Agencies Conning Contractors
Agencies conning contractors use some very underhand techniques. So, it is imperative that contractors are aware of the stunts that IT agencies pull, or they could really lose out.
Reference Spamming
This one is much beloved of IT agencies. It’s where they call you up saying that they have a job or contract for you but they need to take some references first before they can send off your CV to the client.
The reason that they are doing this is to simply find out the names of IT clients that they can contact in order to be able to place contractors or permies of their own.
Replacing You at Renewal Time
Once they know who your boss is at your current place, either by getting you to croak, or because they knew it already, they may then ask you when your contract is up.
They say that they are updating their database so that they can find you work for when your contract is up.
Garbage!
What they want to do is to replace you. They now have two vital pieces of information, i.e. who your boss is, and when you are up for a possible renewal. Round about renewal time they will contact your boss with several very good candidates that they hope to replace you with.
The more devious of them will actually slag you off to your boss, perhaps telling him that you have contacted them about work elsewhere or by saying that you left previous clients in the lurch.
Contracts Put Forward To
Another real filthy trick that they use is to ask you which companies other agencie put forward you to. They say that it will spoil your chances if they put you forward to those companies again.
It won’t.
Clients will simply pick the first one. I’ve been an IT client in those situations.
It’s irrelevant anyway. They are not interested in getting you a job or contract.
They don’t have any. Many agencies have lead generation departments whose sole aim is to generate those leads by getting contractors to croak.
These guys don’t work in sales and don’t have any clients – they just find them for those who do.
The aim is to find out from you which companies are looking for contractors. Once you tell them that, they will then put up candidates as rivals to you.
The more devious of them (and that includes quite a lot of them) will also slag you off to the client to try and destroy your chances of passing the interview, in favour of their candidates(s).
UK Contractors Comment
These are some very nasty tricks that are used when we find agencies conning contractors.
Contractors should be aware that we have agencies conning contractors using these tricks.
Being forewarned is to be forarmed.
Don’t fall for any of these tricks or it could cost you.
Check out Handling Agencies – Ten Golden Rules for Doing It
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