There was a wind turbine near me that was removed by local council order. It was one of those spiral tube looking ones and the person had put it up in their front yard on essentially a flag pole with guy wires.

The thing had a fair amount of slap in the pole which was kinda scary to watch. But the main thing was this thing screamed when its speed got up. Not sure what it was, whether it was the bearings, the motor or maybe the brakes but it started to sound like a jet turbine spinning up when it was going fast (and bloody hell did it spin fast!)

I used to drive past it on the way to and from work and could comfortably hear it over the car's engine and aircon with the windows closed.

I worked for 3 years in recruitment in the UK. I don't know Computer Futures personally, and all I will say is that I have seen vastly different levels of skill, capability and ethics in recruiters inside the same company. It is a very difficult thing to manage.

Some of the things you have mentioned there are illegal (advertising a role without one for example). Some of the things are pointless. Why do I want to see the CV of someone I cant place? Why send someone on interview when the salary is 20% + out? It wastes everyone's time, including the recruiter.

Then why does anyone specialise in high salary areas? Why aren't we all just placing unskilled labour? I have addressed this elsewhere but simply put, in the highly skilled area, you do not place the raw number of people to make this work and negotiating salaries is easier and takes very little time. Compared to getting someone a job the negotiation part is less that 1% in time.

And believe me I wish this wasn't true. I actually like what I do and I think I provide an important service for people. But I am always battling against the actions of others.

With regards to the impediment to the hiring manager though. I would disagree with that point. A good recruiter will have the contact details and relationships with people you won't even know. So they should be facilitating your contact.

As I have said before I have been operating in the same area for a long time. So I organise about 20% of my interviews without having a CV from a candidate. I do this because I have tracked the right person down, approached them and got them interested in a new role. The clients I speak to trust my judgement and will interview the person on my recommendation alone. This is where a good recruiter can open doors for you.

Yes and no. While it is true that the company is the person who pays the bills it is often the candidate that is more valuable to you. Your example of swapping Person B for Person A is often the opposite in high skilled industries. It tends to be Person A has to choose between Company A,B or C. So though I am technically being paid by the company it is the candidate that means I will earn money. I will be the one who has represented that person to all 3 companies. So which person is my client then?

Also the agent description you have described is illegal in Queensland (not in all states of Australia). I completely understand your definition but operating as an agent like that here is prohibited by law because there were lots of scummy companies that charged people to find them a job then did nothing.

The engineering space saw the same thing as well. I actually felt sorry for one guy who made the mistake of uploading his CV to a job board and his skillsets made him incredibly rare. He basically got a new phone number. But most of those recruiters have flamed out. It was a time when recruitment was relatively easy, the market is much more difficult these days.

Not so far. Though there are some areas where the line seems to blur such as ITC (Intelligent Traffic Control) and instrumentation design for plants. But I specialise on the physical side so the closest I come to those are the mechanical engineers and electrical engineers doing piping design or HV/LV transmission design. I don't really ever cover the next step along so it is out of my experience window.

I was trying to give an example. I know absolutely nothing about the film and sound industry, I was basing that off your previous comment. If you wanted to talk about civil infrastructure, drainage, pump stations and land development then I know the industry.

Recruiters don't just work in IT. No idea why you would be getting calls like that if you aren't in the IT industry. That seems really really odd to me.

But I am also sure that there will be recruiters that work in film and some of them will specialise in sound. I was working on the premise that you were getting a call to talk about your line, not something totally random. Hence not understanding why you would yell at them.

I would hope that if you got a call along the lines of "Hello iluvcapra, My name is Harlequin80 and I specialise in the recruitment of sound specialists in the TV and film industry. Have I got you at a time you could talk? The reason for my call is your name was given to me by, (someone you actually know who has given me your name), or I came across your background on LinkedIn and your experience appears to match what I have been asked to find." You would at least be polite in telling me you weren't interested.

It's one of the reasons I didn't stay in IT recruitment. It is almost impossible to judge the skills of a candidate.

At least in engineering, if you were a Structural Engineer on the Gateway upgrade I know that you have at least some skills. And what's more I know the manager on that job so I can ask them what they thought of you.

I guess it is more of an art than a science.

Couple of generic points (and these are guides rather than set in stone)
* Good people work with good people.
* Good people tend not to boast
* Good people are willing to say they can't do something or that it would be a challenge for them
* Good people are specific in what they want
* Good people tend to have longer stints in each company

On top of that I have been in the civil engineering space for a long time. And while I couldn't design or build a bridge I can hold a conversation about what is involved in doing it. So when someone is talking to me I can get a feel for if I am being spun a line or not.

Finally, after 10 years in the same market I am close friends with a number of the managers in the consultancies and have long working relationships with many more. One of them will know you or of you.

I normally don't post about work on here so try to keep it separate - send an email to harlequin80@mailinator.com and I will email you directly with my contact details.

Except that finding the person the job is by far the biggest part of the work load. To put it into perspective for you I will, on average, place 1 person a week. And, believe it or not, that puts me in the top %s of recruiters for specialised skill sets.

To place 1 person I need to organise 5 interviews between a company and a candidate so I am pretty much organising an interview a day and to do that I am on call 7 days a week and usually work about a 60 hour week. I am often talking to people at 8pm on a friday night, or taking a reference at 2am because that is the international time difference.

So when I do have a job offer for someone it is worth me taking the time to negotiate the best possible outcome. What's more is that the negotiation process takes very little time or effort. I may have to invest 30 minutes of telephone time across a week. I lose more time making coffees.

There is no risk because I have never ever lost a placement through asking for more money during the negotiation phase. This is one of the biggest advantages of using an agent. I have no emotional involvement. I won't get insulted by an offer and say something stupid. Don't forget I don't get to accept the role on your behalf. I advise a company and I advise you. You are the one making the final decision. I can tell you whether I think you are pushing too far. And I can tell the client whether I think they are trying to go too low.

In reverse order:

3. Not in IT, Not in the states. I have no idea what any of those clauses or things mean other than the bitching I head about H1B visas on here.

2. I don't believe I ever mentioned salary or pay levels. These are important factors but fall far down the list. I believe I said I spend all day talking to candidates finding out what their ideal job looks like and where they want to go in the careers.

1. Completely disagree. Any service is an operating expense, some things though are cheaper to do internally and some are cheaper to do externally. Recruitment costs are a cost of doing business. Same as lawyer, accountancy or other sub-consultancy costs. Believing you are astute and thinking that recruitment costs means you are paid less actually points to you being naive. Companies pay recruitment costs because it is CHEAPER than doing the recruitment themselves. Otherwise why would they use a recruitment company. This means that a recruitment spend frees up capital that could be used somewhere else. Maybe it will be used to pay you more money, maybe it will be used for something else that the company determines is more valuable.

I agree with most of what you have said. The total cost factor can come in to it when looking at who is the most expensive contractor but I have agreement with my clients that sees the transfer fee reduce over time. So after a while my contractors shift across to direct contracts. This tends to be the norm here in Australia but was not the process in the UK. I don't know about the US.

The other comments you have put tends to be the actions of less experienced agents. I don't advertise at all. I lose more time to calls from people applying for jobs then it generates for me as an income. Also the name dropping like that is very very dangerous. LinkedIn is quite often out of date and calling up and saying I see Hax4Bux has just left when you moved 6 months ago is a fast track to being blown out.

Most of my contractors have been long term with me. I've even been to a few of their weddings. But I am an old dog in this industry at nearly 15 years.