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I feel I've been very fortunate in this aspect of life, the only advice I can offer is that the people you know can be a massive asset to finding a job.

(selfish mode: my friend however is really struggling and I'm doing what I can to help. So if anyone can assist a HR graduate based in West Yorkshire then please PM me.)

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19 hours ago, BryanC said:

(If you think I'm joking, I told one agency that I am interested in any Logistics Management positions that become available. To this day they are still sending me HGV driver vacancies)

Yeah but that won't be Chantelle or her nails, that'll be due to the Photo on your CV and they'll have said it was that or prison warder at Folsom. ( Don't wait up for Johnny Cash whatever you do!);)

2 warning points:kolobok_dirol:  Non-Political

 

 

 

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An agency called me asking me if I wanted to start shift work as a nurse through their bank system.  Apparently everyone in the NHS who isn't a doctor is a nurse.  I had to wonder if the recruitment agent was moonlighting in between attending primary school, she sounded about 8-9 year old.

I was polite in rejecting this offer but I think she thought I was lying about my reasons for not wanting to register with them as a nurse or even give her my nursing registration number...

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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Got a couple of interviews lined up for next week. Neither is entirely my dream job, but such is the way of the world.

And, at this stage in my life, I'd rather have a mundane job working with good people than an exciting job with ratbags for colleagues, to be honest.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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12 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Got a couple of interviews lined up for next week. Neither is entirely my dream job, but such is the way of the world.

And, at this stage in my life, I'd rather have a mundane job working with good people than an exciting job with ratbags for colleagues, to be honest.

I know what you mean.  I was asked to go into an interim role covering a NHS senior managerial role for six months, very good pay but it was a 3 hour commute each way each day plus the management had a nasty reputation and that was the very good reason they couldn't get permanent people to work there.  It'd be soul destroying having to do that commute (train then two London public transport journeys) just to have to work in a toxic office.

I do have one opportunity I'm really hoping for that's a bit out of my comfort zone in terms of the environment, it's a bit lower pay than I get now and still London (but without any ongoing journey and only a 5 minute walk) but it fills virtually every bracket I want in a job: great reputation as a company, very socially focussed, and I'd be able to see a massive benefit to my work to people who normally don't get much of a chance at work.  I'm honest with myself that I'm no better than 50/50 at getting it but I would dearly like a chance to prove myself at it.  It really would be nice to settle into a nice company for a while.

I wouldn't go back to contract work unless things got desperate, that was just soul destroying.  I still hold out hope for another NHS job but they're a bit scarce for the type and scale of work I do.

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, that's me now contractually free of the NHS.  I'm now part of the great unwashed unemployed for the first time except for a few days after I left university.

My CV is done.  My first major release last month went down quite poorly until I got some objective feedback that it was "so 1990s".  It's now re-done as a properly worked 3 page effort that's had good reviews from friendly recruitment agents and HR folk I know.

The NHS seems to be a bust for me as a future, there are no suitable jobs at my grade and experience point that aren't lined up as jobs-for-the-boys among the self-protecting class of "professional" NHS managers.  It's getting beyond tiring not even getting selected for interviews for jobs where I could have written the job description for myself based on my past.  Knowing the NHS recruitment systems, that's a clear sign they know who they want for the job and don't want to bring into interview anyone who might upset that.  This paragraph sounds bitter and it is unapologetically so.

I'm taking my time to get the right job rather than the first job but jobhunting in July and August is traditionally a tough time.  I've got one major career change opportunity that I'm pursuing, not sure how that'll go as it'd be a huge leap of faith for both them and me.

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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5 hours ago, ckn said:

So, that's me now contractually free of the NHS.  I'm now part of the great unwashed unemployed for the first time except for a few days after I left university.

My CV is done.  My first major release last month went down quite poorly until I got some objective feedback that it was "so 1990s".  It's now re-done as a properly worked 3 page effort that's had good reviews from friendly recruitment agents and HR folk I know.

The NHS seems to be a bust for me as a future, there are no suitable jobs at my grade and experience point that aren't lined up as jobs-for-the-boys among the self-protecting class of "professional" NHS managers.  It's getting beyond tiring not even getting selected for interviews for jobs where I could have written the job description for myself based on my past.  Knowing the NHS recruitment systems, that's a clear sign they know who they want for the job and don't want to bring into interview anyone who might upset that.  This paragraph sounds bitter and it is unapologetically so.

I'm taking my time to get the right job rather than the first job but jobhunting in July and August is traditionally a tough time.  I've got one major career change opportunity that I'm pursuing, not sure how that'll go as it'd be a huge leap of faith for both them and me.

Who gave feedback on your CV?

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1 hour ago, Ackroman said:

Who gave feedback on your CV?

Two recruitment agents I trust and one senior HR recruitment pro. 

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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21 hours ago, ckn said:

Two recruitment agents I trust and one senior HR recruitment pro. 

I thought so. Recruitment companies get a lot of stick but you can also use them to your own advantage. Repulsive creatures that we are.

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4 minutes ago, Ackroman said:

I thought so. Recruitment companies get a lot of stick but you can also use them to your own advantage. Repulsive creatures that we are.

There's two types of recruitment agents, the good guys who want a partnership during a job application and the exploiters. I've a short list of about 10 in the first group who I allow onto my LinkedIn contacts, one of which I've been working with regularly since 2001 with me both as jobseeker and employer and who I keep at least six-monthly phone contact with even if there's no work going or needed.  A good recruitment agent is worth every bit of their margin for a contractor or jobseeker and I don't grudge them even at 15-20%  

The other type will do everything possible to exploit a situation NOW and damn tomorrow. I had one tell me the day before a contract that the employer demanded a £50 per day cut while they told the employer that I was demanding £50 per day more and they intended to pocket the £100 extra. It was only when I spoke to the employer that we realised they were scamming us both. 

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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You have to remember that most recruitment "consultants" are paid a low basic salary and make their money on commission. Like any commission based job they will do whatever it takes to seal the deal, which can sometimes work in your favour especially when negotiating contractor day rates if they think you're prepared to walk away.

I’m not prejudiced, I hate everybody equally

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On 20/07/2017 at 1:10 PM, ckn said:

An agency called me asking me if I wanted to start shift work as a nurse through their bank system.  Apparently everyone in the NHS who isn't a doctor is a nurse.  I had to wonder if the recruitment agent was moonlighting in between attending primary school, she sounded about 8-9 year old.

I was polite in rejecting this offer but I think she thought I was lying about my reasons for not wanting to register with them as a nurse or even give her my nursing registration number...

Sounds like Chantelle's transferred up your neck of the woods ! 

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6 minutes ago, BryanC said:

Sounds like Chantelle's transferred up your neck of the woods ! 

You've lost me entirely with that one!

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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8 minutes ago, Derwent said:

You have to remember that most recruitment "consultants" are paid a low basic salary and make their money on commission. Like any commission based job they will do whatever it takes to seal the deal, which can sometimes work in your favour especially when negotiating contractor day rates if they think you're prepared to walk away.

I prefer working with the more professional ones.  There's a good bunch of them out there still who operate at higher margins than the pump & dump agencies and earn every penny on behalf of both the employer and job hunter.

As an employer myself until recently, the difference is astounding for both permanent and contract roles.  The more professional ones will give you properly sifted candidates who all have a genuine chance of getting the role, they act almost like old-fashioned in-house HR recruitment teams; you can call them, walk through genuine strengths and weaknesses of candidates and not get utter rubbish.  The pump & dump types have no interest in learning about the detail of the job, the type of candidate needed or the cultural fit of the role, they'll take the job title and job description, remove the identifying headers then spam the job boards; they'll then pump the candidates they think will get them the most money regardless of whether they think they can do the job or not.

As a job hunter, when I was doing contract work, those professional agents kept me working for a number of years without even having to hunt for the different roles as we had a mutually beneficial working relationship.

As an aside, this is where the idiot stuff in the public sector fails, the insistence in the NHS of using Crapita for ALL non-clinical interims at NHS centrally employed staff just turns the entire market into pump & dump of the lowest bidder.

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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13 hours ago, ckn said:

You've lost me entirely with that one!

Sorry mate, as I posted earlier...

"Bottom line is that your destiny is in the hands of the charming but vacuous Chantelle who is just out of college. She will be eager to please, but will never fully grasp what you do / have done in the past, no matter how many times you try to explain in words of one syllable. As a result, she will repeatedly offer you vacancies that have no relevance to you. She has beautiful nails, but sadly cannot spell or string a lucid sentence together and will sign off her emails with a kiss (x)"

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2 hours ago, BryanC said:

Sorry mate, as I posted earlier...

"Bottom line is that your destiny is in the hands of the charming but vacuous Chantelle who is just out of college. She will be eager to please, but will never fully grasp what you do / have done in the past, no matter how many times you try to explain in words of one syllable. As a result, she will repeatedly offer you vacancies that have no relevance to you. She has beautiful nails, but sadly cannot spell or string a lucid sentence together and will sign off her emails with a kiss (x)"

Ah, got you now. :)  

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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A recruitment agency called me on Tuesday with a good job opportunity.  I asked them to put me forward for it, they sent me a quick statement to agree with that "they were my sole and exclusive representatives and I would not apply for the role in any other way without their direct permission.".  Fair enough, I thought, they deserve some protection from unscrupulous recruiters and job hunters doing them out of recruitment fees.

I got a call this morning from the recruiter saying "The company are still refusing to put us on the preferred supplier list, therefore we can't submit your application.  If you choose to self-apply then please remember that exclusivity agreement, you must pay us £5000 if you get the role.  We will be checking who the successful candidate is once recruitment finishes."

So, they were using my CV as a way to get themselves onto a PSL that they'd obviously had difficulty getting onto in the past...  Either that or it was a bait to get me to sign the exclusivity agreement.

Rather than let rip at them, I just disengaged with a "bye then" *click*.

I called the HR lot of the recruiting company to discuss direct application and they told me the blunt truth about that agency, that they'd sued in the past for "exclusive introduction fees" from job hunters and won.  They told me I should only be agreeing to these if there's a clause that says the agency warrants that they have rights from the recruiting company to submit an application on my behalf and that a failure to successfully submit dissolves the exclusivity clause.

There's a lesson learned for me then...

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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6 hours ago, ckn said:

A recruitment agency called me on Tuesday with a good job opportunity.  I asked them to put me forward for it, they sent me a quick statement to agree with that "they were my sole and exclusive representatives and I would not apply for the role in any other way without their direct permission.".  Fair enough, I thought, they deserve some protection from unscrupulous recruiters and job hunters doing them out of recruitment fees.

I got a call this morning from the recruiter saying "The company are still refusing to put us on the preferred supplier list, therefore we can't submit your application.  If you choose to self-apply then please remember that exclusivity agreement, you must pay us £5000 if you get the role.  We will be checking who the successful candidate is once recruitment finishes."

So, they were using my CV as a way to get themselves onto a PSL that they'd obviously had difficulty getting onto in the past...  Either that or it was a bait to get me to sign the exclusivity agreement.

Rather than let rip at them, I just disengaged with a "bye then" *click*.

I called the HR lot of the recruiting company to discuss direct application and they told me the blunt truth about that agency, that they'd sued in the past for "exclusive introduction fees" from job hunters and won.  They told me I should only be agreeing to these if there's a clause that says the agency warrants that they have rights from the recruiting company to submit an application on my behalf and that a failure to successfully submit dissolves the exclusivity clause.

There's a lesson learned for me then...

It's illegal for recruitment agencies or businesses to charge job hunters for finding them a job, regardless of the circumstances.

Also candidate exclusivity disappeared with the growth of internet job boards and social media. Therefore hundreds of companies and agencies have access to your details if they know where to look. That's what good recruiters are paid for, the leg work, not the exclusive database they have.

The last paragraph, I'm a bit confused by because it links to my first point.  I can't see how the agency can win a legal battle that directly opposes the law?

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1 hour ago, Ackroman said:

It's illegal for recruitment agencies or businesses to charge job hunters for finding them a job, regardless of the circumstances.

Also candidate exclusivity disappeared with the growth of internet job boards and social media. Therefore hundreds of companies and agencies have access to your details if they know where to look. That's what good recruiters are paid for, the leg work, not the exclusive database they have.

The last paragraph, I'm a bit confused by because it links to my first point.  I can't see how the agency can win a legal battle that directly opposes the law?

Ah, the HR lady explained that it was the fee that they'd normally charge companies for a successful candidate.  The money they reclaim is what they'd have charged a company for successfully placing a new employee with them.  The legal point is that but for the candidate going elsewhere to get in the door they'd have had their money.

I think I may be a bit confused over whether it's the candidate or the employer they sue though... on thinking about it, it may be the employer...

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

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When I was last in the UK, I did some teaching work through an agency. While I was at one school, I applied for a job there as a Maths teacher. It was politely pointed out to me that, if I got the job, the agency would demand an 'introduction fee' of at least £5000 from the school. I didn't get the job because I ballsed up the interview - I wouldn't have given myself the job, to be honest - but it certainly made me think twice about agencies.

 

Rethymno Rugby League Appreciation Society

Founder (and, so far, only) member.

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