Employment Agencies

[kregrs]

A local agency is advertising jobs in the local Job Centre. I've been signed up to this agency for quite some time, as a driver, and the jobs they've been advertising are for drivers, the same class as me, C1. Now, when I ring them to see if they've got any work, they always say no, it was on the back of one of these adverts that I applied to them in the first place.

Can they advertise jobs they seemingly dont have?

[bedlington83]

No they can't but its almost impossible to prove. The reason tthey do it is to get hundred's of peoples details. They can then say to prospective clients "we've got x thousand drivers registered with us so use us when you need a driver". If I were you I'd complain to the job centre, although I wouldn't expect them to do much, if anything, about it.

[shywazz]

Like BED says, these employment agencies, get people seeking work to register with them even when there are NO jobs for them to send you to, it gives them power when seeking contracts, we have this many that we can supply ur company today, nearly every agency has many hunderds of people waiting at home for that one phone call, we have a post that we would like to send you to ? just because the agency advertises jobs doesnt mean there have them. Always ask b4 signing on the dotted line what job and for how long ? chances are 9 out of 10 there are no jobs at all. when i was out of work, i registered with 8 agencies at once and throughout 3 mths had one phone call, thankfully i didnt need there services as i had by then got full time employment myself.

[hightail]

There's a clever little stunt they pull. Every permanent job they list is probably one they have filled in the past couple of months and their accounting procedures won't have closed them off so they can still show them as 'open'. They don't get paid the full finders fee until the new employee has gone through a probationary period. With long term contracts for service the position is filled but is renewed each week - by the person already in situ.

[gyzmo]

They also use information from applicants to contact former employers to get the enrolled.

 

Agencies are a pain in the a**e. BBC Scotland (Think it was radio) done an expose on them (they contacted me for my own experiences). The findings are available on the Monster forum boards and make interesting reading.