Recruitment Agencies - robbing b#stards or good value?

Was discussing this with a mate recently.......

How much does a Recruitment Agency take from finding someone Temp / contract / permanent employment?

I suspect it varies accross industries as we ended up talking figures of up to 30%.

My thinking was "taking 30% of someone's wages?........I could do that"

Anyone got any experiances? or know how the Recruitment Agency game works?


BTW I am not thinking Gangmaster!

[Drew Carey]

It depends a lot on the type of work and the agency. As an example, I know of an agency specialising in managerial recruitment who placed a freind of my step fathers as a director. The agency got a fee of 40% of his salary. His salary was 100K!!!!!!!!!

Whereas for someone at an entry level analyst / data clerk etc it tends to be capped at a certain amount. Agency I've dealt with in the past was capped at 3k for junior roles.

Originally Posted by Drew Carey

It depends a lot on the type of work and the agency. As an example, I know of an agency specialising in managerial recruitment who placed a freind of my step fathers as a director. The agency got a fee of 40% of his salary. His salary was 100K!!!!!!!!!

I am guessing that level needs contacts.........40% though

Whereas for someone at an entry level analyst / data clerk etc it tends to be capped at a certain amount. Agency I've dealt with in the past was capped at 3k for junior roles.

We were mainly talking suit and tie work (except Fridays?!), so my guess is that would be between 5 and 10% on a Permanent Job.

[Drew Carey]

Yeah about that......when I last got placed (3 years ago) was at 15.5k, I happened to see the invoice (ooooops) and it was 1.8k.

Agencies are evil personified. In some industries it is hard to apply directly for a role as they are all done through agencies. The good agencies will only put forward their best clients as effectively they are employed to pre-screen applicant. Sometimes makes it difficulty to get to the interview stage for a development role as the agency may already have 5 or 10 people with more directly applicable experience.

Originally Posted by simesb

Agencies are evil personified. In some industries it is hard to apply directly for a role as they are all done through agencies. The good agencies will only put forward their best clients as effectively they are employed to pre-screen applicant. Sometimes makes it difficulty to get to the interview stage for a development role as the agency may already have 5 or 10 people with more directly applicable experience.

I recall that from years gone by - also frustration of often dealing with a numpty who does not understand both the job on offer or your skill set......mate still gets to deal with them (he does only Contracts) if he can't line things up himself......cropped up now as a discussion for this reason!

He was thinking "I will set me own agency - to cherry pick contracts".....I was thinking "I will do it for the money"

Odds on will never happen, but.........

Im in transport and a few years ago I was ofered a job working for one of the supermakets as a driver doing store deliveries, the guy offered me the job explained that they would only recruit from agaency drivers and told me to ring a certain agency and sign on, lo and behold next day Im delivering to supermarkets, a few months go by and I get hold of my mate one day and says 'I thought you were taking me on ? 'cant' he says 'weve got a recrutment freeze on' turns out that they had offered full time jobs to two agency drivers and the agency had demamded 4k for one driver and 5k for the other so the supermarket chain pulled the offer, the result was that the two drivers were suing the agency for restrictive practices and suing the supermarket for making and withdrawing an offer ( not sure of the tech term, but you know what I mean) Agencies ? bunch of dishonest one out there but if you,re a driver and out of work they can put food on your table.

The bad ones use a kind of scatter-gun approach. They pick up on key words in your CV and email you with jobs that are wholly inappropriate. The good ones work hard for their money and do a good job for their client and for you, but the good ones are few and far between.

The headhunters are where the real recruitment money is at. Approaching people already in senior positions to try and get them to jump ship - takes good people skills and networking.

Who cares how much commission they take?? ... what is good (as a job seeker) is that they are champing at the bit to try and get you a job so they get their commission, which can only be a good thing! ... I have found them to be pretty useless mind!! ... however, the downside is they match you to certain jobs, which you can tell probably are more down to the % commission thy get than the correct job for you

From a corporation point of view, it is probably cheaper to out-source this sort of stuff over having to employ people to do it, people and office space are expensive!! There will be a crossover point where it makes more economical sense to do it in house.

I agree Blue - the commission is irrelevant because you don't pay it, the recruiting company does!

My problem is how they often don't understand the sector they are recruiting for, or advertise fake positions to build a CV database, or approach you for inappropriate jobs. I'm redundant at the end of the month and am dealing with them a lot at the mo - they just really get on my wick...