Retail Appointment July 2017 TRAP_July 2017_DigitalEdition | Page 5
nd consultants
he first thing to understand is that they are not
there to find you a job. That sounds counter-
intuitive but, their job is to find people for the
client companies to fill their jobs.
T
If it sounds like the same thing, it
isn’t.
You may be the most brilliant store manager in
Brighton. But, unless the agency you are working
with has a job in Brighton they may not be able to
help you. They will be prioritising seeing the people
who are relevant to the vacancies that they have. So,
you should not be offended if you send your CV to
an agency speculatively and they don’t ask to see
you.
The second thing to understand is that they are likely
to be screening applications for their client. Make no
mistake, if you’re good it’s in their interest to get you
in front of the client. It can happen, however, that
there are many people applying fo r the job and they
have to ‘shortlist’.
You should treat an interview with a consultant in the
same way as you treat an interview directly with the
client. You need to impress them. Even if there is not
competition, it is the consultant’s job to sell you to
their client and, unless you give them the tools to do
that job, you may not get to the next stage. All too
often people miss out on opportunities because they
did not make enough effort at the first stage.
Recruitment firms, as in every other walk of life,
come in all shapes and sizes and they vary in quality;
from the professional and honest, through to the
other extreme.
So how do you know whether you
are dealing with a decent firm?
It is, in fact, quite straight forward. A recruitment firm
that sends your CV to clients and tries to sell you
jobs, when they have done no formal assessment of
you, is likely to be at the wrong end of the quality
spectrum. Bear in mind that you may not be invited
to interview with a consultant or agency if they do
not have a relevant role for you. That does not mean
they’re a bad firm. However, if you do send your CV
to them and they are pushing roles on you without
so much as even a telephone interview, they’re a bad
agency.
Ideally, they should meet you in person; but that may
not be possible if, say for example, you are in Scot-
land and the consultant is in Bristol. You can also
get a feel for the nature of your recruitment firm by
the way they deal with you on the phone. Were you
treated in the same way as doctors’ receptionists
treat you, or were they friendly and professional? Do
they readily accept your calls or do you feel that you
are being avoided?
By far the most common complaint against agencies
and consultants is the lack of feedback and follow
up. It happens that an applicant sees an agency, var-
ious roles are discussed and then the applicant
never hears from that agency again. It’s poor, but it
does happen. Usually, because at the time the con-
sultant sees you they do genuinely think that their
client will see you but when they approach the client
your CV is rejected. The consultant cannot be
blamed for that, but they should tell you.
Do not allow any agencies to send your CV any-
where without them having discussed this with you
first. You must keep control of your CV.
Finally, should you go to agencies at all? Why not
go directly to the client?
Well, many jobs are not advertised and many client
companies want to use agencies as they do not
have the time to do the first level screening. It ab-
solutely makes sense to be registered with one or
two agencies, but that should not preclude you from
also applying directly to companies yourself.
Your ideal situation is where you have one or two
firms that know you, know your strengths and re-
quirements and stay with you through your career.
You want a relationship of mutual trust and respect.
“By far the most common
complaint...is the lack of feedback”