Recommendations for good employment agencies? Have any tales to tell about bad employment agencies?

After reading the thread about the Undutchables, I think it would be valuable for expats to share their experiences with job agencies in the Netherlands. And after working at a multinational in the Netherlands, I am again searching for a job and have dealt with several agencies myself and can give recommendations as well as warnings.

Indeed, some recruiters at agencies appear to be more interested in filling their databases with CV's to show to clients they are hoping to attract than in finding a job for applicants. I have run across the following behaviors from recruiting firms:

1. They troll Monsterboard and other CV banks for CV's/resumes and call claiming to have open jobs; the job does not exist, evidently. They proceed to waste time with interviewing and collecting my data.

2. They call claiming to have a position and request that I send them references from previous jobs in the Netherlands. A clear attempt to get contacts at these companies for their own end.

3. They advertise positions that are already being listed by company recruitment websites.

4. They advertise positions that are already filled or do not exist to lure job seekers and fill up their databanks.

Of the behaviors listed above, one agency seems to be a serial offender - Huxley Associates. They specialize in IT placements, but advertise on various job banks seeking "Legal, Jurist" and other buzzwords. They troll Monsterboard, TotalJobs, Careerjet and other vacaturebanks for CV's and call applicants requesting references. Don't give them any!! References should only be given in the final stages of the interview process, once you have already met with an agency's client a few times. References are the last step before hiring, not the first. This agency is only trying to get an "in" with various companies and HR departments.

I realize that recruiters have a tough job finding and keeping clients, but alternatively, job hunters need to protect their own interests. Remember, your CV is a wealth of information for recruiters. It also indicates that there is a position open with your last employer! If you get the feeling that you are being approached for a position which doesn't exist, politely inquire who the client is and say that you won't give permission for your CV to be introduced to the client without knowledge of who the client is. This will also help prevent a recruiter shopping your CV to a company where you already have an application open.

Don't tell recruiters where else you are interviewing unless they plan on sending the company your CV. Never tell them about your current interviewing activity up front. They may tell you it is helpful to give a list of your current application activity so they don't send your CV to a company you have already applied to, but tell them to contact you before they send a CV out and you will let them know if you have already had contact with the company. It is better to keep them in the dark. Otherwise, the agency will become your competitor for these jobs. They can always decide that they have a more suitable candidate than you in their databank!

As for good agencies, I can recommend Secretaries by Adams. They had a real job on offer, they were professional and listened to my concerns. In the end, I didn't take the position, but it had nothing to do with the agency. I would highly recommend them.

Anybody else have experiences to share? Has anyone dealt with Michael Page International? Other recruiters? I'm curious. Please dish!!!

C'mon people. I know you have some experiences to share...

Why what's in it for us? You are clearly trolling in your own way.

Good point about the trolling, but I wasn't really fishing for recommendations. My line of work is pretty specialized, so I don't think I'm facing competition from other expats. My competitors are Dutch, unless there are many other people out there with my background, which is pretty doubtful. But I digress, the point of this thread is to share information about which recruitment agencies are good and bad. I'm mainly interested in hearing about which firms are a complete waste of time. If you don't feel like sharing, no problem.

Well I do share but I don't think anyone needs to be prompted like it is some kind of expectation or oblgation on our part.
If your line of work is so specialized then that belies your desire to start the new thread.

Even the average recruitment agency recruits in specialty areas these days and tends to advertise interesting positions. Whether or not these positions actually exist is another matter. Nevertheless, I have been approached by many recruiters simply by placing my CV on Monsterboard, and the experience has been a real eye-opener. Recruiters are branching out into other areas as they desperately try to compete with new tools employed by HR departments such as Monsterboard and company HR sites. An agency specialized in secretarial placement won't hesitate to recruit for an executive position with a potential client.

Why did I start the thread? After I read the thread on the Undutchables and noticed that other employment agencies were mentioned, I thought a general thread about other agencies might be useful. As evidenced by the Undutchables thread, many readers have had interesting experiences with recruiters, and also want to know more about certain agencies. For me, it seems like a good place to vent. Again, if you don't want to share your experiences, then don't - feel free to skip the thread and stop trying to analyze my motivation for starting it.

Doth protest too much

Whatever. I've given up on recruiters, I am having more luck approaching companies directly.

Michael Page in Amsterdam, in my experience, was completely useless.

hello,
yes i do have an experience to share.For the first five years in the Netherlands i worked for an Irish "uitzendbureau",based in Ireland with an "office" here in Den Haag.I worked for a large gardening company based in the Westland region of Zuid Holland.For those five years "we" received no holiday or sick pay,were 'advised" not too register that we lived and worked here,'we" were supplied with accommodation and a car to get us to work and back.
This "uitzendbureau" closed in june 2005,i was transferred to another Irish "uitzendbureau" to work in construction,this i did,with regular periods of unemployment due to work shortages.They too supplied accommodation and transport to work and back.i also noticed that my salary was less than my previous employer.Since returning from a short holiday in january i can make no contact with the management of this "uitzendbureau" to try and find more work.
For the last four months i have unsuccessfully tried to make contact to try and find out what is happenning.
One or two points i will add at this stage is that the "uitzendbureau" are still paying my rent and accommodation costs to the owner of the appartment where i live.The owner of the appartment where i live also works for this "uitzenbureau" but cannot or will not give any clue as to my situation only commenting that the management must be busy,despite being in regular contact with them.

As for my experiences with Dutch uitzendbureaus,some are a compllete waste of time and energy.Regularly advertising jobs that do not exist or i am not suitable for the vacancy.One particular uitzendbureau is EUO bv.As they were advertising vacancies for gardeners,i thought i stood a good chance of getting a job and getting myself out of bad situation but to no avail.i waited for over an hour for somebody to answer the dor only to be told by someone else in the office block that nobody was there,i tried to phone,only getting the answerphone service and when i left a message,no call back.

so if anybody has any further comments or advice i look forward to reading them and if anybody wants to offer or knows anybody that can give me a job,please contact me.

i wud say MP in NL in general sucks....my exp with MP has been the worst....others that also suck are en-people, huxley, independent recruiters....

Huxley were the jokers that called me requesting references without even pretending to have a position available. Absolute crap. They specialize in IT, which is not my field, but they advertise extensively on Monsterboard, using buzzwords such as 'Legal Counsel,' 'Lawyer,' and 'Jurist.' They're just fishing for management contacts at companies so they can peddle their other services.

Michael Page is also worthless, however, their temp administrative subsidiay Page Personnel found me work a few years back at ABN-Amro when I was a student doing admin work. The pay was good. They seemed fairly above board in their dealings.

For Management Assistant/Secretarial positions, I have had excellent luck with Secretary Plus in Amsterdam. They placed me in long-term temp work a few times with really great companies. I would highly recommend them, they are very professional and seem to actually recruit for the positions they advertise. Also, they have excellent contacts and pay well.

Its a little weird that they are still paying for accommodations isn't it??
But while working, it is obviously a good deal to get it paid for

i agree it is a little weird,especially in view that our appartment was served with an eviction order just before christmas for "overtredens van woning wet" by Gemeente Den Haag.the eviction order was "side-stepped" by my flatmate buying the property.Or rather i think it was "side-stepped",there is a dark cloud over my accommodation and said flatmate has become silent in what is actually going on.
If i go to the stadhuis and enquire then i fear this will open up such a can of worms in respect of the Woningwet and tax office.anyway the sun is shining as i continue my search for work.

I've found Robert Half to be the least offensive of the bunch, with Independent Recruiters being by far the worst. I got a few emails from Huxley where they forgot to type my name in the salutation so it read "Dear ," and then went into their sales pitch about some job. Which leads me to a question: How do these firms make a profit? They are staffed with an army of operators/sales pitch teams and consultants. There are so many firms that I can't imagine any of them making enough money to stay in business. When I have been in their offices for initial interviews I'm always the only one there!

just to give you an idea as to how they make money to stay in the business....
lets say huxley gets you a contract for X euros per hour.....they charge the client Y euros per hour wherein almost in all the cases the Y > X+20 euros
so basically you are working to get them paid 20 eruos per hour.....now thats not where they stop....

after this they process your pay....wherein they make hefty deductions citing employer costs and employee costs from your salary.....which is normally to the tune of 1200 euros per month.....

a close friend of mine who got a contract from huxley came to know of this only after he signed the contract....ad got his first salary

well Id have an exit strategy. The way it sounds to me they could ask for that money back

thats exactly how it works, and it pisses me off everytime I think about it. So I usually push it away so I don't face it day to day.
Robert Half doesn't give me the time of day
Michael Page, I know the guy who founded the NL division and he is slimmy scum. And he trains his subordinates to be just as slimmy.

With decent recruiter the pay division will be about 60/40, with you netting 40% of the total charged to the client and further deductions made for their administrative services to you. I learned this from an interim placement firm that offered me the choice to go freelance, where I would charge a high hourly but have to do my own deductions and salary admin. I was told I could earn 10K p/m net if I did my own administration, and 4K p/m if the agency handled all the administration. I was thankful for the recruiter's honesty. She is just starting out and I hope she can stay in business. She'll need a lot of interimmers who don't want to do their own admin if she wants to do well.

Anyways, if my cut for freelancing was going to be 10K, you can imagine what the client was actually paying in total. I guess that's why these businesses are growing like weeds, there is a lot of money to be made if a client takes on a candidate. On the other hand, there are several of these businesses going bankrupt. Just read the bankruptcy notices in the papers, recruitment agencies tend to show up a lot.

And here I thought they just received a "finders fee" from the company once an employee was hired. Does all those admin fees apply to permanent placement as well?

naah thats just the story about contractual jobs.....for permanent positions i guess only finders fee, like you mentioned is charged.

when looking for a job, i almost always go thruogh the companys directly and I've taken 2 jobs through monsterboard. I work in IT. Ive' also been for some interviews through Huxley although they did not ultimately work out. Another point is, even if the ad is in Dutch, if it interests me, I will call the contact person on the ad and ask if they have considered taking on a non-Dutch speaker. My Dutch is not very good, although I can get by in regular conversation and I have no problem reading it at all. I was surprised at how many companies, when directly approached, will consider you (and I've actually been hired that way too).

I'm also involved in IT recrutiment at my company. I refuse to work with Michael Page or Computer Futures any more (although Computer Futures has found us a couple of good people in the past). Now, I mainly use Huxley and Progressive. Yes, Huxley are a pain to work for, however they do find good people very quickly.

Standard for contractors seems to be that the recruitment company takes about 20-35 euros per hour off the top of the hourly rate. their contractors can negotiate this - not in how many euros it is but rather how much they earn. if, for example, you are ofered a conttracting job through an agency and they offer you 70 euros an hour, you can ask for 75 or 80 and, if the client refuses to up the rate, then the agency will usually take a cut to keep the project going.

we use the same two companies, mainly, for permanent positions too. in that case, they tend to get a flat finders fee of a set percentage of the employees yearly income. It's hefty, but the relationship is then over.

Permanent and contractors tend to come with a guarantee to the companies so that if they leave within, usually 3 months, the recruiter will replace them free of charge for permanents and within 30 days for contractors.

I dont' have too much knowledge of low-skilled work recrutiment. However, I've had friends here in NL who have struggled to find work (mostly due to language) and they always managed to get something through the CWI (cnetre for work and income) - a government body a bit like the british job centre (but it's more than that) - nothing exciting, things like stocking shelves, loading trucks etc, but still, it's work.

thanks for the comments,it is interesting to learn that it is not only the "low skilled" employment market is not free of dubious recruitment practices.
by the way i do not class anybody as a low-skilled worker.some of us in the low-skilled sector had to attend university and spend years gaining experience to achieve our "low-skilled" jobs.in one of my previous employment positions as conservation habitat manager,my partner actually had a higher salary by working in the local supermarket,despite holding a Phd in marine biology.she was astounded at the "classification" and "snobbery" of some of the customers that automatically assumed that she was "low skilled" and "low intelligence".this is not a personal critiscism,but a little reminder not to judge books by their covers.
once again i find it interesting to read other peoples experiences during their stay in the Netherlands.
a piece of friendly advice if you need more practice with speaking dutch,whatever you are at the best way or getting better is try and use it all the time.once some of my colleagues realised i wanted to learn,they were really helpful and now after 8 years here i use it all the time and still make mistakes,but learn from them.
be happy

No. Those admin fees are only levied if you work temp or interim for an agency, they charge these fees for taking care of payroll administration whereby they deduct the appropriate taxes and further charge a fee for this service. This all is figured into the temp or interim employees rate, that is, the rate they tell you that you will be paid.

A flat finders fee is charged to companies by recruiters when they place a permanent employee. It is usually a percentage of the first year salary.

sorry, wasn't trying to upset anyone with my comments. one of my friends who ended up in a 'low-skilled' job has an engineering degree, others have had other degrees. low-skilled work is not necessarily held by people with low-skills. mostly they had problems due to dutch language skills (such as a friend who ended up stocking shelves at gall and gall who had an economics degree and was a top rated sales rep in his home country, but couldn't get many sales rep jobs with his limited dutch'.

In the line of work I am in, my competitors are always 1) Dutch and 2) Male. Sometimes I wish I am a man.

I've had my own fair share of recruitment agencies in the past (years ago when I started here in NL), so learning from that experience, I carefuly pick specialized and serious agencies to send my CV to. With my current job, YER placed me. They actually called me for 2 positions as they have my old CV in their database. I took the job that offered more.

While I was busy with YER on these 2 positions, I uploaded my CV on Monsterboard, just to check my market value. The response was amazing as I received so many calls everyday! Many of the agencies/headhunters that called quickly asked for an interview or intake and I always ask them in return (some sort of QA) -- Do you have a job for me? If they say no, I politely declined, telling them I am only interested to proceed if they have a job to offer. The last thing you would want is wasting your time, and their time too. If they have a job for you, ask right away for the job and company profile to be sent to you by email. Until they have done this, do not entertain them further. Before committing to meet them, you first want to see if the job they have would fit to your skills and career ambition. Also ask if they are an exclusive recruiter for the job. With this you will know how serious of an agency/headhunter they are, which also translates to how high of a chance you get this job (if they are exclusive lesser competitors).

Only if you like the job and the company, and you think you would fit to the job profile, I would recommend consider meeting them. I would even try to get an appointment directly with the company through the agency/headhunter without meeting them. This saves you time (however with YER, they are quite strict as they screen candidates through the needle).

Hallelujah, sister! I've turned down a number of requests for interviews from recruiters in the past week after determining that they didn't actually have a job for me. Another few recruiters claimed to be "exclusive" recruiters for a client, but after requesting the job description I was able to guess the company and determine that they were recruiting publicly on their own. A company always prefers to go around an agency if possible.

An outside recruiter is only of added value to you if he or she can get your CV past HR and directly to the key decision maker. So many recruiters merely peddle CV's to HR departments and have no real relationships beyond the company hiring managers.

It's good to hear your comments about YER, I've been thinking of sending them my CV. It's good to know that they are professional in their approach.

Anyone heard of OrgTel? http://www.orgtel.com
They asked me to go to the netherlands on my own expenses to take some interviews there at some companies.
Should I bother or it's gonna be a waste of time and money?

I'm in Cyprus so it's not only a train ticket

you never know.....it depends on your need as well...
maybe you can ask orgtel to arrange some initial telephonic interviews rather than having face-to-face ones
also, if you decide to come over for interviews make sure the companies have a clear idea of wat they want and wat you offer.....mainly dutch language requirement....you might get extremely pissed off if they say in the end that knowledge of dutch language is primary condition

anyway, gud luck with the job search

so true the thing about the language
thanks for the advice i'll try to see if it's possible

Good advice Annkay! Also, I wouldn't go to interview without the agency/company reimbursing your plane or train ticket. If they really want you, they will pay.

Keep in mind that agencies may not even have the jobs they advertise, they may be one of many agencies trying to fill one position along with the HR department of the employer itself. I find that is usually the situation in the Netherlands.

I don't even bother going outside Amsterdam (my city) for an interview unless the interviewer will reimburse me for the transportation costs. After spending hundreds of Euros interviewing with agencies and getting no result, I got wise and demanded phone interviews or reimbursement of tickets. If an agency or company won't agree to one or both, they aren't worth your time. Especially if you are coming from Cyprus!

I don't think they are serious if you have to pay for travel and hotel etc. All the expenses should be pad even if you don't accept tyhe job.

Hello
Thanks for the info. I wish I had known it 5 months before, then I wouldn't have had so much frustration with some f'king job agencies here, and wasted that 5 months

Of the bad people I have contacted, I would like to mention these three people

- Scott Walker from Darwin Recruitment: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottwalkerdarwin
- Bart van Den Bosch & Dimitri van Mulligen from www.computerfutures.nl, you would probably see some other names from this tree http://www.computerfutures.com/mailer/comp...Family_Tree.pdf
- Michiel Vermeulen from JRecruit http://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvermeulen

(They are everywhere on www.monsterboard.nl and www.jobserver.com and www.itjobboard.nl

They post job vacancies, when I send them my CV with Cover letter, they don't reply my first, second and third emails. Scott Walker has also interviewed me for a "imaginary job" and promised to get back to me, but would never. During this interview, this Scott Walker has many information he need from my last job, my last salary....

The same tricks as everybody has told:
- All of them asked me where else I was applying for
- One of them told me to rely on them, and not to search for any other jobs, when he was asking for my CV. Then when I sent him my CV, he became silent suddenly regardless of my reminding emails.

Scott Walker, Bart van Den Bosch and Michiel Vermulen, YOU SUCK.

And a great thank to the initiator of this thread, without you I would waste more time with these f'king people, and even thinking on blaming myself of being so incompetent that no recruiter wants to go along with me.

(Please forward this thread to persons looking for IT jobs in the Netherlands, especially some English speakers)

oh....this guy is a total non professional and complete a******.....i once visited him for a job role...
i must say not only this guy sucks, his company is also equally bad....

after few interview sessions i learnt that i cannot just let go my precious time and hardearned money like that, so whenever, these guys tried fooling around i normally asked them to take me to their managers....and surprise surprise.....they are definitely the boss of the guys....complete jerks...

so now the best strategy is to ask as many questions as possible about the job role and client before even going for first interview....and do communicate by mails....thats the best tool you hv to straighten them up...if they deviate from wat they sent you previously...

gudluck everybody

So it's not only me being fucked by this Michiel Vermeulen.
I wonder why this guy can have so many good recommendations? Were them fake ?


http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfil...12717981111_out
---------
Recommendations For Michiel
Recruiter, search specialist

JRecruit

Top qualities: Great Results, Good Value, On Time May 18, 2008

Ramnath Sriperumbuduri
hired Michiel as a Recruiter in 2008

Top qualities: Great Results, Good Value, High Integrity May 14, 2008

Gilbert Soebhan
hired Michiel as a Recruiter in 2008

David Mooijaart, Interim crm en knowledge manager, TomTom
was with another company when working with Michiel at JRecruit

Zoran Bosnjakoski, Software Engineer, ITS Iskratel
was with another company when working with Michiel at JRecruit

Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Creative May 7, 2008

Jaroslaw Rozanski
hired Michiel as a Career Coach in 2008

Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, On Time May 7, 2008

Claudio Nanni
hired Michiel as a Recruiter in 2008
Coach voor Succes

Coach voor Succes

Patrick Goessens, Owner, Words4Inspiration
was with another company when working with Michiel at Coach voor Succes

Top qualities: Personable, High Integrity, Creative October 1, 2007

Martijn Van Breugel
hired Michiel as a Career Coach in 2007

Top qualities: Great Results, On Time, High Integrity August 28, 2007

Esther Vreede, de
hired Michiel as a Personal Trainer in 2007

Martin Blonk, Owner, MartinBlonk ICT Management & Consultancy
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder

Edwin Boiten, Owner, DOMEGO
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder

Fiona Cook, Owner, Cookcoaching
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder

Jozan Coenen, management assistant, UMC St Radboud Nijmegen
worked directly with Michiel at Helder

Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Creative February 8, 2007

Jeff Brugman
hired Michiel as a Personal Trainer in 2005

Victoria Shaw
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder

Janneke Keijsers
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder

Fred Wiersma
was with another company when working with Michiel at Helder
Owner

FraudConsultancy (Self-employed)

Michel Borgesius(06 292 390 60 ), Security Manager Telfort B.V/O2 Netherlands/KPN, Telfort B.V
worked with Michiel at FraudConsultancy

Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative June 27, 2007

Niels Boelhouwer
hired Michiel as a Business Consultant in 2006

Ivo Mekkelholt, Project Manager Revenue Assurance/ Internal Control, Telfort
worked with Michiel at FraudConsultancy

Top qualities: Expert, Good Value, High Integrity February 8, 2007

Rachid Koorn
hired Michiel as a consultant risk management in 2006

Hans Hiltermann, Owner, hans hiltermann photography
was with another company when working with Michiel at FraudConsultancy
-----------

I think it's easy to get friends to put a good recommendation on LinkedIn. Obviously, that is what the guy did.

I'm extremely suspicious of recruiters. I just landed a job, directly through a company. Recruiters can really waste a lot of time. They can work wonders for you if you have little or no experience in the job market where you are searching, but for the most part companies prefer to recruit on their own.

Im trying to find an IT job in the netherlands and have been contacted by many recruiting agencies. Have also applied for companies like BT and Sogeti. Nevertheless, they say that speaking dutch is a must for them. Is that true ?? or they really want to give some silly reason and get over it. also, has anybody dealt with this org YACHT.. they have an office in amsterdam WTC.. please respond...

Has anyone encountered a company called MainQuest run by an English guy called Nigel Eagles? A one-man band operating from a sub-let room in a film production company at the arse-end of PC Hoofstraat in Amsterdam. If his personal (and singularly over-bearing) hype were to be believed, he is the anointed business guru to ANY and EVERY international company dipping it's feet into the NL. In real terms, over the space of a year, all I got in feedback was ropey leads from suspect companies considering moving into the European marketplace and, on one occassion, a stomach-churning blow-by-blow (or ought that to be bowl-to-bowl?) run-down - no pun intended - of why a bout of diarrhea had hampered him returning my calls.

Misskitty, to paraphrase you, Recruiters can really BE a waste of a LOT of time!

I'm in no means an IT expert, however an English friend of mine is. He spent two years on the dole here after his previous employers folded. Why so long unemployed? Because he was in the six figured salary bracket and Dutch-based companies reckoned they could get fresh-faced inexperienced IT Dutch graduates for MUCH cheaper bucks/Euros. In the end, he did get a job that reflected his skills and experience, albeit in Brussel. Wonder how much headaches the cost-saving move to go for cheapness and inexperience caused to the companies that rejected him along the way?

Hello, I'm just wondering if anyone here has had any experience with the recruitment agency SMS Intermediair (Rotterdam)? I have an appointment with them next Tuesday so I thought I'd ask what I should expect.
Thanks

Just want to share with you one trick

Try to deal with employers directly. I did and I will be negotiating the salary next week.

Hint:
1./ Use google translation to translate some key words relating to your expertise from English to Dutch
2./ Use www.ilocal.nl to search for that Dutch keywords, with location close to your house (probably 50km--100km, upto you).

Then you will find a list of many companies working in your field.

That list is not exhaustive yet, but it is a much better search than Google.
Cheers

I have to completely agree with you there wageningen.

I am by no means a 'professional' nor 'highly educated', but I found a position within three weeks (only English required) simply by stalking Monsterboard religiously.

I also lodged my CV with several recruitment companies - the only ones I received responses from were Adams (within hours), Page Personnel (within 2 days) and Blue Lynx (requesting information about a day later). Both Adams and Page invited me for 'interviews to assess my experiences' etc (I didn't end up providing the additional information BlueLynx requested, but they did send me a second request when I hadn't supplied it), but in the end I attended neither, simply because I had already gotten interviews through companies directly by applying through Monsterboard. I explained to them both that I had an interview for a position I was very interested in and both replied saying if I wasn't successful to let them know and they would arrange an interview.

I lodged one application through Vitae in response to a position they had on their website. They called me to ask some further questions about my experience then gave me an interview date and time with a promise to email me the details. A week later (two days before the scheduled interview), they emailed me to say the position has been filled, and the interview was cancelled (fair enough). The next day I got an email confirming my interview (by this stage I wasn't interested in the position so put off reponding), only to get a phone call the following morning to confirm that my interview had been cancelled!! To be fair, it appears they very rarely have English speaking only jobs, but I really wasn't impressed by all the confirmations/cancellations!

One other agency got my CV from monsterboard, called me about a position they had, promised to email me and never did, not even to say I wasn't suitable for the position. Unfortunately I didn't manage to catch the name of the Agency.

I don't want to say Agencies don't have their place, but I definitely wouldn't want to sit back waiting for them to find me something - there are loads of recruitment websites out there, and even if they are in Dutch, if its an English speaking position with no Dutch required, the position will stand out in terms of the title being in English and the description being in English.

One word of warning about Monsterboard - every oppotunistic little recruitment outfit on earth trolls through it trying to muscle their way into the marketplace. Often they're agencies who are not on a 'preferred supplier' list with larger companies.

As far as NL is concerned, a lot of employers themselves are now bypassing the agencies (they too recognise cr4p when they see it) - in particular vacaturebank.nl is one site that they monitor. I'm getting a number of calls from direct employers who have seen me on vacaturebank ; I try not to deal with agencies any more.



For the IT crowd out there, watch out for R2 International. Supposedly based in London but they all have Indian accents (yet only white faces on their website), they ALWAYS ask for a CV (despite a colleague having been sent one that week already - no central database?) and the guys are all called Brian and the women are all called Sangita. Coincidence? Oh, and they seemingly can NEVER actually get as far as arranging an interview for you.

Oops, typo - should have been opportunistic.

(hate it when that happens!)

Hello

So what do you think about www.itaq.nl and Progressive ?

Thanks

I actually recalled yesterday evening an experience that a New Zealand female friend of mine had with the boss of one large agency here about 3 years ago. I'll not mention the name of the agency, but they are very aggressive in their advertising on-line and usually seem to be trying to recruit recruiters mainly(!) for themselves, whilst, seemingly, offering those with Computer skills no Futures at all.

Jo, who’s an attractive girl, got a call from this guy who had received her CV with her photo on it and the guy started saying he may have a few "positions" open for her, and would like to meet her. Jo was, obviously agreeable, until she found out that the intended "appointment" was to be held at 8 on a Thursday evening in a bar in Utrechtestraat, and not during conventional working hours in their Central Amsterdam offices!!!

Do you know why did she put the photo in her resume in a first place? I don't think that is recommended, unless job is for modelling or something where picture is required.

Same reason as I have. If you look at all the online job networking site, EVERYONE seems to be posting their photos, so what's the difference with a CV, especially if you're emailing them?

Application and CV 'protocols' change all the time. 25 years ago, in Scotland you always/only ever sent a hand written application to accompany your typed CV. Now, apparently, in Holland anyway, hand written letters of application will probably be binned.

Are there really any perceived and agreed wrongs and rights?

Hand written is actually a good idea. It means you put more effort and you are advertising your nice writing. With my job photo has no significance. Most experinced people have grey hair and a few extra pounds.

Hello

Talking into this, I wonder how I can put my CV on a website like www.nationalevacaturebank.nl ?

Which things should I remove:
- Picture
- Real names and emails
- Current company name ?
- Past company name ?

I ask so since I'm fed up with some f'king Recruiters here, including ones from ComputerNoFutureSolution, J-f'king-recruit. I don't want them to harm my current work.

Thanks