Recruitment consultants

[Andy008]

I personally believe these people to be no better to double-glazing sales or estate agents. Can anyone give me an explicit explanation of how they actually make their money?

Dubious tactics I know they do include posting vacancies that don't actually exist so as to give the impression they are busy when they aren't, and returning a call to one consultant, only for another to intercept it, thus stealing their commission. 

[simplyzed]

Im interested in this too. Im forever seeing vacancies 4 recruitment consultants. Theres something dodgy about these peple...

[bazwillrun]

there are various types of recruiting firms but at the end of the day they are Salespeople on commissions.

The most basic way that they make money is by charging an employer a percentage (usually) of the 1st years starting salary of the new employee. for instance they may have a job on offer for 25K and the fee from that might be 15% of the first year plus there could be a one off fee for the placement. The other way is from Temp staff, this usually is a really big time hard sell via telesales to employers. The temp  job is normally an hourly rate, for instance �10ph  and the company where the temp will work might get charged �18ph. As an hourly paid temp you are normally classed as an employee of the temp agency, who have you on their books as a PAYE employee, so that �8 per hour they make is not total profit (they wish)     If you take a temp position and after a few days or even hours you call the agency and tell them you want out because you really dont like it, see how hard they will try and talk you into staying That is a very basic description, but in a nutshell that is it.

A i said they are out and out salespeople, when you walk through the door the job you saw advertised in the window may be gone or not have existed in the first place, but they will still see if they can get you to sign on with them as there might be something else they have, or they may have some vacancies in the pipeline that they are negotiating to get from a company.

within reason they will try and talk an employer into giving you an interview,(they are selling to both sides dont forget) if you seem half close to what is needed. they will also try and sell you jobs to you that they may have on their books even though they may not be what you initially asked them about, you never know you might fancy trying something different.

to be continued

[bazwillrun]

part 2

How do i know what goes on ? my partner used to work as an area manageress for a very big well known high st employment group, and yes they will if needs be steal each others clients, but they only get away with that on the naive staff members who arent on the ball.

So if you walk into an employment bureau remember you are just another punter ! The guys and gals you see sitting there are not admin people they are out and out salespeople, and like most sales jobs the staff turnover is pretty high. as a general rule they dont see it as  providing  you with a  social service you are just a possible commission.

[Sasha13]

I think there needs to be a distinction between recruitment consultants and recruitment agencies. (I should know because I have worked for both types). Recruitment agencies usually deal with temp staff and are much more dog eat dog. They do place adverts that in fact don't exsist - this is to attract potential staff so that they can then call clients and have a ready built staff base with which to fill vacancies. The 'consultants' at these agencies are usually on a very low basic wage with promises of lots and lots of commission, so tactics to fill vacancies tend to be fairly dodgy sometimes.

Recruitment Consultancies (good ones) are completely different. They tend to provide permanent staff and their fee is indeed a percentage of the employee's first years salary. The consultant's commission is a percentage of this fee. However what is less well known is that if the employee resigns within a certain timescale (about 9 weeks) then part or all of the fee is refunded to the client. It is therefore not in a consultants best interest to push candidates into a job that they don't want. They do sell vacancies to candidates, but this is more about challenging misconceptions than a hard sell. Also, consultancies will build up solid long term relationships with clients... This means the client benefits as the consultancy knows their business and the sort of person that will fit in there, and the consultancy benefits through more billings.

[Sasha13]

.../cont

However, the candidate also benefits as the consultancy knows the best way to brief the candidate to get ready for an interview. If the client/consultancy relationship is strong enough, other consultancies wouldn't be able to 'steal' business. When I was a Recruitment Consultant I certainly didn't look at new candidates as a 'new punter' I looked at them as someone that I could potentially bill a fee from, yes, but I could only do that by finding them a job that they loved... and this was my first aim - the money was as a result of this. I got several letters from candidates thanking me for my time and work and telling me that their new job was fantastic. We're not all bad !!!!!

[Hermia]

I used to work for a recruitment consultant for the profession I now work in and they were excellent. Yes, they got a nice lot of commission, but they were excellent at matching up employers and employees. They also got me a �11 an hour temp job when I was just starting out!