Much time has passed, and the guilty are probably not reading this blog any more, so I figured I’d go ahead and post this one without fear of upsetting them…
Adam’s Hints to Recruitment Agents #72:
“if you need an expert, urgently (e.g. within 1 week) … there are some questions you should be answering up front, such as “what’s the budget?””
Email 1:
Me: Where in London, and what’s the budget? Any skills in particular?
Email 2:
Recruiter: Tottenham Court Road, no skills specified
(ignores the “budget” question)
Email 3:
Me: OK, location is good. Since you didn’t answer the budget question, standard rate is X.
Email 4:
Recruiter, less than 3 hours before close of business the day before due to start contract: “Ah that’s way over budget so this is a non-starter I’m afraid, thanks anyway.”
Many recruiters I’ve met would say “I don’t want to bother the client with unimportant questions”, but if you’re hiring a contractor at short notice and high cost, IMHO there’s no such thing as an “unimportant” question.
And, of course, if they’d bothered to do this stuff up-front … given I administer a non-profit network of 200 mobile developers (including many freelancers) … they just missed out on the chance for me to recommend them people within their budget range. Stupid, stupid, stupid.