The managing director of Randstad Work Solutions, Fred van der Tang, has called for licensing as a way of cleaning up the UK recruitment industry, and getting rid of its rogue element.Agencies must improve communication and transparency levels if they are to engender more trust from candidates, according to findings from independent agency scoring website HireScores.com.
A survey commissioned by the firm shows that almost 90% felt the recruitment industry should become more transparent.
I can fully understand the pressure placed on civil servants to work long hours. What with their flexi-time days off, over-generous enhanced holidays, allowable sick days, duvet days and sabbaticals, it's a wonder they manage to complete any work at all.
For those who feel the dress code of their recruitment company is too restrictive, help is at hand. If you feel tied down by the stuffy business attire of today's recruitment consultant, then there is a job board to suit you: www.nude-jobs.co.uk. No one has bought the domain yet, so surely it is only a matter of time before it appears in Recruiter's Dealmakers section.
New money laundering regulations that come into effect on 15 December will impose additional legal responsibilities on recruiters. Failure to comply could see senior managers sent to jail for up to two years and/or face an unlimited fine.
Unscrupulous employment agencies in other EU member states are "at the heart of some of the worst abuses" affecting migrant workers in the UK, a London conference on migrant workers has heard.
That's the number of recruiters who had signed on through the REC, as of last week, to champion our industry to MPs, who will consider and debate the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill on 22 February.