I know what you mean. I job searched from my junior year in high school to the end of my first semester in college. I was applying at places that would hire students like supermarkets, restaurants, coffee shops, fastfood places, mall shops, convenience stores, anything. It got to the point employers in my area got tired of hearing and seeing me. Then I had to take a job at a retail store 45 minutes north of where I lived. I garantee everyone, no other employer would treat me as good as my employer. After the experience I had job searching, I was disgusted that some employers would treat job applicants so distrespectfully.

My experience goes to show everyone, there's never enough jobs. I was job searching before the economy went down, and everyone had "help wanted" signs up. But then I once read an article written by a career councilor that there's scams, lies, and tricks, behind "help wanted" signs. After my experience, I believe that. It doesnt matter who you are, when it comes to job searching. I have volunteer work experience, and been in clubs all my life.

I know what you mean.

They use agencies as the agency checks their right to work in the uk, checks up on references, does interviews to weed out the total numpties.. or thats what they should do,

However they charge ridiculous prices one agency wanted (10%) of annual salary for a pot washer (£1200).. I think not.

They advertise jobs with misleading salaries. If its minimum wage to start, £6.00 after 12 weeks probation, £7 after 2 years service, then they advertise £7 an hour dependent on experience, its just wasting everybodys time as they send people for an interview for a bar maid wanting more money than the assistant manager gets!

Hi James,

Good recruiters are really useful for both companies and job seekers. The problem is that, as you are experiencing there are a lot of recruiters out there who don't really add value to the vacancy filling process and are just in it to make a quick buck.

Your best bet is to try and apply for jobs that are posted directly by real companies. If you can find out the name and telephone number/email address of someone who deals with vacancies at a company then you know you are dealing direct and the chances of your time being wasted are a lot less.

Try doing a web search for "No Agencies", "No Recruitment Agencies" or "No Agencies Please" as well as some keywords for the job you are looking for (e.g. programmer or plumber) and using the advanced search options to limit results to only the last week or so and the country you live in (UK by the sounds of it). I have found that this can turn up a surprising number of real jobs to pursue.

Looking at the Google search results now there are a couple of dedicated websites for no agency jobs e.g.

http://www.NoAgenciesPlease.com (IT jobs only)

http://www.NoRecruitmentAgencies.com (just started out by the looks of things)

Also a lot of companies advertise vacancies on the 'careers' sections of their sites, but these sections are often tucked away deep within a site. For example I went to Ted Baker's home page then had to drill into the 'About Us' and then 'Careers' section to find this page with real jobs:

http://www.tedbaker.com/about_us/careers/tedquarters_opportunities/content.aspx

Lots of companies do advertise themselves but their jobs are often in the 'About us' or 'Contact Us' sections of their web sites.

I'm sure there will be other agency free job sources out there as well, it's just a matter of finding them!

Thanks,

Billy