I agree totally with you guys about agencies, I have been in the business over twenty years and owned two agencies.
There are two main problems with agencies
1. The Banks
The recruitment industry is worth over 21 billion a year in the UK
When I first started in the industry, you needed money to fund an agency. The banks saw the industry as a cash cow. So they started offering factoring, invoice discounting and some companies will even pay in advance on invoices. This brings me to my second point.
2. De regulation
When I started, you needed a licence to work as an employment business or employment agency, now you don’t need anything and there is no regulation.
Any body can start an agency with no training or background in the industry.
This has led to hundreds opening up and all fighting for the same business, and because they don’t know about customer service and quality, they try to win business by under cutting all others. All this does is push down profit margins and salary levels for contractors.
Also because of my first point, many of them have lost sight of their values, and forget we work on behalf of the candidates.
Consultants are always under pressure to sell. sell. sell and achieve targets, which only lead to a poor service for the candidates.
They fail to realise that it does not mater how many positions you have on, with out the candidates you cannot make a sale.
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