Muddyfunkster: A Word to the Unwise

Recruitment Consultancy is a cut throat business, one which I’ve never been overly impressed with. They make money being the middle men, you do the work, you have experience yet they get a little chunk of your earnings (or a lump sum) just for taking a handle full of people from a list and matching them to a job. Some would say parasite, other would say necessary evil.

Either way, I submitted my CV to a couple of websites yesterday and was immediately inundated with calls. Altogether 7 agencies called (many of them calling repeatedly throughout the day for more details). This was great, the market is more than alive in Edinburgh. However, this all turned sour today when I learned that I’d been put in for the same job by 2 agencies. This may have been my fault, so many jobs and agencies were being banded about and they rarely told me what company the job was in so how was I to know? So I told one of them thank, but no thanks. At this point it all turned ugly, the consultant could see his commission slipping away and used every tactic and coercion he could think of – but when I stood firm he turned ugly. I doubt I’ll be getting a job from them in the future.

All of this frantic behavior is well and good, but there is one role I specifically want. It’s in a large company who don’t move quickly, so what happens if I’m offered a contracting role before they have decided I should join their band of merry coders? What if I turn down £200 a day contracts and the large company in question turn me down? Suddenly redundancy isn’t the problem, it’s choice that’s keeping me awake at night now. That said, I've seen this before - it's all go for about 2 weeks and then, suddenly, noone calls with any jobs. I hate making decisions.