Recruitment Consultants
I know someone's mentioned them already, but I feel they need a more detailed going over. With some manner of blunt instrument, preferably, but in lieu of that I'll settle for some rant.

You see, I'm not a recruitment consultant but I do work with them on occasion and I've never encountered a bigger bunch of witless, workshy, lying, self-absorbed, shiny-suited, cockatoo-coiffured, I-want-it-an-want-it-now-because-I'm-important-me bunch of tossbags in my life. To say nothing of the greasy, middleman-ish, profiting-from-others'-laziness loathability of the recruitment 'industry' itself.

So used to obfuscating the truth are they that it's virtually impossible to get a straight answer out of them on any topic ever, and literally impossible to get them to deliver any answer without a 'Can you believe how fucking great I am?' smirk on their face.

And the management-speak. Ohhh, these fuckers loooOOOooove their management speak, as it's a crucial tool in the aforementioned straight-answer-avoidance. Mostly though they use it to sound intelligent, which works on others of their ilk and those too stupid to know better, those being the vast majority of their clients. Not surprising really, seeing as the fact they've engaged a recruitment consultant to do a job they can't be arsed doing themselves means that they're obviously too dim or just too lazy to think for themselves in most situations.

As far as I've been able to determine, all you need to succeed in recruitment is a big mouth and the lack of general respect to have no problem with incessantly talking over other people. Of course, the shiny suit and ridiculous hairdo go without saying. And if you happen to be good-looking as well as brash and mouthy, then you're pretty much set for life.

I've worked with estate agents too. Trust me, recruitment consultants are worse. They've made me vow to never rely on one of them to find a job should I have the need - I can find my own way without one of those twats skimming something off of it for little more than sitting there spouting fragrant bullshit. Fuck them all.

EDIT: Yes, waistcoats. I've met a handful of RC's who favour 3-piece suits and they've all been masons. Don't know what that says, but it can't be good.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:34, 12 replies)

You sit on that fence, you bloody liberal.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:43, closed)

Don't forget the waistcoats
.....I hate the waistcoats.

There is only one thing worse than Recruitment Consultants and that is Head Hunters. PROACTIVE witless, work-shy, lying, self-absorbed, shiny-suited, cockatoo-coiffured, I-want-it-an-want-it-now-because-I'm-important-me bunch of toss bags in WAISTCOATS.
( The only Dave is pushing things forward, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:53, closed)

I think we just discovered the exact opposite of
"Squirrels with Tits"
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:41, closed)

How about a squirrel with tits, in a waistcoat,
working as a recruitment consultant?
( Bob Todd whee, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:42, closed)

*total confusion*
I guess you'd have to honk the tits and run away to wash your hands.
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:48, closed)

On a related note,
I used to work for the Job Centre. Guess who the Employment Agencies ring up to advertise a position when a company has offered it to THEM? It does make me laugh when I think that someone is paying them a load of cash to do what the Job Centre will do for free and the cheeky feckers go and use the Job Centre anyway. They aren't even doing the job they were paid to bloody well do! CUNTS!
( Funkenschlag still likes dogs more than cats, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:05, closed)

The good ones are good, the bad ones are fucking awful
The good ones are good certainly in my walk of life by being subtle and discreet. I work in an industry that is small, and everyone knows everyone else. Without discretion they will not last 5 minutes.
I always laughed when some of them phoned up and were wispering about "an opportunity" in town x, but we can't tell you who it is....
As I said small industry, so once they said the location my reply would be, oh so that would be "Shiny bum cream inc, then I know xyz there", They woould then go shifty, so the final line would be "and I had to fish him out of a swimming pool in istambul last year when he got slapped by a hooker"

These days the good ones are upfront and straightforward
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:11, closed)

I know the ones you speak of -
But we're not all like that. Totally depends on the sector in which they work, the level at which they're hiring etc. There are also thousands of cheap ambulance-chaser types out there, who spot an ad or pick up a rumour and try to blag their way to a hire, often lying to the candidates about them now being legally tied to their agency once they've received their CV / application. And people swallow it, too.

Some of us have a profound knowledge of our sector; care about the people we place and take pride in making a client company happy. It's just good business sense apart from anything else.

And I don't wear anything to work at all because I work from home. Even now my buttocks are savouring the coolness of my leather office chair.
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:16, closed)

Isn't there a gap in the market, though?
I'd pay 5-15% of my first year's salary (pretty much the same commission that comes out of the client end, from my experiences of hiring through an agency/consultancy) to a consultant who would, after an in depth interview to find out my experience, preferences and aspirations, take my CV, do all the ringing round/networking on my behalf, give me weekly updates and otherwise only contact me to let me know when and where the interviews he or she had arranged for me to attend were to take place.

That, to me, would be a valuable service.

Instead, they either wait for the same job ads I see on every job website I've bothered registering with myself, or they charge me three and a half grand to "put me in touch with the unadvertised jobs market", make me do all the work to spruce up my own CV and do all the networking/chasing around. Surely if the consultants did this themselves, after three or four clients they'd get paid by both ends and have a contacts book worth another 10 year's work?

Similarly, as an employer, I'd be happy as Larry to fork out a big chunk of the salary I planned to pay to arrange some interviews for me, based on a detailed interview and the Job Spec I'd come up with.

Do such recruitment consultants exist, or are they just middlemen leeching off other people's inertia?
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 28 May 2010, 17:52, closed)

Am I the only one that giggled
upon reading "Even now my buttocks are savouring the coolness of my leather office chair." followed by "Isn't there a gap in the market though?"
( sanityclause is waiting until, Fri 28 May 2010, 20:20, closed)

What a lot of unmitigated bollocks you have just spouted about recruitment in general, what you describe is shit salesmen who never succeed in the long run and it is the managers who are lazy incompetents who use these types of useless parasitical sales companies and are at fault for falling for their shite.
Managers use Recruitment companies because they don’t have either the time, the skills, or can’t get the quality of people they need not because they are lazy or inadequate and that is what rec companies offer as they can do it a whole lot better.
I bet you use a plumber and electrician or any other service that has the skills that you don’t and even then I bet you moan and bitch about them all.
I have worked for and with the best recruitment companies and the vast majority of recruitment consultants I know are decent men and women doing a good sales job and if there wasn’t a need for them they wouldn’t do it.
Selling clearly has its reward and they are in it to make a decent living like anybody else. You clearly have had a poor experience and generalised and added some comic vitriol.
And why should you rely on one they only would help you, if they thought they could place you why would they waste their time. At the end of the day you are a product for them to be sold to the highest bidder should your skills and experience enable them to do that, helping you is a result of the primary objective of servicing their clients’ needs if you haven’t got what they need they are not going to call back.
No company grows and becomes successful long term if they employ the cunts you describe and the training and development they invest in is to make sure they can do the job that the client and company needs them to do.
Any Rec company worth its salt knows that repeat business is money for old rope so will invest in client development and make sure nothing gets in the way of the relationship and they follow the service level agreements, shit ones try to squeeze as much as possible out of a deal and only think of the short term happily they are few and far between and go to the wall in recessionary times like these.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 28 May 2010, 12:23, closed)

client development

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:32, closed)

I have a dictionary full
should you wish me to share, my clients love hearing me speak this way.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 28 May 2010, 12:40, closed)

Gee Mr Lamarr
[mel brooks] You use your tongue better than a $20 whore [\mel brooks]
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:42, closed)

Hello, handsome,
is that a ten-gallon hat or are you just enjoying the show?
and it's HEDLEY Lamar
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 28 May 2010, 12:53, closed)

Ditto

( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 28 May 2010, 17:53, closed)

I'll grant you there are some good ones
Unfortunately to say that 'shit ones try to squeeze as much as possible out of a deal and only think of the short term happily they are few and far between and go to the wall in recessionary times like these.' is laughable. It takes a considerable period of time to find the gems in the morass of dross agents out there.

If you deign to place your own advert for employees - whether in print media or on jobs websites, what happens is you're called by recruitment agents, not prospective employees. Often these employees will be very unsuitable, the agent lies and there are oh so tempting offers such as overseas candidates who 'only need a visa'. I'm not against non native employees, but at least rule out the local candidates first.

Let's not forget the obscene costs that the recruiters try to push for their services, either.

Prospective employees are not a product to be sold to the highest bidder (which coincidentally earns the agent the most money), they should be placed in the *right* job and not have their time wasted with unsuitable roles which are only there to prove to the agent's manager the agent is doing some work.

Except for particularly specialist markets, it will be a happy, happy day when job websites supply all the needs of employees and employers.
(EssY, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:01, closed)

Well said....
I know a RC very well and one of his tricks is to interview a person looking for a job and part of the questioning will be to ask the candidate whether they have handed in their notice in their current role, he will then ask him/her who his old boss is, under some made up pretence. Then the cheeky shit will go to the persons ex-boss and find out whether they need anyone for the role the guy/girl has just left, whilst at the same time wiping his arse with the original c.v he has recieved. I was unemployed for 7 months (made redundant) at the height of the recession and had to deal with these fuckers on a daily basis....I would say 1/8 knew what the hell they were talking about.

As someone else mentioned all you need to become an RC is, an orange tan with a flash haircut, a suit that is in-keeping with the rest of the guys in the office, on fear of being percieved as different and a huge gob. I was in a bar in Reading once and a murder of consultants were having some sort of works do, one of the girls from their group obviously got bored of the inane chatter, that without doubt would have been about how much money they were taking home that month. So i asked her politlely, your friends, they are all RC's aren't they, yes she replied, wow had did you know, well... they are all wearing the same suits, they all have the same stupid haircut (mild mohican in the middle), I heard them talking about how much they earn at the bar and and I can smell the BS a mile away....that conversation didn't last very long but it was o.k she was a junior consultant, in other words a snake with tits.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:53, closed)

Ummmmm...
...nope, not convinced. My perspective is based on an internal view of more than one such organisation, not as a {going shiny-suited for a brief moment} 'service user'. I've always relied on myself to find a job and would you Adam & Eve it, I've managed it just fine. As for the implication that I'm a 'product to be sold to the highest bidder', get to fucking fuck on a fuck-cycle. That just makes me like the principle of recruitment consultancy even less.

Putting a recruitment consultant in the same bracket as a time-served tradesman is laughable. Tradesmen spend lots of time earning jack to learn an actual, real skill or even a whole set of such skills in order to earn a living which I respect, whereas recruitment consultants get by from day one on appearances, flim-flammery and general gobbiness, which is the skillset of a snake-oil salesman and worthy of no respect whatsoever. As for taking pride in their work, please, give me a break. I've watched them go about their business in some detail. As long as they tick the boxes that make sure they get paid they don't give a fuck, whether a candidate is really suitable or not. I've observed no exceptions to this. At all.

I'll admit that I have met decent people working in recruitment, but they have all been visibly unsuccessful in the industry and utterly miserable in their jobs, usually on the lookout for something else. That I can understand as I'd probably be the same in their position.

So, my conclusion remains; fuck them all, with another fuck you going out to management-speak in general. Another aspect of modern life we could well do without.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 28 May 2010, 14:28, closed)

Meh
More fool you if you've been taken in by people who are so obviously dodgy what with their blatant lies and silly haircuts and oh-so shiny suits.

Seriously, my job is to discreetly alert viable candidates to the existence of a new role and ultimately provide a shortlist thereof to a client company - a company who pay me a retainer to do this because they trust me. The company interviews the chosen few then make their choice; The successful candidate is thrilled; I get my fee. Life goes on. If six months down the line the new employee has turned out to be psychotic/alcoholic/ineffectual, I have to do the whole job again for nothing. C'est la vie.

I don't really understand the vitriol. I work at home naked, unless I have to do an interview, in which case I'll don my MATT suit out of respect for my interviewee. I'm more porcine than serpentine. The only moral issue is whether I'm fucking over the companies from which I headhunt. A lot of people will use the fact that they've been approached to get a better deal within their own firm, in which case I've only served to awaken them to their market value.

And I have to know the sector I deal in better than the people I'm approaching or I'll get laughed out of court.

You must be talking about Office Angels or something.
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Fri 28 May 2010, 15:09, closed)

eerrr actually..
Working in the industry, and working with the best you are wrong about this as your view is based on dealing with shit, probably bodyshop IT recs? am I right? no mouthy gobby shiny suited twat lasts in a decent company and the best get trained and are highly skilled in what they do.
And your skills and experience are commodity to be bought and sold like anything else of value and you are deluded to think otherwise so fuck off back to fairy dream land.
Why do think you got a job in the first place? because your nice? got a pretty face? fuck me, even someone as deluded as you can see that you are there to provide a service to your company and in return that’s why you get paid. Your qualifications, skills and experience are what your employers are buying so don’t dress it up as anything else, we work in a capitalist system where everything is commoditised.
Rec consultants will see whether you are suitable for the job and finding the best candidate for the job will provide them with an income and you are the vehicle for doing so the more placements they make the more they get paid. And if they care because if a candidate drops out within the first three months there is something called claw back where money is taken back from them and they have to provide a replacement for free so they do actually care about putting the right people in place. Also repeat business ,why spend weeks and months hard work building up trust and developing a client for doing a one off? Duh, If you are not right for the job they won't put you forward.
Having had a huge amount of experience in many organisations and seen more of how good consultants work, they actually don't behave the way you describe. If they did they would be asked to leave or more likey not recruited into the company in the first place.
in conclusion I am not looking defend the shiny suited shite or to change your mind, it seems pretty closed, just putting it out there to counter your gross generalisations.
btw it would be 'client' not 'service user' or 'mug' in your case based on the ones you have used in the past.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 28 May 2010, 15:15, closed)

My Experience
Yes, the bad ones are bad, and the good ones are... well, not met many of those yet. I've changed jobs a few times, and had some okay experiences.

However, I'd agree that it's seen as an easy job to get into for some shiny-suited loser, and so there's a lot of bad ones. Honestly, just not actually being dishonest would help a lot.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 29 May 2010, 18:43, closed)