Freelancers who acquire new orders have been experiencing significant changes for some time. Fewer and fewer companies have direct contact with their contractors when placing orders. Recruitment agencies are increasingly pushing themselves between companies and independent contractors.
When specialist knowledge is required for a project, companies are happy to turn to external specialists. This approach gives companies the greatest possible flexibility in controlling costs. But freelancers also have their advantages with this practice. They can only deal with topics in which they have a strong interest. This avoids being used for boring, routine standard tasks. Due to their experience in different organizational structures and the variety of projects, independent contractors have a broad portfolio of unconventional solution strategies. This knowledge base is very attractive for clients, even if a freelance external employee is initially more expensive than his permanent colleague. Due to their diverse experience, freelancers can bring positive impulses to the project that overcome a standstill.
Unfortunately, companies have not been trying to recruit the skilled workers they need on their own for some time. The task of recruiting staff has now been outsourced to external recruitment agencies almost everywhere. These so-called recruitment firms now advertise that they will find the most suitable candidates for open positions and propose them for filling them. After all, these recruiters have access to a large pool of applicant profiles. Companies that want to fill a vacancy often do not know how to find specialists and how to contact them directly. For this reason, the services offered by recruitment firms are also attractive for medium-sized companies. After sufficient personal experience, I have gained a completely different picture over the years. From what I have experienced, what recruitment firms promise is far from what they actually deliver.
I actually find the idea of having my own agent who takes over my order acquisition very appealing. It’s like in the film and music industry. You have an agent who has your back and gives you regular feedback. This gives you an idea of the technologies that are in demand and in which you can, for example, train yourself further. This improves your own market relevance and ensures regular orders. That would actually be an ideal win-win situation for everyone involved. Unfortunately, what actually happens in reality is something completely different.
Instead of recruitment agents building a good relationship with their specialists and promoting their development, these recruiters act like harmful parasites. They harm both the freelancers and the companies that want to fill vacancies. Because in business, it’s not about really finding the most suitable candidate for a company. It’s all about offering candidates who fit the profile you’re looking for at the lowest possible hourly rate. Whether these candidates can actually do the things they claim to be able to do is often questionable.
The approach of the recruitment agencies is very similar. They try to generate a large pool of current applicant profiles. These profiles are then searched for keywords using automatic AI text recognition systems. Then, from the suggested candidates, those with the lowest hourly rate are contacted for a preliminary interview. Anyone who does not show any major abnormalities in this preliminary interview is then suggested to the company for an interview. The profit for the recruitment agency is enormous. This is because they pocket the difference between the hourly rate paid by the client and the hourly rate received by the self-employed person. In some cases, this can be up to 40%.
But that’s not all that these parasitic intermediaries have to offer. They often delay the payment date for the invoice. They also try to shift the entire business risk onto the freelancer. This is done by demanding pointless liability insurance that is not relevant to the advertised position. As a result, companies then receive apparently skilled workers for vacant positions who are more likely to be declared as unskilled workers.
Now you might ask yourself why the companies continue to work with the intermediaries. One reason is the current political situation. For example, since around 2010 there have been laws in Germany that are intended to prevent bogus self-employment. Companies that work directly with freelancers are often pressured by pension insurance companies. This creates a lot of uncertainty and does not serve to protect freelancers. It only secures the business model of the intermediary companies.
I have now gotten into the habit of hanging up without comment and immediately when I notice various basic patterns. Such phone calls are a waste of time and lead to nothing except getting annoyed at the audacity of the recruiters. The most important sign of dubious recruiters is that a completely different person is suddenly on the phone than the one you contacted first. If this person then has a very strong Indian accent, you can be 100% sure that you are connected to a call center. Even if the number shows England as the area code, the people are actually located somewhere in India or Pakistan. Nothing that would underline their seriousness.
Over the course of many years of my career, I have registered on various job portals. My conclusion is that you can save yourself the time. 95% of all contacts that came about through these are recruiters as described above. These people then use the trick of saving them as a contact. But it is naive to believe that these so-called network requests are really about direct contact. The purpose of this action is to get onto the contact list. Many portals such as XING and LinkedIn have the setting that contacts can see the contacts from their own list or are offered them via the network function. These contact lists can be worth real money. You can find department heads or other professionals there who are definitely worth contacting. For this reason, I have also deactivated access to the friends list for friends in all social networks. I also reject all connection requests from people with the title Recruitment without exception. My presence on social networks now only serves to protect profiles against identity theft. I no longer respond to most requests to send a CV. But I also do not enter my personal information about jobs, studies and employers in these network profiles. Anyone who wants to contact me can do so via my homepage.
Another habit I have developed over the years is never to talk about my salary expectations first. If the person I am talking to cannot give a specific figure that they are willing to pay for my services, they just want to collect data. So another reason to end the conversation abruptly. None of these people care what hourly rate I have had in previous projects. They only use this information to drive down the price. If you are a bit sensitive and don’t want to give a rude answer, just name a very high hourly rate or daily rate.
As we can see, it is not that difficult to recognize the real black sheep very quickly by their behavior. My advice is, as soon as one of the patterns described above occurs, to save time and, above all, nerves and simply end the conversation. From experience, I can say that if the agents behave as described, no placement will be made. It is then better to concentrate your energy on realistic contacts. Because there are also really good placement companies. They are interested in a long-term collaboration and behave completely differently. They provide support and advice on how to improve your CV and advise companies on how to formulate realistic job offers.
Unfortunately, I fear that the situation will continue to worsen from year to year. The influence of economic development and the widespread availability of new technologies will also increase the pressure on the job market. Neither companies nor contractors will have any opportunities in the future if they do not adapt to the new times and take other paths.
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