I like the idea of an agent, mostly because I recently went through the finding jobs thing and its not fun. Its worth pointing out that you could probably convince a new employer to tack on to your signing bonus a significant percentage of what a recruiter would have cost to them. That would keep the cost of an agent fairly negligible.
On the other hand, what's an employer to think when they see that you have an agent? I would see it as a sign of flakiness. If you need an agent, you must be jumping around jobs a lot. That is not a good impression to make.
Author here. Good points you made here. As I mentioned before, I can't see there being any reason why the agent couldn't charge at least some fee to the company as well (which would be greatly reduced from what recruiters are charging now, so their cost to hire would be lower).
I'm not sure what a company would think. If it were to become more common, it would just be a way of doing business. I negotiate most of my candidates' salaries and packages now anyway, so having an intermediary would not be a huge leap for most companies that already use recruiters. The leap would be the term 'agent', but I think companies would respect the fact that someone takes their career seriously to have an advisor. We'll see.
Comments
I like the idea of an agent, mostly because I recently went through the finding jobs thing and its not fun. Its worth pointing out that you could probably convince a new employer to tack on to your signing bonus a significant percentage of what a recruiter would have cost to them. That would keep the cost of an agent fairly negligible.
On the other hand, what's an employer to think when they see that you have an agent? I would see it as a sign of flakiness. If you need an agent, you must be jumping around jobs a lot. That is not a good impression to make.
Author here. Good points you made here. As I mentioned before, I can't see there being any reason why the agent couldn't charge at least some fee to the company as well (which would be greatly reduced from what recruiters are charging now, so their cost to hire would be lower).
I'm not sure what a company would think. If it were to become more common, it would just be a way of doing business. I negotiate most of my candidates' salaries and packages now anyway, so having an intermediary would not be a huge leap for most companies that already use recruiters. The leap would be the term 'agent', but I think companies would respect the fact that someone takes their career seriously to have an advisor. We'll see.