If an employer invites a recruitment agent in to "help" with the process he's already mentally accepted the fees. Two candidates would need to be marginal to justify going with the "wrong" one to save 15% of salary.
Not even then. If they’re not the right candidate, they’re not the right candidate. And the cost of getting rid of someone can be astronomical.
By all means contact senior people speculatively, but don't pester them (unless you are looking for some sort of telesales role) as there is nothing pisses us off more than people like recruitment agents, who we have no actual relationship with, calling every quarter to see how things are going.
Agreed. I had a bloke who got it into his head that there had to be a role in our organization for him. I told him honestly that I couldn’t see it, but he persisted on the basis that business needs change and we might need him at some point. It took some direct talking to get him to realize that he was actively harming his chances by calling every couple of weeks.
“If you gave me the chance I'd be prepared to work for free for a month to show you what I can learn and how quickly I can get up to speed." If it doesn't work out after a month - you have that real experience you can sell elsewhere.
I’ve had this one put to me before, and I’ve never gone with it. If someone can’t convince me that they’re good enough to hire, then them doing it for free doesn’t help. It simply means they didn’t convince me when they had the opportunity. Depends on the role, of course – in a low-risk position my view might be different.
In general I'd rather employ someone who was working than someone who's been out of work for months. However, there were times in our "turbulent history" when we recruited but couldn't be sure the company/post would still be there in 6-12 months time - my moral backbone made me (and the other directors) more likely to take on someone who was out of work (and therefore wasn't sacrificing anything to work for us), along with an honest discussion to that effect. Not sure if its possible to target / hunt for companies which might be in that boat - even on a "temporary contract" basis? Again all about building experience and credibility.
Again, this rings true to my own experience. It’s not so much the out of work issue if there’s a really good reason for it (company closed etc), more that the person’s not going to have relevant experience and will be getting rusty. What I’ve seen as useful is someone demonstrating their ability to keep up to date and to talk knowledgably about the company/industry/relevant market trends. When I was looking for the next role 2 years ago I was getting nowhere with permanent roles, so ended up doing a couple of interim contracts, and adding to my skills base through doing work centred more around change management. Pretty much as soon as I started working as an interim I picked up interviews for permanent roles.
Good luck to all those out there looking; having been through it myself I know just how grim it is. Unfortunately, now that I'm back in the position of recruiting, it's just as hard as ever it was to get good candidates.
Someone who's well-prepared and enthusiastic, unfazed by interview questions, who can talk about the application of their experience rather than just what's on their CV (I've read it, that's what got you through the door), and is able to articulate why you should want to employ them will stand out from the pack and, eventually, will land a role. Those who expect their CV to land them the role may well be looking for a very long time.