[thechat] *Good* recruiment agencies in the UK

Mike King mike.king at redroom.co.uk
Thu Jan 24 09:25:04 CST 2002


At 14:54 24/01/02 +0000, Garrett Coakley said:

>Afternoon GMT'ers,

Ayup

>As some of you will know my own business has been going through a few
>problems over the past six months so I've decided to get back into full
>time employment, see if I can reduce my stress levels a tiny bit.

I'm doing the same, 'cause the outlook is grim  :(

>I'm looking for some recommendations for good recruitment agencies in
>the UK.

AFAIK There are no 'good' agencies!

>By good I guess I mean people who actually know what they're
>talking about and aren't just out to fill up their monthly quota.

See above, and forget the AFAIK
If they knew what they were talking about, why would they be sales persons?

>So far I haven't been very impressed with the people I've talked to.
>Lots of reasons really, but the main ones are:
>
>* Putting me forward for jobs at Microsoft based departments, even
>though I've specifically told them I'm from a Linux/Apache background
>and have no experience of NT based technology.

I'm loathe to say this, but try to get some  :(
Most places I've been are MS Centric... and don't like open source.
I've tried to introduce MySQL to somewhere saying they didn't need to 
splash out 'cause they only wanted a tiny DB (not even critical) But, I was 
told that 'if it's free it must be crap'

>* Those sort of recruitment agencies who really have no
>idea what the details on my CV mean and keep asking why I don't have
>Frontpage or Dreamweaver[1] experience.

They only respond to what people have written on the CV's. And 'normally' 
they're managers who have asked the wrong questions to get those details.

>I've been out of the job market for too long, and the amount of agencies
>out there seems to have exploded since I last looked.

But, it's shrinking again. They're shitting bricks... well most of them  :)

>Who do you recommend?

As many as possible, spread your chances.
Be prepared to grin and bear it... they _will_ put you forward for jobs 
that you have no idea about... always ask for the person spec of the job 
before you spend on travel!

>  Who have you had good success with?

Harvey Nash
Computer Futures

>  Any and all nfo gratefully received.

HTH
mk

>[1] Not that I have anything against these packages, but if I can hand
>code surely they should know it's a dumb question? Or am I being to
>charitable?

Charity ;)





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