Careers and Jobs

There are many ways to find a new job. Unfortunately most jobseekers are lazy when job hunting. They often say they are looking for a new position but when I investigate they have not been doing very much. Below are 5 key strategies to help you find and Irish job.

Recruitment Agencies to find Irish Jobs

I guess there are 400 – 500 agencies in Ireland to help you with your search. I would use a targeted approach to identify the suitable agencies for your needs. Agencies in Ireland fall into 2 categories generalist and specialist. I am often asked “how many agencies should you register with?” There is no right or wrong answer. It is more important to register with relevant agencies and then manage your relationship. These posts may help – managing recruitment agencies and a list of agencies in Ireland.

Job Boards to find Irish Jobs

Job Boards are a great resource. I think is accepted that online is the way forward for job advertising globally moving away from traditional printed media. I guess that is why most media own these job boards. One such site is EmployIreland but there are others.

Networking to find Irish Jobs

Jobseekers do not network enough in Ireland to help progress their career or find Irish Jobs. When you consider that over 50% of jobs are never advertised it makes it essential to use this strategy to access the hidden jobs pool. If you don’t like formal occasions why not start with your own immediate network of friends, family and work colleagues past and present.

Speculate your way to finding Irish Jobs.

This approach is all about getting your hands dirty and sending CV’s off on spec. Jobseekers do not like it because it is inevitable that you will get a lot more dead-ends and rejections. And lets face it we do not like rejection. The secret to speculative applications is to start off quite specific like a target defined location or industry. This post will help you with speculative CV’s.

Need help finding Irish Jobs?

I posted previously about how to get the best out of recruitment agencies. I thought it might be useful to create a list of agencies to help those of you new to the Irish job market or for those of you who have not been job hunting for some time.

The list below are general agencies and will cater for most jobs including accountancy, HR, technical, IT, construction, Pharmaceutical, Banking, Hotel, Administration, Sales and Multilingual.

HRM
Eden Recruitment
Premier Group
CPL
Brightwater
Manpower
Hunter Marshal
Qualitas
Ormond
Grafton
Hudson
Sigmar

The lists below are specialist recruiters who specialise in a particular field, function or sector.

IT Recruitment Agencies
Elan IT
Enterprise People
Rescon
Computer Futures

Sales Recruitment Agencies
School of Sales
Sales Placement
Berkley
BMS

Banking & Finance Recruitment Agencies
Accountancy Solutions
Q.E.D
FH Recruitment
Executive Connections
Delta Resource

Administration & HR Recruitment Agencies
La Crème
Office Angels
Maryb
Capital

Hotel & Catering Recruitment Agencies
Noel Recruitment
Caterassist
Maria Logan

Construction Recruitment Agencies
ICDS
Atlanco
Matrix

Pharmaceutical Recruitment Agencies
Life Science
Brunel
Kingsley

I am regularly asked about recruitment agencies with particular focus on “BEST”.

Who are the best agencies?

There are very good agencies in Ireland and very bad agencies. To complicate things further there are some bad consultants in the good agencies and good consultants in the bad agencies. With this in mind it is more important for you to find a relevant agency (see below for information on how to find an agency for your skills) and a good recruitment consultant rather than a good agency. How do you find these? You can ask friends and colleagues who they have used and more importantly found good. Recommendation is the best way to locate good consultants. If you have no network it is then the old reliable – trial and error. I can recommend agencies such as www.edenrecruitment.ie but I cannot stand by your experience because of the above points.

How do you get the best out of agencies?

Find a relevant agency – It is important to identify agencies that specialise in recruiting in your field. No point registering with financial and accountancy specialists when you work in sales. One way to identify relevant agencies is by searching on job boards such as www.employireland.ie and this will show you what agencies have jobs suitable for you.

Build a relationship with the recruiter – Ideally meet your consultant. If this is not possible at least stay in touch but don’t stalk. Staying in touch shoe that you are still available for work making life easier for the consultant

Know what you want – Be clear about what you want. Recruitment consultants do not offer career advice. They place people in jobs and do not help them decide what career path they should choose. With this in mind be careful what advice you get from consultants as they have an agenda and a job to fill – how impartial is their advice.

Manage your expectation – Recruitment agencies provide you with a free service so you should expect what you pay for. The biggest complaints from jobseekers about agencies revolve around the service level BUT jobseekers do not pay. Expect nothing so anything more than this is a bonus.