Australia's IT pros are on the lookout for recruitment consultants who tell it like it is when they're job hunting.

One IT professional said every now and then a recruitment agency will stand out which is useful and honest. -If you find a good one you are best to hang on to them," he said.

The IT pro, who primarily does contract work, said he looked for honesty in particular when dealing with agencies. He said this can include advertising jobs which actually exist, explaining to candidates where they got the job, and whether the consultant had talked to the HR or hiring manager for details about the role.

In addition, the IT pro said one of his bugbears was reasonable and see-through charges. -Normally you do not know what percentage the agent is taking on top of your rate," he said.

Likewise, Victor Pastor, a Visual Basic developer with SQL server, ASP and HTML skills, said he commonly uses recruitment agencies when looking for either contract or permanent work.

Pastor said he'd set himself up a database of the ones he dealt with, and often did Internet searches for roles when he was on the hunt for a job. -I ask if the position is a real one, because sometimes there is nothing behind those [ads]," he said.

Integrity also seems to be a common thread when you ask IT pros what they look for when dealing with recruitment consultants about IT jobs.

Simon Woodhead, vice president of non-profit organisation, the System Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU), said that the issues at the moment were very much based around integrity.

-One of the problems we hear about from our members is some of the recruitment agencies do not screen their jobs or their applicants properly," Woodhead said.

He said this could be annoying for technical people who didn't want to waste time applying for jobs which weren't suitable.

In regards to how IT pros found recruitment agencies which matched their needs, Woodhead believed it was largely word-of-mouth. He was also aware of IT pros who listed with multiple agencies because they wanted to increased their chances of finding work.

He advises that IT pros should look for agencies which have a solid understanding of the technical skills of the candidate. -People won't go back to a recruitment agency if they've had a bad experience," Woodhead said. -To understand technical people's skillsets requires a knowledge of those technical skills...[job hunters] are looking for a synergy with the organisation they're looking for a job through."

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