6 ms·

Are you in the UK? If so, I'm seriously surprised this doesn't ring true. To me it exactly matches my experience both as a contractor and as an employer. As to

Are you in the UK? If so, I'm seriously surprised this doesn't ring true. To me it exactly matches my experience both as a contractor and as an employer. As to who is being exploited here, it's the whole IT industry. They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. They may not be sending children down mines, but that doesn't diminish the fact they are terrible companies and terrible people.

celticninja 11y ago
Really? Terrible companies and terrible people? Do you know how agencies work? You do understand that employers contact them and ask them to find people, to organise their payroll, do relevant checks e.g. confirm right to work, security, skills etc. And these companies know they will be paying a % to the agency and this is because they dont want to do that work themselves they just want a competent worker in place asap. Those same employers could spend their time searching job boards for suitable candidates but they don't want to so they outsource. As for the OP saying they are taking 15% of his money. That's not the case. In most cases the Employer will agree a rate with the agency, so they will be a maximum of e.g £250 a day for the contractor and a 15% fee to the agency. So they are paying out around £290 per day to the agency. If the contractor was located directly do you think they would pay him/her £290 per day? No they would pay £250 as they know that is the going rate. they pay the agency fee so they dont have to go through the recruitment process e.g. post adverts, interview people (phone), interview (in person) skill check, right to work check etc.
- mjn 11y ago
  It's funny to read complaints about rent-seeking and someone taking a percentage off the top on a tech forum, where that is the business model of a large portion of tech companies themselves. When authors complain about Amazon being rent-seekers "stealing" a percentage of authors' income, they don't tend to get a lot of sympathy here.
  - Brakenshire 11y ago
    Rent seeking means taking a percentage without bringing any value. I'm on board with many of the complaints about Amazon, but it's clearly not the case to say they don't add value. Of course many/most recruiters will also bring value, but it's a question of degree. If someone is recruiting for a technical position and they don't have the technical understanding to make any meaningful judgment of the candidate, it's reasonable to ask whether they are worth their fee. Obviously the extent to which that applies depends on the individual, the company, and the local business culture.
    - celticninja 11y ago
      Value is subjective. The contractor doesn't see the value but the company using the agency does.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  "Do you know how agencies work?" Pretty much how the article was written.
michaelt 11y ago
They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. I'm no fan of recruiters, but nothing stops you applying to the company directly, and nothing stops the company posting their own job ads.
- andrelaszlo 11y ago
  Actually your CV can be hijacked by a recruiter, effectively keeping you out of a job. Imagine this scenario: You get a call from a recruiter. They seem to have an interesting position/client/network so you send over your CV. A couple of months later you are actively looking for a job, so you make a list of cool startups in your area and send your CV and a customized cover letter. They all answer that they got your CV from the recruiter and that they can't afford the recruiter's fee. They can't hire you for 6 months/2 years/indefinitely, depending on the recruiters terms. Oops. Maybe I'm exaggerating?
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Sounds like a good lawsuit against the recruiter.
    - finance-geek 11y ago
      Try proving it...the evidence is stuck in some corporate recruiter system.
      - jsprogrammer 11y ago
        The firm that said they had already received the CV and couldn't contract has all the evidence that is needed. Surely a firm would unite with a potential candidate to bring down scum recruiters?
  - baliex 11y ago
    I think that's an exaggeration. That scenario could easily play out. However, if the employer genuinely has no connection to the candidate (other than having received their CV a couple of times, in different incarnations) then I don't see why they wouldn't pursue the candidate without the recruiter being in the loop.
robeastham 11y ago
As a London based developer (VR these days), I have to say that I immediately recognise the hammed up picture this guy paints of IT recruiters in the UK. I only ever found one recruitment company that I liked who I felt was consistently top notch when I was freelancing. They didn't ever call me unless I signaled I was looking for work and always negotiated better rates than I felt I was able to when I was first starting out. They were called Recruit Media, but they were later swallowed up by a larger company that I cannot vouch for. Some former employees set up a new agency that continued in the same vein as Recruit Media - http://www.wearefutureheads.co.uk/ http://www.wearefutureheads.co.uk/. They focus on web and digital content creation specialists. They know what the acronyms mean as well as how to spell them properly. If you're looking for a no-bullshit web/digital recruiter in this in the UK then you could do a lot worse. Disclaimer: I have never worked as a recruiter and I have no links with Futureheads beyond being placed by some of their staff and also using them to recruit freelancers for projects I have led. Obviously it goes without saying that you're much better off developing your professional network, negotiating a good rate and going direct if you can. Just felt compelled to write this to illustrate that not all of them are bad. Sadly I'd estimate that at least 99% of the firms here in the UK are complete time wasters.
- lukasb 11y ago
  they also did a great Hounds of Love cover
  - gearoidoc 11y ago
    Top marks.
rb2k_ 11y ago
I think that might be the main difference. I worked in Germany and in the US. The only time that recruiters got a tad annoying was when I was working in Germany and got 2-3 UK agencies. By far not as bad as the post makes it seem, but some slightly annoying things such as calling me on a Sunday evening, trying to give me prep speeches and overusing my name, script reading, trying to not tell me the client name, mispronouncing the skills they were looking for, ... In the US, the recruiter eMails are more frequent, but usually pretty civilized. Especially the bigger companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google) that have their own in-house recruiters tend to be pleasant to work with.
- pluma 11y ago
  When I was a freelancer in Germany (i.e. up to last year) most "recruiters" were scum. I can't speak about the ones that focus on permanent positions but nearly all of the "Projektvermittler" (i.e. glorified temp agencies) were trying to guilt me into lowering my rates for them (because they'd charge the client 2-3x on top of that), tried to get me to sign NCAs far beyond the scope of the project (which is legally unenforceable but backed up with serious threats that would make anyone think twice) and were about as dishonest and intransparent about the entire process as humanly possible. Oh, and of course they would keep bombarding me with Java/XML projects just because my CV (which they doctored and redacted before sending it to the client) mentioned that I had once worked on a Java project (but specialised in something entirely different since). The one project I actually followed through on turned out to be a total disaster. Other than that, all my work had been directly for clients without a third party -- and that worked out far better. If you're an inexperienced solo freelancer and want to work for big corporations, sure, recruiters are the way to go. Other than that, IMO you're nearly always better off skipping the middle man and taking the entrepreneurial risk (which is fairly manageable if you don't allow the client to build up several months worth of outstanding payments).
  - mcv 11y ago
    > they'd charge the client 2-3x on top of that They charged 3 times your rate? I hope that's hyperbole, because that's pretty insane. I get disgusted when a recruiter charges more than 15%. (The best stay below 5% for doing an excellent job, the worst piece of shit I've ever wasted time on turned out to charge over 30% for not doing his job.)
pjc50 11y ago
I think it sticks out because, in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces. And in the recruitment business it seems to happen a lot. (Omission, elision and euphemism is the British way!)
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  As an aside, is it not fraudulent to lie in this way? For instance, altering resumes without permission, or promising a perk and a salary which the recruiter does not know exist or apply.
  - teh_klev 11y ago
    It probably is and there's all sorts of Data Protection rules being broken (that's even if they've registered with the Data Protection Registrar). But it's a mammoth and futile task to report possible violations and by the time it's looked into said recruiter has folded and started some other scam. I've tried this and failed miserably. Fortunately I've not had to look for a job since 2003, happy where I am mostly, so my old CV's are probably long gone in disk crashes, failed backups or other purges. I've not been contacted by a recruiter for ~6 years now.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  > in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces Ahem, speak for yourself. Go check out your local newsagent's daily national press shelves. Pages upon pages of lies and spin. Hell, the Scottish versions of The Times, Express, Mail and Mirror group papers print contradicting headlines, one version for Scotland and one for England and Wales. I hate to do the "we're less gullible in Scotland now" thing, but since the referendum we can spot bullshit from a mile off now.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    As a ""cybernat"" and Wings reader, I very much agree - but that's more a sort of impersonal bulk lying, not someone calling you up personally by name and lying about job opportunities or the qualifications of candidates.
dayjah 11y ago
In the UK in ~2000, the last time I was looking for a job without a reliable network, I had an awful experience due to recruiters. I'd synched up with a recruiter, they scheduled me for a job interview at a swanky gentlemans club (not a strip bar, literally a club for men), in London. I don my old school uniform, for aged 18 I had not yet bought a suit, and printed some resumes at my Mums office and headed over to St James Place in a cab. I check in for the interview and get led into a room filled with desks, some occupied and others not. I take a seat and wait patiently for whatever comes next... ... ... ... The seats are all pretty much full now, and a man stands at the front of the room and gives a 3 slide presentation along the lines of: we can't tell you who our client is, you'll take a test, the top 10 will be offered a job with the client. Being 18, I was great at tests! Everyone around me was in their mid 20-30's -- I'd been hacking for 3 years at this point, Linux user for ~18mo - I was ready. The test papers are laid in front of us, the presenter orders us to start, I'm done in the first 18 minutes, and sit patiently for the next 12 when the presenter says: "for those of you who have finished please walk your paper up here, for the rest you've 15 more minutes. Myself and two others rise, take our papers to the front and leave through the door and are directed to a lounge (let me tell you, gentle mans clubs are really fancy -- I don't take the gin and tonic offered to me). Eventually the room is filled with the other test takers, probably 50 of us in total, and we mill around. I was too insecure to talk to anyone, everyone else was probably a little weirded out by the boy in the school uniform! Some 20 minutes later the presenter enters the room and announces 11 names to stay behind, I was one of them! (What kind of story would this be were I not;)) it was explained to us that we'd be given a short interview. These were conducted three at a time, the presenter and his two associates would take an interview each. I was in the second three and I had observed that the first three had short conversations, signed some papers, shook hands with their interviewer and then left the room. My interviewer was the presenter. I can't recall the questions, they were about my test paper, but after a couple of them he laid the paper down and looked at me and asked: "did you cheat?", I answered: "no", and he went on to explain that I got a perfect score, the next highest had received about 80% (if memory serves there were ~50 multiple choice questions and ~5 questions where we had to write out commands: how to compile Linux kernels, etc). He shook my hand and led me out, no papers were signed. And that was it. I went back to the legal office my mum worked at, recounted the story, and she became so furious -- she believed I'd been subjected to ageism. I certainly do not mean to suggest all recruiters are this short sighted, and I'm very proud of where my life has taken me thus far (early yc alum, early leader at twitch, amongst other things), but this experience was so negative that I reasoned to avoid recruiters at all costs. Now, I know the way you find a job is to watch the companies you think are doing a great job, working on tech you care about, and reach out directly to them to find out how you can help. We can kill the predatory recruiters by starving them!
mcv 11y ago
I live in Netherland, but I'm surprised how often I'm contacted by UK recruiters for Dutch jobs. Apparently they've been expanding their market. I don't have any terrible experiences with them as far as I recall, but I never remember their names and haven't gotten any jobs through them. I have had some pretty awful experiences with Dutch recruiters, but also some pretty good ones. I'm having very mixed feelings about the recruiter that got me my current gig: on the one hand, she was way too pushy and I'm pretty sure she lied to me, and their rate is higher than what the client allows (they're got some cumbersome way to work around that), but on the other hand, what I get is significantly higher than what I got the previous time I worked for the same client (though one of the best and most professional recruiters I've met), so she pushed them even harder than she pushed me, and that's paying off for me too. And it is a really nice gig. The one getting screwed here is not me, and the client is a major bank, so I'm not feeling terribly sorry for them (though I do wonder if I should inform them of the recruiter's overly high rate; is that honest or vindictive?). Still, it'd be nice if we could do without them. Shouldn't the internet help us cut out all those middlemen?

celticninja 11y ago

Really? Terrible companies and terrible people? Do you know how agencies work? You do understand that employers contact them and ask them to find people, to organise their payroll, do relevant checks e.g. confirm right to work, security, skills etc. And these companies know they will be paying a % to the agency and this is because they dont want to do that work themselves they just want a competent worker in place asap. Those same employers could spend their time searching job boards for suitable candidates but they don't want to so they outsource. As for the OP saying they are taking 15% of his money. That's not the case. In most cases the Employer will agree a rate with the agency, so they will be a maximum of e.g £250 a day for the contractor and a 15% fee to the agency. So they are paying out around £290 per day to the agency. If the contractor was located directly do you think they would pay him/her £290 per day? No they would pay £250 as they know that is the going rate. they pay the agency fee so they dont have to go through the recruitment process e.g. post adverts, interview people (phone), interview (in person) skill check, right to work check etc.

mjn 11y ago
It's funny to read complaints about rent-seeking and someone taking a percentage off the top on a tech forum, where that is the business model of a large portion of tech companies themselves. When authors complain about Amazon being rent-seekers "stealing" a percentage of authors' income, they don't tend to get a lot of sympathy here.
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  Rent seeking means taking a percentage without bringing any value. I'm on board with many of the complaints about Amazon, but it's clearly not the case to say they don't add value. Of course many/most recruiters will also bring value, but it's a question of degree. If someone is recruiting for a technical position and they don't have the technical understanding to make any meaningful judgment of the candidate, it's reasonable to ask whether they are worth their fee. Obviously the extent to which that applies depends on the individual, the company, and the local business culture.
  - celticninja 11y ago
    Value is subjective. The contractor doesn't see the value but the company using the agency does.
s73v3r 11y ago
"Do you know how agencies work?" Pretty much how the article was written.

michaelt 11y ago

They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. I'm no fan of recruiters, but nothing stops you applying to the company directly, and nothing stops the company posting their own job ads.

andrelaszlo 11y ago
Actually your CV can be hijacked by a recruiter, effectively keeping you out of a job. Imagine this scenario: You get a call from a recruiter. They seem to have an interesting position/client/network so you send over your CV. A couple of months later you are actively looking for a job, so you make a list of cool startups in your area and send your CV and a customized cover letter. They all answer that they got your CV from the recruiter and that they can't afford the recruiter's fee. They can't hire you for 6 months/2 years/indefinitely, depending on the recruiters terms. Oops. Maybe I'm exaggerating?
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Sounds like a good lawsuit against the recruiter.
  - finance-geek 11y ago
    Try proving it...the evidence is stuck in some corporate recruiter system.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      The firm that said they had already received the CV and couldn't contract has all the evidence that is needed. Surely a firm would unite with a potential candidate to bring down scum recruiters?
- baliex 11y ago
  I think that's an exaggeration. That scenario could easily play out. However, if the employer genuinely has no connection to the candidate (other than having received their CV a couple of times, in different incarnations) then I don't see why they wouldn't pursue the candidate without the recruiter being in the loop.

robeastham 11y ago

As a London based developer (VR these days), I have to say that I immediately recognise the hammed up picture this guy paints of IT recruiters in the UK. I only ever found one recruitment company that I liked who I felt was consistently top notch when I was freelancing. They didn't ever call me unless I signaled I was looking for work and always negotiated better rates than I felt I was able to when I was first starting out. They were called Recruit Media, but they were later swallowed up by a larger company that I cannot vouch for. Some former employees set up a new agency that continued in the same vein as Recruit Media - http://www.wearefutureheads.co.uk/ http://www.wearefutureheads.co.uk/. They focus on web and digital content creation specialists. They know what the acronyms mean as well as how to spell them properly. If you're looking for a no-bullshit web/digital recruiter in this in the UK then you could do a lot worse. Disclaimer: I have never worked as a recruiter and I have no links with Futureheads beyond being placed by some of their staff and also using them to recruit freelancers for projects I have led. Obviously it goes without saying that you're much better off developing your professional network, negotiating a good rate and going direct if you can. Just felt compelled to write this to illustrate that not all of them are bad. Sadly I'd estimate that at least 99% of the firms here in the UK are complete time wasters.

lukasb 11y ago
they also did a great Hounds of Love cover
- gearoidoc 11y ago
  Top marks.

rb2k_ 11y ago

I think that might be the main difference. I worked in Germany and in the US. The only time that recruiters got a tad annoying was when I was working in Germany and got 2-3 UK agencies. By far not as bad as the post makes it seem, but some slightly annoying things such as calling me on a Sunday evening, trying to give me prep speeches and overusing my name, script reading, trying to not tell me the client name, mispronouncing the skills they were looking for, ... In the US, the recruiter eMails are more frequent, but usually pretty civilized. Especially the bigger companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google) that have their own in-house recruiters tend to be pleasant to work with.

pluma 11y ago
When I was a freelancer in Germany (i.e. up to last year) most "recruiters" were scum. I can't speak about the ones that focus on permanent positions but nearly all of the "Projektvermittler" (i.e. glorified temp agencies) were trying to guilt me into lowering my rates for them (because they'd charge the client 2-3x on top of that), tried to get me to sign NCAs far beyond the scope of the project (which is legally unenforceable but backed up with serious threats that would make anyone think twice) and were about as dishonest and intransparent about the entire process as humanly possible. Oh, and of course they would keep bombarding me with Java/XML projects just because my CV (which they doctored and redacted before sending it to the client) mentioned that I had once worked on a Java project (but specialised in something entirely different since). The one project I actually followed through on turned out to be a total disaster. Other than that, all my work had been directly for clients without a third party -- and that worked out far better. If you're an inexperienced solo freelancer and want to work for big corporations, sure, recruiters are the way to go. Other than that, IMO you're nearly always better off skipping the middle man and taking the entrepreneurial risk (which is fairly manageable if you don't allow the client to build up several months worth of outstanding payments).
- mcv 11y ago
  > they'd charge the client 2-3x on top of that They charged 3 times your rate? I hope that's hyperbole, because that's pretty insane. I get disgusted when a recruiter charges more than 15%. (The best stay below 5% for doing an excellent job, the worst piece of shit I've ever wasted time on turned out to charge over 30% for not doing his job.)

pjc50 11y ago

I think it sticks out because, in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces. And in the recruitment business it seems to happen a lot. (Omission, elision and euphemism is the British way!)

Brakenshire 11y ago
As an aside, is it not fraudulent to lie in this way? For instance, altering resumes without permission, or promising a perk and a salary which the recruiter does not know exist or apply.
- teh_klev 11y ago
  It probably is and there's all sorts of Data Protection rules being broken (that's even if they've registered with the Data Protection Registrar). But it's a mammoth and futile task to report possible violations and by the time it's looked into said recruiter has folded and started some other scam. I've tried this and failed miserably. Fortunately I've not had to look for a job since 2003, happy where I am mostly, so my old CV's are probably long gone in disk crashes, failed backups or other purges. I've not been contacted by a recruiter for ~6 years now.
teh_klev 11y ago
> in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces Ahem, speak for yourself. Go check out your local newsagent's daily national press shelves. Pages upon pages of lies and spin. Hell, the Scottish versions of The Times, Express, Mail and Mirror group papers print contradicting headlines, one version for Scotland and one for England and Wales. I hate to do the "we're less gullible in Scotland now" thing, but since the referendum we can spot bullshit from a mile off now.
- pjc50 11y ago
  As a ""cybernat"" and Wings reader, I very much agree - but that's more a sort of impersonal bulk lying, not someone calling you up personally by name and lying about job opportunities or the qualifications of candidates.

dayjah 11y ago

In the UK in ~2000, the last time I was looking for a job without a reliable network, I had an awful experience due to recruiters. I'd synched up with a recruiter, they scheduled me for a job interview at a swanky gentlemans club (not a strip bar, literally a club for men), in London. I don my old school uniform, for aged 18 I had not yet bought a suit, and printed some resumes at my Mums office and headed over to St James Place in a cab. I check in for the interview and get led into a room filled with desks, some occupied and others not. I take a seat and wait patiently for whatever comes next... ... ... ... The seats are all pretty much full now, and a man stands at the front of the room and gives a 3 slide presentation along the lines of: we can't tell you who our client is, you'll take a test, the top 10 will be offered a job with the client. Being 18, I was great at tests! Everyone around me was in their mid 20-30's -- I'd been hacking for 3 years at this point, Linux user for ~18mo - I was ready. The test papers are laid in front of us, the presenter orders us to start, I'm done in the first 18 minutes, and sit patiently for the next 12 when the presenter says: "for those of you who have finished please walk your paper up here, for the rest you've 15 more minutes. Myself and two others rise, take our papers to the front and leave through the door and are directed to a lounge (let me tell you, gentle mans clubs are really fancy -- I don't take the gin and tonic offered to me). Eventually the room is filled with the other test takers, probably 50 of us in total, and we mill around. I was too insecure to talk to anyone, everyone else was probably a little weirded out by the boy in the school uniform! Some 20 minutes later the presenter enters the room and announces 11 names to stay behind, I was one of them! (What kind of story would this be were I not;)) it was explained to us that we'd be given a short interview. These were conducted three at a time, the presenter and his two associates would take an interview each. I was in the second three and I had observed that the first three had short conversations, signed some papers, shook hands with their interviewer and then left the room. My interviewer was the presenter. I can't recall the questions, they were about my test paper, but after a couple of them he laid the paper down and looked at me and asked: "did you cheat?", I answered: "no", and he went on to explain that I got a perfect score, the next highest had received about 80% (if memory serves there were ~50 multiple choice questions and ~5 questions where we had to write out commands: how to compile Linux kernels, etc). He shook my hand and led me out, no papers were signed. And that was it. I went back to the legal office my mum worked at, recounted the story, and she became so furious -- she believed I'd been subjected to ageism. I certainly do not mean to suggest all recruiters are this short sighted, and I'm very proud of where my life has taken me thus far (early yc alum, early leader at twitch, amongst other things), but this experience was so negative that I reasoned to avoid recruiters at all costs. Now, I know the way you find a job is to watch the companies you think are doing a great job, working on tech you care about, and reach out directly to them to find out how you can help. We can kill the predatory recruiters by starving them!

mcv 11y ago

I live in Netherland, but I'm surprised how often I'm contacted by UK recruiters for Dutch jobs. Apparently they've been expanding their market. I don't have any terrible experiences with them as far as I recall, but I never remember their names and haven't gotten any jobs through them. I have had some pretty awful experiences with Dutch recruiters, but also some pretty good ones. I'm having very mixed feelings about the recruiter that got me my current gig: on the one hand, she was way too pushy and I'm pretty sure she lied to me, and their rate is higher than what the client allows (they're got some cumbersome way to work around that), but on the other hand, what I get is significantly higher than what I got the previous time I worked for the same client (though one of the best and most professional recruiters I've met), so she pushed them even harder than she pushed me, and that's paying off for me too. And it is a really nice gig. The one getting screwed here is not me, and the client is a major bank, so I'm not feeling terribly sorry for them (though I do wonder if I should inform them of the recruiter's overly high rate; is that honest or vindictive?). Still, it'd be nice if we could do without them. Shouldn't the internet help us cut out all those middlemen?