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Working for free – Laura’s version
I fully expect limited sympathy for this post as lets face it, recruitment doesn’t always have the best of reputations in the market – bunched in with estate agents and car salesmen, but I hope I am seen as one of the “good ones”. I also appreciate it is even more horrible out there for job seekers.
The tech job market is poor at the moment and reports show the number of tech vacancies has dropped again. Many tech recruitment consultants have their jobs on the line.
You all know we earn most of our wages from commission – no big secret there. However, the biggest frustration is time – feeling we are wasting it. Lots of it.
We work on a contingency basis. Retained recruitment where a fee is paid up front would be the ideal but in a vast majority of roles, especially contract, this isn’t the norm.
Recruitment consultants very, very rarely fill 100% of roles they work on – you win some you lose some.
The frustration now is the sheer number of vacancies where there was never any hope of filling it and this doesn’t come to light until days and days of work and is often out of our control.
After 25 years of doing this job (and working for Steve Morrisey for my sins), I’d like to think we know how to qualify a job and work out if it is actually fillable. However, the number of jobs that “vanish” has risen – often after a significant investment of our time. I know that there is the misconception that we just stick out a badly written job ad and send the first few half decent CVs and then sit back and wait for the cash to roll in – this isn’t (always) the case.
Recently we have had
– A good client genuinely believing they know what they want and are ready to recruit a senior person – when it turns out this wasn’t the case.
– Told multiple times the role isn’t bid work, then turns out it is.
– Changing a role and recruiting someone internally instead
– Being assured a role budget has been signed off or there is wiggle room on the salary – but neither is correct..
– Managers being told they can go to market and hire, but then the CFO changed their minds and pulled the sign off.
– Multiple roles been suddenly put on hold by a higher power after numerous interviews (more common in non-UK roles)
– Projects being cancelled / lost / not being renewed and so the role isn’t needed any more.
Maybe we aren’t pushing back and drilling down as much as we could – maybe this is desperation overall lack of business out there. The common agency mentality of treating any vacancy like “gold dust” and the pressure to work extra hours to “just get it filled”, and it being our fault if our efforts doesn’t result in a placement…. when really, there was never a chance.
Thank you for indulging me in this post, and I’d be keen to hear anyone else’s views on this?