I joined blue arrow shortly after graduating. The intention was that I would find myself an entry level job and build from there. I happened to drop in and had not made a prior appointment but the guy I met seemed very friendly and advised me that I needed to fill out a form first which concerned my personal details as well as trying to identify what I was looking for.

After filling it in, I returned it and the informal discussion began. I explained to him that I was looking for an accounting job or an administration job which incorporated aspects of accountancy. He asked me if I would also consider other positions including telesales to which I replied I would. However despite the fact that I had already detailed the answer in the answers i had provided on the form, he asked if I had any previous experience and seemed disappointed when I said no.

I provided the person with my mobile number and expected him to be in contact. After there was no contact after the intial month, I thought my best course of action would be to send a short informal email to him. Unfortunately there was no response from this email and therefore a week later I rang up. I did not speak to the same person this time but a different recruitment consultant. When he had introduced himself he wanted to establish what experience I had which seemed more than a little irritating since all he needed to was open the C.V I had already sent them.

We had an informal chat and of course he said that he would contact me when relevant positions came up and contact me every so often just to up date my circumstances. At this moment I was becoming increasingly disillusioned but some 2 months later I did indeed have a call but this time it was another consultant who told me about a job which had just come in wanted to know if i was interested and wanted to know if I had the following experience!

At this moment I lost my cool a little and demanded to know why I was being ignored and then when I was contacted why prior checks had not been made first to establish whether there was any point in the call. I could continue in the same vein for the years which passed but history has unfortunately repeated itself.

Advantages
If I had a lot of previous experience I would have been more to their liking and would have had more success with them

Disadvantages
Disorganised, incompetent or lazy, I am not sure which or probably both and clearly lacking in basic customer service skills which is of course very ironic.

I simply don't bother with these anymore as it's a waste of my time