[LRUG] ADVICE

Fri May 24 03:38:57 PDT 2013

There's so much animosity out there between recruiters, clients and candidates, I agree wholeheartedly with everything that has been mentioned up to this point.

As a recruitment agent you're going to have a really tough time breaking into this community. Even if you come at it with the best intentions, everyone is so jaded from bad recruitment practices that you're going to have to work doubly hard create some traction. Which ultimately can lead you to become jaded with tech companies, and just treat it as a numbers game.

It's a vicious cycle, perpetuated by bad, incumbent agencies. In order to break this cycle, you need to understand the technology, the strengths and weaknesses of candidates, and the exact requirements of clients. It's not a difficult thing to do, but unfortunately it doesn't  seem to be aligned with the cut throat, results based business model that recruitment agencies seem to have.

Ultimately you should be trying to build relationships with clients and candidates, understanding their requirements. Trust is a very hard won thing, but once you have it you will be immeasurably more successful than the numbers guys. It's finding the time to build those relationships, before getting fired!

Adam

On 24 May 2013, at 11:20, Adrian Sevitz <adrian at vzaar.com<mailto:adrian at vzaar.com>>
 wrote:

Hi James,

I'll bite. Firstly have a read of the NTR, I've just posted on Girhub.

https://github.com/vzaar/note-to-recruiters/blob/master/README.md

But I'll add a few comments.

I don't mind using agencies, although would prefer not too, purely because 15% of fees is a big chunk for us to pay. But if thats the only way we have to do it, we'll do it. So leaving fees out of it, this is why we (not speaking for everyone here) don't like recruiters/agencies in general.

In general we find

  *   Agencies don't read. I get sent job specs for .net programers. Or php. Or anything.
  *   Agencies lie. I sit next to the people who answer the phone. So I hear what lies get told to get through to me. This might work getting through to people in 100 person companies, but I know what you're saying. Lies include
     *   Returning a call (you're not, never spoken to you)
     *   Expecting your call (I'm not, never spoken yo you)
     *   Calling about an event (there is no real event)
     *   Some bullshit about whitepapers you want to include us in (really I'm not that thick, I know this is a ploy)
     *   Blatant outright lies with heaps of bullshit to get put through to me
  *   Agencies don't research the role/firm properly
  *   Adding me to your newsletters
  *   Phoning. Incessantly. We don't have time to speak to recruiters on the phone. Read the site and email us.
  *   READ OUR JOBS PAGE. Everything is on there. No I'm not going to tell you first when we're posting a role. Follow our twitter. Read our site.

We have a wufoo form for recruiters to fill in. I have 70 recruiters on it. This is too many to effectively manage if you're going to phone me, lie to the people answer the phone, and make me listen to a pitch. Email me a candidate fine. Can't read the job spec? Really, what do you want for your fee.

And this is before I get to the two *instant blacklist* actives.

  *   Phoning my staff in the office trying to poach them. It makes my dev's feel uncomfortable. It makes everyone sitting around them uncomfortable. We all know what's going on. If you can't figure out how to contact them without phoning our main office line, outright lying to the person who answers the phone, and then trying to poach a dev sitting in a team then you're getting blacklisted. Look I know how it works and you need to find candidates sometimes. But if you're going to do it like this we will put you on a blacklist and share it with friends in other companies
  *   Trying to disrupt staff. Placing them in company A, waiting 4-6 months. Giving their details to Agent B and getting them to approach them. It's unethical. Unfortunately I can't think of any action behind blacklisting the agency. But  if I could get you fired for this I would.

This is just some stuff off the top of my head. We work with agencies. But if you want your 15% you need to at least try work with us. If we feel all you're doing is a interchange and database for CVs, we can just as easily not work with you.

We now slow recruit. i.e. we take our time. I no longer *have* to hire anyone. I can wait. If you want to make a case for yourself, read our specs and send us quality candidates. And don't hassle us. We're busy. If we get a good candidate from you, repeatedly, we'll start letting you know about roles before we post them.

Prove yourself as a good recruiter and you'll get referred to other companies.

Hope this helps. Hope it's not to aggressive, but once you start typing about all the shit that goes on, it makes you angry.

Sev

On 24 May 2013, at 10:30, chat-request at lists.lrug.org<mailto:chat-request at lists.lrug.org> wrote:

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 10:29:47 +0100
From: Rob Beattie <RBeattie at recruit360.co.uk<mailto:RBeattie at recruit360.co.uk>>
To: "chat at lists.lrug.org<mailto:chat at lists.lrug.org>" <chat at lists.lrug.org<mailto:chat at lists.lrug.org>>
Subject: [LRUG] ADVICE
Message-ID:
<9A31D8218BBCCC48BA9AF1B7F620B92F31FF6A12F3 at RS01.Recruit360.local>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Morning all,

I hope you are well.

I appreciate this might be opening a can of worms but I'm keen to get your thoughts and ideally some advice.

I signed up to LRUG a month or so ago in order to try and gain a better understanding of the Ruby market in London. I've had a positive response from a few candidates but generally speaking I see antipathy towards recruitment consultants / agencies.

I know there's a stigma attached to our industry but I can assure you we aren't all bad!

What I'm trying to understand is why employers, and to a certain extent candidates, are so against working with agencies?  Is it because of fees? Have you had bad experiences?  If it's company policy, why is it company policy?

I appreciate there are a lot of companies who now operate a direct sourcing model and simply don't need to use agencies.  I get that and I understand your reasoning behind this, but for companies who are struggling to find good candidates, and don't have the resources in place to spend the majority of their day sourcing candidates, why won't you use agencies?

For those of you who are open to working with agencies, what do you feel is the best way for me to approach your company?

I'm open to suggestions, although things like die, rot in hell and get out of recruitment aren't options I'm afraid :-)

I take pride in what I do and so it would be really helpful to get your thoughts.

I don't want to clog up the mailing list so if you have any thoughts / advice, I'd be extremely grateful if you drop me an email or alternatively, feel free to give me a call.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Rob

_____________
Adrian Sevitz

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