Recruiters

[Boris Godunov]

I don't understand why recruiters would bother misrepresenting things to their candidates or clients. In the end, it only hurts everyone. If you make false promises to candidates, they will be miserable even if they get the job. In which case they will dissatisfy the client, who will be mad at you. Say goodbye to repeat customers.

My firm had a rule that if any of our successful candidates quit or got fired within one year of their hire date, we had to replace them for free. That was a pretty big incentive to get things right from the start.

[Ted Striker]

I'd say the percentage of good recruiters like Boris is 25%, bad recruiters 75%


I've had ALOT of recruiters misrepresent things to me, including one making promises on the employer's behalf that the employer knew nothing about, and a another one that was trying to sell me a job and then at the last minute told me it was for a porn company. "A large company leading the entertainment industry," is the way he tried to sell it.

The same dude told me he'd get me lined up for 5 jobs the same day.

[Boris Godunov]

At least three times now, my boss has forwarded me phone calls that have ended up being recruiters trying to lure me to other companies. Something she's trying to tell me?

[Japher]

maybe she's just testing you

The Recruiter I talked to today sent me 5 jobs to look over. I can come up with an excuse not to do 4 of the jobs. The 5th one I am going to ask about, and it's in Tulsa of all places.

[Urban Ranger]

MtG,

Yeah, sometimes you luck out. I remember once I was called by a recruiter with a job, and got hired right on the spot at the interview. It's like winning something in a lottery, though.

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I'd say the percentage of good recruiters like Boris is 25%, bad recruiters 75%

Probably lower for the tech sector, and even the big boys aren't immune. Of all the recruiters I dealt with, I say 10% - 15% are all right. Unfortunately the agencies have a lot of jobs on their hands.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I have a pretty lengthy list of companies and individuals I won't deal with, either as an employer or contractor. The one who hooked me up with my present job was pretty damned good though - no BS, he found me, had an interview set up in a week (only because the client guy was out three of those days) and it went phone interview Friday after work, in person interview the next Monday, final phone interview Tuesday (phone because the client liked me and was just going through the motions of having the person I'd be working for talk to me), "when can you start" offer two days later, and start the following week.

Total time from first contact to first day on the job less than three weeks, and a good rate and no pain, no BS throughout.

That was pretty much my experience as well. They did show a lack of high tech knowledge that sent me to 5 interviews that were a waste of time but I still managed to wind up with the job I still have. As for their margin, I believe their profit margin was 50% while I was under contract. The company was all too happy to hire me after the contract period was up.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
How big is the profit margin?

Well with full times they generally get at least $1000 for placing someone. Their overhead isn't too much (some hole in the wall office and some advertising), as long as they got enough volume they've got to be making a killing.

In some part time or temp jobs, the recruiters can make as much as the teachers for sitting on their asses. Even with overhead taken out, that's a pretty insane profit margin.

You also get HUGE numbers of incompetent teachers, with no experience of a class, and no idea of the language or country.

That too. But with supply and demand, such teachers are necessary to keep the English Teaching industry in Korea afloat.

My brother did a course that qualified him to teach EFL. In a weekend. With no pupils.

I've never had any training. Period. These days I'm a pretty good teacher (or at least I manage to make my kids like me without playing any games or letting them goof off at all).

Okay, I don't recruit for EFL, but it is my line of work, you bastards.

You sick twisted bastard.

Say goodbye to repeat customers.

Well since the people getting recruited often have no qualifications whatsoever, a lot of recruiters don't count on repeat customers. They can make a good deal of money before they muddy the waters too much.

I think EFL recruiters are worse than most since they can lie easier when there's a language and/or geography gap and a lot of schools don't want to deal with visa processing and whatnot.

[Boris Godunov]

On profits: the firm I worked for in NY charged fees that worked like this:

Total fee = 1/3 of first year's projected base salary of the candidate

The fee was divided into three parts. First part was charged at the start of the search, the second after a month, the third upon completion of the search.

The minimum salary level we worked for was $125,000, so you can calculate the total fee from there. Some searches we did were for salaries in excess of $700,000, so we had some nice fees for those.

Additionally, we charged a set fee of $525/month to cover search-related expenses.

[Bosh]

Damn that's expensive. What the hell did you do that was worth that much money?!?!?!

[Japher]

man...

I've been playing e-mail tag with this recruiter today who is sitting on a job I want in Northern Alabama, and he's all "why would you want to leave sunny California?!" I keep telling him that my wife is pregnant, we want to raise the kid, you can't survive in the bay area on one income unless your a CEO, and that my company has been exporting all our jobs to Jersey, Florida, and Peurto Rico. So, if I can get closer than Jersey I would be happy, and that Huntsville has a great cost of living, and was ranked by Money Mag as one of the best places to work and live. I'm out of breath.


Anyway, if he doesn't at least try and get me an interview because he can't understand why I don't want to live in California anymore I'll join Bosh in bashing Boris

[Japher]

nope... he called, and is going to try and get me the interview, I am going to talk to him tomorrow.

[Solomwi]

Huntsville's not a bad town at all. If you get that one, you'll have to come down for a beer at some point.

[Japher]

fer sure.

where are you? Solomwi

I talked with this Recruiter about 3 weeks ago about a job that he eventually deemed wasn't for me. I agreed as his discription didn't compare to what the discription the company gave him at all... This one looks better, and Huntsville looks nice, has a good high tech industry, low cost of living (relatively), and is near enough that wifey can jump a plane back to Fresno to visit her fam whenever she feels like.

I also have applied to companies in Birmingham, which also looks nice.

[Flubber]

My experiences with legal and executive recruiters has been moderately positive. While they have never gotten me a job, the ones I have dealt with have been professional and articulate and the job they called to talk to me about was real.

My last experience was last week. I submitted my resume and met with the recruiter the next day. two days later I was apparently "presented" with 5 other short list candidates, to the client. They decided to interview 2 people (not me) and made an offer to one of them. I didn't get the job but

-- it was an appropriate position to contact me about
-- they did what they said they would do throughout
-- professional throughout

[Solomwi]

Japher: I'm in Birmingham, and love it. Send me a PM and I'll give you any insight I can on area, companies, whatever. Going out now, though, so it'll be tomorrow.