“The recruiting industry has many problems, is full of sharks, & so on, but it does not operate like that, or it would not exist.
“

That’s an understatement, if ever there was one! Unfortunately, they do exist and will continue to flourish so long as suckers will be happy with what they are given and not with what they actually want.

One way of driving a few of the sharks, shonks and posers out of the industry would be to say to them “I want to see EVERY candidate, not just the ones you want to dump on me”. It’s your money; you’re entitled to get value for it.

“Working Nation was implemented through a series of employment assistance programs. They were of three types:

paid employment experience programs;
training and personal support programs;
programs that combined employment experience and training.”

I remember at the time some dodgy businesses absolutely rorted the system – taking on trainees then ditching them and signing up new ones – basically subsidising their labour costs – but many more didn’t and this could have been fixed with proper oversight.

The first paper looks at the programs from an overall program design/ social/employment perspective and the second attempts to
“evaluate its success using simple econometric methods on macroeconomic data” from the ANU Public Policy Program, for those who are interested in this topic.

http://209.85.173.104/searchq=cache:AsiokB79q6gJ:www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/nspc2001/papers/Paper108.doc+%22working+nation%22+data+AUSTRALIA&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20

http://dspace.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/41755/2/RajaDP54_PPP.pdf

You would hope that with every other review going on in Canberra, that a proper review of Labor’s last great employment and training initiative is being undertaken. The program wasn’t coercive IIRC.

What you describe is more like the job network.
The recruiting industry has many problems, is full of sharks, & so on, but it does not operate like that, or it would not exist.
Only the job network firms could even afford to operate as you describe.

The recruiting industry recieves 100% of their income from satisfied employers.

They always try little tricks like that, thankfully you didn’t give them the name of the joint you work for. I’m surprised they didn’t threaten you with a breach, as pointless as it would’ve been. That’s standard procedure for anyone that knows some of their tactics or displays an ounce of free thought. At least you got some money from the experience.

Lionel Elmore (I think) had a piece in yesterday’s Crikey about the unemployed missing out on the goodies and some of the things they have to go through like ‘Workplace Providers’ and Work For The Dole.

It’s when you get to WFTD you realise they’re taking the piss. WFTD is considered employment in that you are then removed from the jobless figures yet are only paid the dole plus a small extra payment. I can remember when we used to have a minimum wage in this country.

“There are private firms who actually find staff for businesses (known as “recruiting firms”) and they do it well (or sink)”.

Really? There are the two problems: They screen out far too many excellent candidates on airy-fairy “criteria” and give the poor employer Hobson’s Choice of employing only their selected dills, drongos and duds …. and …. having failed to deliver really good employees, they DON”T sink!! The private employment firms, the international accountancy firms and every other pack of bludgers who have hopped on the “employment” gravy train are efficient at only two things: keeping potential employees away from potential employers – and – grabbing as much loot as they can.

They are unnecessary. They are expensive. They are horribly inefficient – despite all their gloss-&-glamour. They have hijacked most of the staffing aspect of running a business. We would be better off without these failed gatekeepers.

Without them, more workers would find jobs they want to do and more vacancies would be filled quickly by excellent workers. Without them, the overall cost to the taxpayers of unemployment benefits would drop like a stone. Without them, the fake “skills shortage” would vanish overnight. So let’s stop handing out corporate charity to these firms and let’s start putting vacancies and workers together for a change.
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Paul Burns [53]:

Times really have changed

The Recruitment agency will naturally put one of their own candidates forward or someone who comes from a more normal employment background.

Some would call this discrimination but in reality is commonsense so what should happen is the Government should go to the three Recruitment firms it uses and inter into some sort of arrangment.

Another problem in this country is our Educational facilities expect you too be employed before allowing you to enroll into most courses.

This whole system has helped create a skill shortage which really should not exist but this is something both sides of Politics should hang their heads for.

So true SATP. The other successful non-taxpayer funded network is word of mouth. More people are placed in jobs by this method than any other, I suspect. Job Networks then come in to try and claim the credit and the dosh.