What are the experiences of CD members in dealing with an employment agency / recruiter?

I am asking this because I have read on a few other forums that the experiences are not something to write home about.

My personal experience has been neutral. Have not been called by a single agency till date. I had submitted my resume and made a follow up call. But all you hear is once we get a job that matches your profile we shall get back to you. While I did manage to land three interviews on my own. It is another matter whether I got the job or not.

I understand the responses and experiences can be varied based on the industry or profession one is in.

Recruitment agencies are mainly the medium between the employer and employee. Yes, the recruitment agencies are guilty of advertising to build their database. However, if they get a request from client they do contact you. I have been contacted by many recruitment agencies but I have not accepted any position so far thru an agency. All my jobs except the first have been thru network. First one was thru a job fair.

Lana,
I see that you mentioned that you got your subsequent jobs by nerworking.
Could you expain this please? How ?
Was it through your job collegues or through some association meetings etc..?
Thanks for any inputs.
TK

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

As mentioned, i got my first job in a job fair. I keep in touch with my colleagues who left the company. So thru one such friend I sent my resume to his company. It is a win-win situation. I got the job. He got, in those days, $ 5k for referring me. Generally, some companies will pay referral fee for bringing in new hires. This is very much the case in IT field.

Second time when I changed my job one of the big bosses of my company joined another company. I happened to know his brother. (His brother and I worked in the same dept.) His brother used to mention about me and my work. So when he joined the new company and he was looking for people, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said Yes.

Most important thing is to ensure that you are friendly, polite, work in a team. When a team member leaves. keep in touch. Never underestimate anybody. Help others whenever you can. You never know who will help you in your time of need.

Lana,
Thanks for sharing your story/ experience. It is an educator.
TK
Sidenote : I had kept contact of a collegue who left my office. My boss found one day that i had contacts with him (how he found that out is by itself a long story) and he threatened to fire me if i kept contacts with him. He thought that i was sharing office drawings with him. To that effect he has put a spyware in my computer. All this for $12.5 or so an hour.

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

If your employer is so controlling then you should really look for another job.
Your employer cannot tell you who you should keep in touch or not.

Spyware etc. I will not comment as I understand that is perfectly legal.

lana,
The first day he was like this.
The third day we had office lunch and i asked him what was the office policy was with regard to previous employees. I asked him, if i were to run into a previous employee at a shopping mall was i to talk to him or was i to run in the oppisite way. HE replied that (i am just telling what he told) it was not for him to decide to whom i should speak to or not outside the office but only not to this individual as he stole my employers drawings and ideas.
TK
Sidenote : This event occured just a day after i wrote my Canadian citizenship exam. The Canadian citizenship (as told in the book) entitles one to the charter of rights and freedoms but here i was insulted by my Italian employer. I was really feeling very down that day and was even planning to quit the job. But later when i thought what my wife would say if i quit the job i did not have the courage to do it. Also i was a consultant at that time. So in reality, the carter of rights and freedoms is not even worth the paper that it is printed upon (i say this being a Canadian Citizen)
Also if i quit my job (for this reason), would the Canadian govt. take care of me till i get a new job. I do not think so. But the fact is that i was feeling very very insulted

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.