[akudha]

Every recruiter I have interacted with, in the last decade, has been nasty individuals. Changing my resume without my knowledge, stealing my wages (been fighting two years now, to get it back), paying late consistently (we are talking 4-6 months late, on top of net60) and above all - lying about everything, even silly things that don’t make sense and are easy to verify.

Maybe it is just my dumb luck that I attract shitty recruiters, I dunno. Maybe UK recruiters are better than American recruiters? Whatever is the reason, these days I assume the worst about every recruiter I interact with (I am very trusting of people otherwise), I am still waiting to be proven wrong :(

[gidorah]

That sounds like a totally different arrangement. More like how working as temp or contract staff would work in the UK.

For perm staff, recruiters are usually paid a fixed percentage of your annual salary as a one-off fee.

[IshKebab]

Sounds like UK recruiters work differently to American ones. I don't understand how they would steal your wages. They don't pay you in the UK.

[red-iron-pine]

usually you're hired by the headhunting firm for a short period, e.g. 6 months, sometimes more or less. you work for the headhunters, your paycheck and insurance is through them, you just work on site / for the other org.

in 6 months if the other org likes you they can hire you on, or if they don't they can just say "get me a new one", etc. in some cases, like you know its a 2 year project, you just stay on for 2 years.

but that means the headhunters are taking 10-30% of what would otherwise be a full-time salary.

lowers the risk for the other org.