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, 1 reply)

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)