Despite my negative experiences, I do believe there are good recruiters out there. I’m just yet to meet them professionally:)

1) Quite often, consultants are working with CV’s from a database. They search the database with keywords or skill sets, and even if the CV has been on there for years, they will trawl through each one until they find what they are looking for. In theory, they should be speaking to each candidate on a regular basis and keeping their skills and experiences updated. Not only would this stop inappropriate calls, but would also build up a rapport and understanding of the candidate.
However, this is the ideal situation, and should form part of their daily routine. The real deal is that they are all so busy chasing the sale and trying to meet targets, they lose sight of the real role of the consultant.

2) I have faced a similar problem recently within the Recruitment – Recruitment sector whilst looking for a job. I love recruitment with a passion, and believe I offer a true consultative approach to my work, however as soon as this is mentioned, they say they have the perfect job, promise the world and then I never hear from them again. If I am not successful….. TELL ME!!!
Feedback is an important aspect in a candidates career. If you weren’t successful, why not? This can help you improve on these points and may enable you to give constructive comments back. It sdhould also enable the consultant to go on and find the right job for you.

3) Interviews are often down to the clients availability times. However, if you are worth seeing, the client should make time to see you. If they are looking to fill the position fast, then maybe they could see you out of hours, at a time that suits you. If they want to see you, they will be flexible.

4) You are right, quite often the consultant doesn’t know what the role involves completely, and they look for specific languages, programmes, skills etc. What they should do here, is ask the client exactly what he is looking for, and if they don’t understand…. ASK!!! The client will feel more confident with you if you ask the right questions. When I was recruiting IT professionals, I would ask them if I didn’t understand something…. I’m not an IT professional, I’m a sales person and recruiter, you know what skills you have and how to use them, explain this to the consultant so he can sell them.

5) Incentives are a great way to get new candidtaes on the agencys’s books, and I am always surprised when they are not offered. Even a bottle of wine or a bx of chocs to say thank you if they are successful in placing them in a job. However, if the consultant isn’t seen to be working for you, why should you work for them. If they are doing their jobs properly, they shouldn’t have to ask you to recommend friends and colleagues….. You’d be doing it automatically.

I have every reason to believe this happens in every sector and not just IT, however, it’s not acceptable and good recruiters should always give an all round approach to the job.
I hope you have better experiences in the future!!

Great blog by the way!

A lot of the recruitment consultants I have been contacted by haven’t had an actual job spec from their client, so don’t actually know what would be involved in the day-to-day job role. This seems to be a common trend and I have been put forward to a few positions which sound right up my street when hearing about them from the consultant, but come to the job interview and the role is completely different.

As the recruitment industry is likely to feel the squeeze due to the current economic climate (cut-backs, redundancies and general lack of vacancies) I forsee even more diverse and unsuitable positions being pushed my way.

Kieron, I do agree with you but at the same time, a proficient PHP programmer should be able to pick up Java or C++ as PHP is derived from these. Programming is programming – syntax is the only barrier between most languages.

Recruiters need to learn the difference between the different practices. Yes, in theory if you can write .NET you can learn PHP and vice versa but some things aren’t as interchangeable as that. Personally, I’m sick of seeing job descriptions that list every programming language under the sun because the recruiter doesn’t know what the employee will actually be doing.

I went to a graduate fair in Manchester last Saturday and got speaking to somebody who worked for CSC. He asked what I was studying at University to which I replied “Web development, PHP”, and his reply was “well that’s perfect… we have plenty of software development roles doing all sorts… C++, .NET, Java..”.

People don’t seem to be able to differentiate between Web development and software development.

There are lots of people in this industry who know a bit about design/development, they may be project planners or managing directors – having that little bit of knowledge helps them understand what their staff are doing. If recruiters took a similar approach and simply learnt what PHP/.NET/Ruby on Rails are, what CSS is etc – not how to code them by any means but what they are how much experience someone needs using them to be good – then they’d be much better recruiters.

It probably comes down to the fact that if these people knew anything about programming or design they’d be doign that themselves and not working in recruitment.