UK Specialist Perspective

Imagine that a person will come to you for an interview in an hour, and you don’t even know if a man or woman is and how old he or she is?

Employment in the UK is fundamentally different from Russian and East European and anonymous until a certain point.

That's because there are agents whose work resembles the agents of writers, artists and actors. I have never been inside the agent process, but have been on both sides of the job and sometimes drink with a familiar agent.

What does it look like if you are looking for work?


Two types of employment are widespread - permanent work (permanent) and contractual freelancer (contract). In any case, you have to face the agencies. Agents who could be hired to search for a job for you. No one wants to take up this work, besides the cost of the services of such an agent is beyond the means of an ordinary specialist.

Specialists are looking for vacancies themselves. Jobs look extremely stereotyped and contain a minimum of information. It is often difficult to even understand what exactly you have to do.

Ad Example


C # developer, London, £ 400 per day

I am looking for a C # developer on a contract basis for my web development client. You will work on a number of future products to improve their existing systems and sites, as well as new solutions as they become available. Requirements:

- Extensive development experience in C #
- Good understanding of OO design and development
- ASP.net MVC (2 or 3 are desirable)
- DevExpress is desirable
- nHibernate
- Subversion
- Javascript or JQuery

This is a 6 month contract in central London. £ 350-400 per day. If you are looking for work and are ready to start soon, please send your contacts _ agent_name_ to _ agency_name_.

The original of

such announcements is the overwhelming majority. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from another. If you call the agent, he will most likely issue a 10-minute dialogue about the company, from which it will be impossible to learn anything useful.

I specifically left an error that is present in the original. "Javascript or JQuery" - this clearly demonstrates that the agent does not understand a damn thing in the field in which he works. And there is. Agents are not specialists, very often they don't even speak English very well. Therefore, it is important that during the contact you exactly match the list of requirements. Same thing in the resume. Exact match is required. Something is called wrong or just a typo and the chopper will have a banquet.

What you should pay attention to


  • Salary is the main criterion. On these wonderful islands she speaks better than anything about what level a specialist is looking for. An ad may abstractly say that a talented C ++ architect is being sought, but £ 20k ​​a year will say that a graduate who is able to do something in C ++ is being sought.
  • List of requirements - it would be good to understand everything. If 1-2 practical knowledge is not enough, but there is an idea of ​​what it is, you can lie and learn before you start.
  • Place of work - London is very large, and England is even larger. Trains run frequently and on a schedule, you can ride a bicycle comfortably all year round, but still it’s worthwhile to evaluate your travel time soundly.


First contact


Usually sending a resume or call. It is better to write a resume without prettiness, as many use automatic scanning systems. If the resume came up, the agent will call within 48 hours. They never called foreign numbers in my practice, but uraven was lucky enough to talk to them while in Ukraine * . It is also good to have an insurance number and a bank account. Their presence is proof of legal stay in the country.

After the first contact, the agent will disappear for a couple of days or forever. If the applicant was deemed worthy, then the agent will go out of his way these days to arrange an interview. Further, depending on the company, a specialist may be offered to complete a task or test. More often on the site, less often invited to the office. There is no point in cheating, as the results and decisions will be discussed in detail at the next interview.

Job interview


The first interview is the most important. During it, the specialist meets or speaks on the phone with future colleagues or his potential direct boss. Usually technical issues are raised and this is the first moment when you can find out what the company is, what it is called (until this moment it is hiding!) And what needs to be worked on.

An interesting fact is that the employer up to this point only knows about the specialist that he is suitable according to the agent and sees the results of the test / task. During the interview, personal contacts cannot be exchanged.

All conspiracy due to agent commission. A year ago, my friend went to the same company twice in three days. To the same position!

Mandatory call


It is very important to call the agent after the visit. This demonstrates interest and the opportunity to express an opinion on the interview. If something went wrong and the specialist confused or did not know something, during the call you can assure the agent that these gaps will be filled.

Also with this call you need to abandon the post. Unfortunately, agents often praise companies and lie about them to attract more specialists.

Some companies invite 2-3 times for interviews, which are not much different from each other. For example, during the first interview, someone from the development team was sick or worked from home, but all must be approved for employment. This is a bad tone and a flaw in planning, but some neglect them and torment applicants.

Sentence


If the specialist likes the position and the employer is interested in it, then an offer is made to the agent. The agent passes it to the applicant. It usually sounds short and informative: "£ 80k per year, 28 days of paid leave, bonuses, medical insurance, pension and train travel available." Verbal consent is legally binding, so if you suspect that a proposal will soon be better, you should ask a couple of days for thought. Bargaining is appropriate, but rarely brings results. You can refuse health insurance in favor of some increase in cash income.

Why is everything so


I am often asked this question. I don’t know the answer, but I think that this is due to the shortage of developers and the fact that the agent’s time is cheaper by a couple of times the time of the technical staff.

Two reservations.
  • Google is present on the labor market and similar ones (in size) with their own agents who do not hide information and know the field of activity well.
  • An agent who has successfully found a specialist for a permanent job receives about 10% - 20% of the annual salary of a specialist in the form of a commission.

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