"Employment agencies have a role to play, but usually in a process initiated by an employer."

You call it codswhollop but then go on to reveal you didnt actually read the article. The sentence above makes your comment pointless. You might as well have said, "Thats rubbish! I only eat cheese on Tuesdays!"

Do I need to spell it out? I suppose so. Look, the article wasnt about employment agencies from an employers point of view but that of a regular job seeker. FFS man! It was in the damned title!

I long for the good old days when guys like you would send unprintable letters to the editor about articles you didnt understand rather than cluttering up the internet.

Ah, but you see I did read the article, Kimble. And as it is captioned "Why employment agencies have more cons than pros for regular job seekers" my response was to refute the arguement. It is irrevevant who initiates the process of employment. It is the outcome that is important; to the candidate and the employer, equally. It's probable that you have engaged the talents of recruitment firms as often as I have. In which case you may, or have not have, a different opinion to me.

Back in Wellington, I was in the process of getting away from a workplace. I organised a meeting with the agency that placed me there to air my annoyance at how over sold the role was in my interview (being with the workplace itself). Statements of how mature business processes currently were, onto the next steps etc were obviously rubbish. There was still a lot of basic remedial stuff to be done. I was pretty annoyed. Even more so to find out from others in the team that the previous person to me had left for pretty much the same reasons I was walking.

The agency just wasn't interested. I was trying to give them a heads-up so that if they were to place the next candidate in there after I left, they would be well advised to find a more junior person who might still find some challenge in the menial hacking around that needed to be done to bring that particular team up to speed.

I've always viewed them as a necessary evil, from an employee view point.

"It is irrevevant who initiates the process of employment."

Of course it matters whether the job applicant is applying for a specific job from an employer who commisioned the agent or if they are hiring an agent to pitch them to a range of different companies who didnt initiate contact with the agency.

How can you not see it? The end result might be the same but that doesnt mean the entire process, and therefore the economic game, is the same.

It is very simple, there is a cost to dealing with an agent. Nobody can deny this. If the employer hired the agent then they are obviously willing to take on the costs and may view it as a sunk cost or apply the cost proportionaly to all applicants. If they didnt hire the agent, then they arent necessarily willing to take on the cost and in this case the cost will count against the agents client. Other non-agency applicants will be cheaper to employ.

It is actualy a very simple economic concept that has little to do with industrial psychology.

Of course they charge a fee , this is a business , not a social service . If you want someone to hold your little petal soft hand and too whisper sweet nothings in your ear , whilst doing absolutely nothing to assist your career prospects..........Go to WINZ . That is what they do best .

And some firms , ours for instance , now only employ through an agency . You cannot get into our factory to knock on the door .

St Nick : We're a grumpy bunch of homophobic misogynistic old farts with bad breath , appalling working conditions and hours ............. and there is a never-ending stream of people on the agency's books trying to land a minimum wage job with us . Go figure !

Choosing to job hunt through an agency can also raise questions in an employer's mind. If you're keen to get a job, why aren't you doing the searching yourself? Don't you have the initiative to search out vacancies and prepare applications? Have you turned to an agency in desperation because you've already been turned down by numerous other employers "“ and if so, why?

This sounds like an economist who doesn't understand either the reality of typical recruitment processes, or the psychology of employers. No-one ever got fired for buying IBM, and the same motivations often apply in recruitment.

Fresh air was the Xmas gift . First year ever , they gave us nought . And no explanation . " Tell them nothing " is the edict from the palatial head office in Sydney . Basically the poorly performing Australian operations are being bolstered by mega profits hauled out of NZ ( The Dom. / The Press / TradeMe ) .

Look it is very simple, if something costs more than something else which is identical then the something else will be chosen more often than not.

I dont give a shit about all your other reasons for liking employment agencies, all the benefits you reap from dealing with them. If it came right down to it, if you had the same potential employee coming to you directly AND through an agent, you wouldnt hire him through the agent.

From the potential employees position, he is better off going to you directly than through an agent. There is an advantage for him to do it.

If the person coming through the agency is better than one coming to you directly you may be willing to pay the extra cost. No one is arguing otherwise. But that cost DOES affect your decision at the margins, as the hypothetical example above shows, no matter how much you want to ignore the fact.

Just because someone comes through an agency doesnt automatically mean they are the best employee. They might be, but it isnt a certainty.

The authors other point is also valid, that the signalling from direct contact represents some value as well. That value is foregone by going through an agent.

There are benefits to using an agent, but there are also costs. You morons are calling the author stupid for pointing out the costs that are not as obvious as the benefits. You seem to think that because you conceive only net benefits from the agency arrangement that there are no costs, which is just stupid.

Kimble -

>Why do you sit in a queue for 2 hours to buy discounted petrol that is only saving you $10?

I wouldn't unless I earned less than $5 / hr.

P.S. At least I wasn't ranting. :)