Agencies want to know too much?

Any reputable agency which conforms to REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) standards would ask for all of that. i speak from experience having been a recruitment consultant in a previous life.

When you interview a candidate, you’ve got about twenty minutes to half an hour to find out as much as you can about him before you put him on the books. Most candidates will have a printed CV if they’re looking for full time work; people in your position tend not to do so because it’s “only casual”, but if you think about it, you’ll be working for exactly the same clients as the full-time boys so the agency has to go through the same routine. Screw it up or get a rogue driver, you stand to lose not only your client but also your reputation.

You can’t take the candidate out for a test drive, so you have to make the most of what you’ve got and that means a checkable work history. Usually this is easy and references you request will confirm what the candidate has told you or what’s on his CV. My experience is that you look more carefully for what a CV does NOT tell you! Back in the day, I caught out more than one joker who’d been banned but kept his old (clean) paper licence and tried to blag a job on the strength of if; reference checking is your friend here.

I’m interested to note that they tested you on tachograph knowledge. We used to do it before the days of DCPC, but I’d suspected that nowadays the holding of said card would be sufficient proof. Having said that, I know of more than one driver who could do a DCPC on tachos every month and still know eff all about them!