I just scanned through this post. Same old verbal circle. And did I see the word respect get mentioned? Maybe my views are a bit too traditional but respect has to be earned in my books. 
I hope your not referring to me as a ā ā ā that sees agencies or agency drivers as the devil my gripe with them is to how they present themselves and the work they may or may not have .agency is not work id personally want to do. I have rang a few that have advertised full time placements one I rang offering full time tramping out of Folkestone so I rang it told its container work new depot, new trucks and do I have a rhides card girl not in at mo so can I call back in a few mins bit odd strange place to open up a new depot doing container work (40 od miles in wrong direction for boxes) rang up a few mins later spoke to girl she told me those jobs had gone but have more jobs in manstone (wont mention firm) knowing who the firm was with out being told I said no thanks she said whatās wrong with that firm we placed four in there last week with no complaints, she went quiet when asked if its so good why did the four leave before them. Just seems to me that they use free advertising thru the job center and the likes to dangle the carrot of a good job to get you talking about the crap ones .mabey if the job center charged for their services it will both get rid of the agencys on their site and get proper employers back to advertise their vacancies that wont be swamped with bogus agency ads.
war1974:
in some agencys defense its the thick drivers who get attracted by āratesā and a young girl in the office who has attended a course showing her different pictures of trucks, that make the adverts all about 10x class 1 drivers paying Ā£50 per hour.if i put too much info on an advert people would just suss the company out and pick up the phone direct, therefore you look after yourself and i will look after me.
i still to this day do not get why drivers go to ābobs recruitmentā your 1 man band local 1 contract man, when there are plenty of national one out their who are tighter run and more likely to do things correct.
Crikey you donāt like drivers do you? Or young office girls apparently. 
In what way are your comments a defense of some agencys, why do you not think that agencys bear some responsibility for the quality of staff they employ, or, particularly in the case of the office staff, the training they receive?
I donāt currently work for an agency but my past experience tells me that I get on better with a smaller operation where the people running it have a vested interest in the business rather than nationals with layers of management who simply have targets to meet. This goes for direct employment as well as agencys.
I do understand your point about info in adverts tho.
In the above there are 19 so called jobs 6 by ehaul and 8 by ocean city to the government thatās 14 jobs to me its 2 if they exist, thereās no wonder the government like agencies on job centre
war1974:
i still to this day do not get why drivers go to ābobs recruitmentā your 1 man band local 1 contract man, when there are plenty of national one out their who are tighter run and more likely to do things correct.
Iām sorry but thatās nonsense, Iāve worked for agencies big and small and had loads of bull[zb] off agencies big and small.
At the end of the day itās the honesty integrity and ability of the agency consultant you deal with that determines how you will be treated not the size of the agency.
As a TM, I was on the other end of the agency bullā¦ They all come on with a great pitch to convince you that they have an unlimited supply of high quality drivers who are happy to work for the occasional bone tossed in their direction. Once you choose one, it is great at first, then the problems start: Billed for drivers that didnāt show up; billed for more hours than worked and without required paperwork; lame excuses for no-shows or late driversā¦ I could go on.
Ideally I would have a good relationship with someone at the agency who would give me the service I wanted. The problem is that they come and go because their own employers do not treat them well either.
As a TM, my ideal was to have a few independents, mostly retired drivers, who I could phone directly and were reliable and knew our systems. The agency was always a last resort.
my point is most of the 1 man bands dont have any major contracts (as they are pretty much all tied into the big boys) so you will more than liekly end up on a contract which if it doesnt suit will mena no other options or very very little.
or even worse depoel work for peanuts.
and no it was a general thing on here about people moaning about agencies not aimed at 1 specific person, i have done agency work and yes i have spent the hours filling in forms to be offered work which wasnt what i came in for, but on the other hand have also worked at some great companies which i wouldnt have got in at any other way.
I just started with an agency last week working for one of the top supermarkets. The agency told me they were so desperate for drivers that they were getting them from other parts of the country and paying their hotel bills, Iāve since had this confirmed by 3 drivers. They are also paying a Christmas bonus which should amount to around Ā£500.
You would have thought that if they were that desperate then I would be getting 5/6 nights work per week but no, only 2 nights so far this week.
All this constant waffle about agency this that and the other, how much money there is to be earnt for duin nowt etc,make the most of next week because the week after you will all be kicking pebbles wondering why the phone is quiet,watch this space 
Imagine how different the world would be if the āManpowerā and āā ā ā recruitmentā were replaced by the actual client name like āTescoā or āTNTā or even āDHLā rather than some go-betweenā¦
These are adverts for odd shifts only, thus I agree with the notion that there are perhaps only two jobs in total here among all the white noiseā¦ 
wing-nut:
I just started with an agency last week working for one of the top supermarkets. The agency told me they were so desperate for drivers that they were getting them from other parts of the country and paying their hotel bills, Iāve since had this confirmed by 3 drivers. They are also paying a Christmas bonus which should amount to around Ā£500.
You would have thought that if they were that desperate then I would be getting 5/6 nights work per week but no, only 2 nights so far this week.
They are gonna work the oneās they are putting up in hotels first pointless paying to put them up then not earning out of them. Il bet you get a call at the weekend when the hotel prices go up then F/A in the week again
chester1:
They are gonna work the oneās they are putting up in hotels first pointless paying to put them up then not earning out of them
yeah I suppose you could be right. Iāve got work for tonight so maybe not having anything last night was a one off, weāll see
war1974:
there are plenty of national one out their who are tighter run and more likely to do things correct.
Yeah rite ive still yet to meet one thatās HONEST enough to tell you the TRUTH
All agencies lie. None of them will tell you the truth about the jobs because for a lot of them if they did, youād not do it.
Iāve found over the years the trick is to initially say yes to everything they offer when you start with them, even if it sounds like a job youāre not going to like such as waste food compactors which turned out to be a cracking job. You then get a good reputation with the agency whilst sounding out the good and crap jobs they have. By the time youāve got through most of the agency clients, because up to that point youāve been a āyes manā youāre then in a position where you can say no to the ones youāve worked out are crap and theyāll give you something else because of all those times youāve done the crap stuff in the past.
Its all a game like the psychological warfare with the forkies and you need to learn how to play it.
Iām curious as to what made the āwaste food compactorsā such a ācracking jobā.
Iām assuming of course that you were not referring to breaking lots of eggs here of courseā¦
this is the thing though i have drivers who i will say i cant get or dont have the sort of work they want which to me is respectful and honest, i will also try and get them the type of work they want if i dont have it and they really do want to come in and register.
i dont do the whole start at Ā£8 per hour and increase to Ā£10 until someone takes it whats the point? offer what you can (bearing in mind it still needs to be profitable in some way) from the start.
i have had drivers follow me from one agency to another so cant be that disrespectful or dishonest. but i do agree there are lots of shysters and the industry has a lot of people who do it no favours whatsoever, having said that i have worked for some great agencies as a driver and some that i walked out of the interview with too.
If you get to a first-time shift, and it turns out āyou donāt like that kind of work at allā - then the professional thing to do is (1) do your best on the day and (2) make a polite request not to be sent in there again.
If, having said that - you get told to āgo to bloggās yard to do a ā and it turns out when you get there to be āMore of the sameā as what you rejected - then having given themselves a reputation as āanother liarā on the end of the phone - you should then be able to name, shame, and go out to find a decent outfit who might pay less, but at least wonāt lie to you.
If I wanted to, I could chase the Ā£16-Ā£18ph on midweek nights Iāve heard about in these parts. Itās easier to just pick up the plum jobs for the Ā£10.75 I get instead.
Whatās the point of getting even Ā£15ph if you donāt get paid for 90 minutes of your shift, and find yourself chucking your keys in at days end around 20 minutes beyond the end?
Eg. 10hr20mins with 9 hours of it driving for 9 hours total pay @ Ā£15ph = Ā£135.
Then thereās 15 hours with 7 hours of it driving, and 6 hours on POA on some service road, leaving you free to watch a DVD, get your head down, or listen to the radio as seen fitā¦
Itās real nice to get more money at days end than the Ā£15ph bod as well of course!
The main differences are always going to be about āOne manās meatā¦ā of course.
Some people just love to do C2 multidropā¦ For them go the spoils. Good luck to them.
Cattle transport? - Good luck to them. I hope youāre not being swindled on pay.
Drain cleaning/food disposal/medical waste disposal - You donāt see many full time vacancies, so Iām assuming those who do it are happy with itā¦
Winseer:
Iām curious as to what made the āwaste food compactorsā such a ācracking jobā.Iām assuming of course that you were not referring to breaking lots of eggs here of courseā¦
Thatās badā¦
I have no idea. For some reason I canāt work out I actually enjoyed doing it even though your boots were covered in crap most of the time as was the cab floor and it stank.
Winseer:
If you get to a first-time shift, and it turns out āyou donāt like that kind of work at allā - then the professional thing to do is (1) do your best on the day and (2) make a polite request not to be sent in there again.If, having said that - you get told to āgo to bloggās yard to do a ā and it turns out when you get there to be āMore of the sameā as what you rejected - then having given themselves a reputation as āanother liarā on the end of the phone - you should then be able to name, shame, and go out to find a decent outfit who might pay less, but at least wonāt lie to you.
If I wanted to, I could chase the Ā£16-Ā£18ph on midweek nights Iāve heard about in these parts. Itās easier to just pick up the plum jobs for the Ā£10.75 I get instead.
Whatās the point of getting even Ā£15ph if you donāt get paid for 90 minutes of your shift, and find yourself chucking your keys in at days end around 20 minutes beyond the end?
Eg. 10hr20mins with 9 hours of it driving for 9 hours total pay @ Ā£15ph = Ā£135.
Then thereās 15 hours with 7 hours of it driving, and 6 hours on POA on some service road, leaving you free to watch a DVD, get your head down, or listen to the radio as seen fitā¦Itās real nice to get more money at days end than the Ā£15ph bod as well of course!
The main differences are always going to be about āOne manās meatā¦ā of course.
Some people just love to do C2 multidropā¦ For them go the spoils. Good luck to them.
Cattle transport? - Good luck to them. I hope youāre not being swindled on pay.
Drain cleaning/food disposal/medical waste disposal - You donāt see many full time vacancies, so Iām assuming those who do it are happy with itā¦
would totally agree winseer which is where sending someone on a course who has no idea about driving but is great at sales etc will mean drivers get sent into the same type of work.
and lets be fair we all go to work for money not some kind of peverse pleasure so i accept that a set amount will chase the Ā£Ā£, but what i dont get is when people tar every agency with the same brush saying we are all robbing when as with drivers you get good and bad 