Employment agencies

While I realise the world economy is currently corkscrewing the toilet bowl, recruitment consultants have always been slippery characters. 99.99% of vacancies are filled via agencies, but how many of the adverts they swamp the job search sites with are genuine?

Try applying for one and you'll be lucky to get a response within a week. If they do contact you, you can be sure they'll have no idea which job in particular you were interested in, probably because its generic description is nothing more than a hook to reel in your personal details which are then neatly packaged and delivered into the laps of marketing companies with a glittery bow on top. Why else would they be so keen to register you as a candidate when they have no work available?

If anyone has any inside knowledge I'd be curious to know why it is that agencies ring you to ask questions they already know the answers to. Silly me, I thought the arrangement was that recruitment consultants would call when they have a job to run by you, not just to mull over the dire state of the market, and to ask you how your search is going. Hang on a minute, isn't that your job? If that wasn't the basis of the relationship our paths would probably never have crossed. If I find work elsewhere that's your commission up in smoke so please don't pretend you care. My best guess is that they have so little to do they spend most of the day making fruitless phone calls in a desperate attempt to look busy and cling onto their livelihoods.

Not that I'm bitter. I'd hate for you to get the wrong impression. :|