I got laid off from my job about 2 months ago. I’ve started looking for a new one within the last month, posted my resume on Monster.com, and have had a couple interviews with agencies, although nothing concrete has come up yet. Today I got an email from a companythat says they will put together “an individualized plan that strategically promotes your assets in innovative, effective ways, and is systematically distributed to the right people at the right time.” Regarding costs, their web site says:
Now a part of me says that maybe it would work. Another part says it’s a sucker play designed to make me part with some of my unemployment check. What sayeth the SDMB? Has anyone heard of, or used, a similar service? Did it work? Was it a ripoff?
There’s nothing new about agencies, and there’s nothing new about agencies taking your money and not producing the goods. In this age of the omnipresent con artist, it’s easy to assume that these people will rip you off, and they probably will.
If you are curious and can afford the fee - and are prepared for the worst - go for it. (And you can report back and let us know whether it works or not.)
If you can’t afford it and are cynical, leave it alone.
I work in a specialised industry where even the legitimate industry agents can’t find jobs for us at times. I decided not to waste my money on an agent anymore and up until last year was ok finding jobs by myself. This year is a different story.
Option 1: We’ll take your resume and sit on it and do absolutely nothing unless a job comes in that might match it.
Option 2: We’ll meet with you and see how much juice we can extract.
Better to spend your money on networking and searching the sites of companies you might be interested in for openings and the names of people you might call to introduce yourself to.
The real danger of this service is not you spending money, it’s you thinking they’re going to help you and not going out on your own.
What kind of stuff do you do? It is just possible a Doper may know of an opening.
I was told as a general rule from my state’s job placement agency that one should never have to pay for a person or agency to search for a job for you. They are supposed to paid by the employers. I’d stay away.
Good advice, Voyager. I think for now I’ll keep with what I’m doing, which is pretty much what you’ve suggested. I have a reasonably good severance package, so at least so far I can wait until I find something good.
I do software, basically. My best jobs have been software project management and team leadership. I can also code in .net, C# and C++. I’ve done database design. Not especially esoteric. I also have 5 years of experience teaching English and Journalism. Bizarre as it may seem to some, I do not want to leave New Jersey.
One problem is, however, that I am almost 60 years old. I do my best to look younger, but it is a fact that any serious investigator will discover soon enough. The date on my college degree is a dead giveaway. A lot of employers, although they won’t admit to it, do not want to hire someone whom they believe will retire within the next couple of years. They are foolish, of course, but that’s the way it is.
Especially in software, you shouldn’t be expected to pay anything. I just got a contracting job through an agency. They charge the client megabucks for me and I get a check from the agency. I don’t know how much the client pays for my services but I still get a pretty good paycheck. Those are very common on the coasts. The client I work at has a ton of us from the same agency. They don’t do contract direct.
There are also headhunters. I got a job through one of those once. They usually charge the company 20% - 33% of your first year’s salary. Pretty steep but plenty of places do it. Again, you don’t pay anything.
Both of those types of companies have a big incentive to market you well.
Have you tried Dice.com? That has a load of contract jobs and my phone started ringing as sonn as I posted my profile.
Yes, that’s the way I thought it should work. Thanks for the confirmation. I thought I might just be missing something. Never heard of dice.com, but will try it ASAP.
I’ve had a few calls from agencies/headhunters. There are supposedly a few things in the works, but they may be just blowing smoke. I’m hoping for permanent placement as opposed to contract work, but I’m sure a time will come when I’ll take anything. That time has not yet arrived. If it does, I’ll probably take on some substitute teaching, for which I’m licensed, but I’m not sure my aching back will be able to withstand that. (One of the actual age-related disqualifiers!).
I’m an HR manager and I used to work in the staffing industry. Our client companies paid us fees to do the work for them to fill their positions. Job-seekers were never charged any fees; they got PAID to work at these companies.
Never pay anyone to do these things. Don’t pay some company to razz-up your resume, either. There are lots of places, including your local workforce commission, that will help registered job-seekers do this for free. There are tons of websites - Monster comes to mind - with excellent resume writing tips already posted on their sites for everyone to view.
Best of luck to you. Review the resume writing tips on these sites, post your resume on all the big ones and something is sure to come along.
Set up your job search agents on the major job-search websites so you can get daily e-mail notices of jobs that meet your criteria. Also, register at some reputable employment agencies - you can do this online - and you might get a job even more quickly that way; lots of big employment agencies do direct-hire placements and not just temp stuff.
Good luck. Let us know how your job search goes, and hang on to your $.
Monster seems to be full of those pay us to find you a job places. A few years ago when I posted mine I was getting 2 or 3 of those a week. Dice as mentioned above is a good site also.
I just found a nice job search site for people with security clearances. www.clearancejobs.com Even tho I have a minimum of 3 years left in the military it was interesting to see what was out there, and where.
The fee in question by the company that contacted me was (theoretically) for developing a “Customized ProMotion Campaign,” and for “career management” (whatever that is), not specifically for the placement itself. The company itself is located in Oklahoma City, and I am in New Jersey, so I don’t know what state’s laws would apply. The more I think about it and read the comments here, the more I am convinced that my original skepticism is warranted.
We were approached by one of these places when my husband was laid off as well. I wish I could remember their name, but it was a while back. They represented themselves as a headhunter, and scheduled an “interview” where they had him answer all kinds of questions about himself, the kind of job he wanted, and all that. Nothing looked out of the ordinary until the end when they gave him a bunch of pamphlets to read over, and scheduled a meeting with him that -I- was supposed to attend. That seemed fishy to me. I’ve never been asked at a job interview to come back with my spouse. So we did a little poking around of our own, and read all the material. Turns out, they don’t guarantee that they’ll be able to find you a job, and their services were very similar to the ones in the OP. A google search on the company at the time turned up about 50 some hits from bloggers who had lost anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 paying this company to basically not find them a job, and they make it extremely difficult to get out of any obligation to pay by the time they’ve got you hooked. Seems a little counterproductive to me, when one is unemployed.
MLS, my vote is “no way!”. Perhaps this company is legitimate, isn’t out to scam you, and has services that would be beneficial to you. Even if they are legit, it seems too high a risk for services you can get for free from your local employment department and online resources.
My brother told me of an agency in Canada which takes a fee from you initially. It will reimburse you in full either when you accept a job offer through them, or if within six months of your paying them, you do not receive any firm job offer through them.
Every good agency gets their fee from the employer, not the employee.
I wouldn’t pay them a cent, nor use their services. If they find me a job and the employer contracts with them and pays a fee, fine. Just don’t get me in the mix.
Speaking of which, I may or may not be unemployed in the next 2-3 weeks so I posted on Monster.com.
So far, it seems like every insurance company on earth has sent me an email to hawk their services - and I have nothing in my background to warrant their advances. I have no idea what the deal is, but nice to know if I am desperate, I can always sell insurance(?!?!).
Good luck on the search - I might be joining in the fun soon enough.
DMark, they may want to sell you insurance. When my husband was looking last time, someone from a financial service called and we thought it was for an interview. Turned out he wanted to make a pitch to my husband to roll his 401K over to this guy’s company when he left his current job.
Con artists have indirect ways of milking their victims. The ripoff talent agencies never charge directly, but steer you to their partner photographers who overcharge you for pictures. These guys seem kissin’ cousins to them.
While I don’t doubt that 401k scam for a minute, I have been getting calls from Farmer’s Insurance, State Farm Insurance and a bunch of others I have barely heard of and they all want me to “join our team” with benefits/vacations/401k’s and other goodies. They are even talking “advances” until commissions roll in, and of course they like to tout those success stories, “Bob made $180,000 his first year!”. Well, good for Bob…and I have a sneaking feeling it is Bob who is calling me to join his pyramid insurance staff.
