London Recruitment Agencies - How to get a job interview and cut through agency jargon

Relying on agencies to find you work will more often than not result in disappointment during an economic downturn. Many agencies often advertise jobs that simply don’t exist. They do this with the intention of looking busy to attract more business from potential clients. Their advertisements may well appear on internet job boards and roll in each day to make their agency look successful. Support and middle management roles advertised on websites such as: www.workthing.com; www.monsterjobs.com; www.totallylegal.com; and www.secsinthecity.com look promising and give the illusion of making the market seem buoyant. Even when the jobs do exist, the agencies are all competing with each other and will often advertise the same jobs.

Sending your curriculum vitae to agencies via their website links simply won’t be enough for an agent to even glance through the carefully written pages. If you can’t see the agent’s direct e-mail address then forget it. You will often find that the agency gives a general e-mail address, which won’t help you get noticed. In this instance, it would be very rare for an agent to read your cv, given that they have probably received hundreds of applications for one glittering job opportunity.

Please make sure you read the job advertisement very carefully to check you match their criteria. Check the e-mail address at the end of the advert and don’t spend hours filling in their application forms online. It’s just time wasting, especially when you’ll have to register via their website for a password, write the form and then attach your cv. There’s no guarantee your form will be looked at.

The only way you will get a recruitment consultant to read your cv will be to call them immediately after you have sent it. Call them, quoting the job reference number. More than often, they will admit to not having received your cv, simply because of the huge volume of job thirsty applicants. Getting hold of an agent on the telephone makes such a difference as to whether or not you get a foot in the door. Once they hear your voice and you explain all your relevant job history they become willing to listen.

Large well established recruitment companies do look enticing, if only because they are a known name. However, don’t be fooled into thinking they are the best option. Many of them have been competing with each other and will be putting your cv forward for the same job, which can become complicated, especially when they ask whether you have registered with other agencies.

Boutique Agencies
Boutique agencies are the best way forward. The ones I’ve come across have their own portfolio of private clients. They are often very selective about who they take on and don’t necessarily pay huge sums of money to advertise as they already have the contacts and the jobs; some of them are so selective with applicants that they headhunt and don’t have a website. Their portfolio of clients includes political organisations, entrepreneurs and private households, and their temporary positions are often far more interesting than those on offer by your average recruitment consultancy. I spoke to one consultant who has asked to remain anonymous. She told me: “Stick to boutique firms if you are looking for a certain role. We often have unexpected, exciting roles through our private connections.”

SIGNING UP WITH AGENCIES

Signing Up With Agencies for Temporary and Full-Time Roles:

Myth
Signing up with loads of agencies will ensure you get a job…
Fact
Wrong! With a shorter supply of jobs, the agencies are all pitching for business from the same employers. This means that if you are successful they are all likely to send off your cv to the same company! Choose your agencies wisely and check that the job you are applying for is indeed on offer; sometimes they place advertisements for jobs they are chasing rather than for ones they have. Make very sure that the employers have approached them as their sole agency. This will prove tricky, but question your potential agent very carefully before registering with them.

AGENCY TRICKS
Registering With Agencies
Once you’ve caught the attention of a recruitment agent, they may invite you to their offices for an interview and written tests. Make absolutely sure that you are being seen for the job you have applied for. There’s nothing worse than expensive train fares into London only to discover the job you’ve applied for is already at second interview stage. They proceed to tell you that although your cv won’t be put forward for that particular role, they do have other interesting roles coming in although, “it’s quiet at the moment”. They have asked you in under false pretences, registered you and made you take lengthy aptitude tests. There’s nothing more maddening and a waste of time, effort and money.

Beware of Flashy Websites!
One particular London recruitment agency covers roles ranging from secretarial and PA positions through to executive and middle management jobs. They offer a selection of career support options but at a terrible price! Their service includes: cv advice; interview training and marketing strategy - all are available to help you secure your dream job. They also offer executive coaching and a wide range of psychometric profiling. Despite their excellent website boasting a live jobs board, a live web-cam, latest business news and a Transport for London link to tube services, I was shocked by the cost of their CV Doctor, Application Doctor & Interview Doctor services. For the princely sum of £75, they are offering struggling jobseekers a credit-crunch service for reviewing and tailoring your cv to current cv trends and employer preferences. Their ‘Intensive Care Programme’ costs a staggering £175 when a good recruitment agent will do all of this for nothing. I hope for that price any potential applicants are guaranteed a job interview! Despite their job advertisements on websites such as Totallylegal.com and Secsinthecity.com, this agency is not good at responding to applicants. Beware of flashy websites offering advice at a price! Never pay an agency. You are there to find work and an income.

False Roles
Some agencies seem thorough. They will comb through everything on your cv and several consultants will meet with you. They are happy to chat over coffee and are good at contacting you with potential work. However, whether that work exists is another matter. Although some agencies offer this friendly service, many will talk through roles that have not yet been fully authorized by senior management. This means that your cv would be sent out and the job may or may not exist. Their service is swift but terribly frustrating since they will call you about an exciting role. “This matches everything on your cv,” they explain. Although they sound very excited about a position and put your cv forward for the role, you might not hear anything for weeks, after which time you call them only to discover that the job has not been signed off by the line manager. In other words it doesn’t exist. Not good. Despite an excellent website portraying recruitment consultants posing like models from a Gratton catalogue, the gloss hides the reality of jobs that haven’t been signed off.

Connections
Connections are one way of finding a role and if you don’t have them life is harder. I’ve met many friends through the arts and politics, but have always been hesitant about asking them whether they have any jobs on offer, mainly because I don’t believe it’s right to exploit friendships in this manner. I also believe that you need to find your own way and not lean on others. This being the case, the choice of whether you have connections or use them is entirely a personal matter. However, if you do use contacts to get a position, other employees who have worked their way up in a company may frown down upon you; HR departments in large private firms are now so entrenched in office politics, jargon and odd attitudes that as soon as you get into the company they will find ways to make life difficult. The main rule of getting a job is that you should hunt for it on your own terms, however hard. Introductions are fine, but generally speaking, you will need to prove your work history and suitability for the job, regardless of who you know.

HR
Applying directly to the HR department of large corporate organisations is popular with job-seekers. However, due to the number of applicants all sending in their cv’s you can be overlooked. HR departments are also bombarded by phonecalls from agencies and headhunters and some practice managers don’t sound happy to hear from you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, but be aware of the demand.

MARKETING YOURSELF ONLINE

Download your CV onto websites. Get noticed!
In the past, many of my friends have found the most effective way for getting noticed is by downloading their cv and a short profile of their work history onto sites such as The Guardian Online, The Times Online and Secsinthecity.co.uk. If agencies or employers don’t want to advertise a job, they are likely to scan through already uploaded profiles. This is a fantastic way of getting noticed since you are promoting yourself online. A friend of mine decided that she’d had enough of trying in vain to find a job in law. Out of desperation she wrote a profile of her work history, qualifications and skills and posted it onto Gumtree. Within two days she was contacted by potential employers who didn’t want to advertise via expensive agencies and websites. However, although this form of marketing worked for her, it’s still a gamble and you might not necessarily attract headhunters unless your précis completely matches their specific requirements.

Here are some useful websites for online promotion:
Secsinthecity:
www.secsinthecity.com

Gumtree:
http://www.gumtree.com/jobs

The Times Online:
http://jobs.thetimes.co.uk/

Workthing.com:
www.workthing.com

TotalJobs:
http://www.totaljobs.com/

The Guardian Online:
http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/

HEADHUNTERS & NEW BUSINESSES

The Best Way Forwards
Very often, headhunters will notice your online cv. They scour the above websites for excellent work history and credentials. In the past I’ve had phonecalls from entrepreneurs and new businesses who have started up during the credit-crunch. One chap who contacted me had left his banking job at the beginning of the downturn and decided to use his industry contacts to set up a headhunting business. He was incredibly pro-active and contacted anyone from banks to legal firms, often setting up last minute interviews with highly prestigious organisations.

Due to privacy, if you don’t want to put your cv online, then get to know who the private headhunters are and e-mail them directly. I highly recommend this as the best way forwards.

However you try to seek a job, good luck and I hope this helps!