview with the client… gives me details the night before. Interview went fine… I thought it did. It was basically an offer to me, no real questions to me. Recruiter calls me as I am zipping back to my client… and then… what happens? Nothing. He doesn’t reply to my mails or queries. NOTHING. I hate working with recruiters, never will do it again.