Can any of you professional agecy drivers recomend an agent in East Midlands Derby/Alfreton/Chesterfield work area.
Just been dropped in it by agent been working through for pas 3 months. Rang my back up agent, who left yesterday for gardening leave and new guy is clueless.
Looking for good rates and minimal bs.
Thanks in advance
ocean city recruitment Nottingham…been with them two years always get me work summer/winter good hourly rate always paid right and on time.signed on with other agency but none compare. 
Thanks Dandy.
Thouht it easier to ask than have three weeks of trial and error dealing with idiots.
Ocean City at Nottingham were the best I found also. They used to give me my shifts a week in advance when I was working for Transfreight at the Toyota plant. Money was always right and the pay was good (£10 an hour - 2.5 years ago).
Avoid Q.S. like the plague!!
Thanks,
I’ll get on to them in the morning.
Found out about QS by trial and error. Hence this post to avoid another similar experience. Have you noticed they are now using there full name on adverts Quality Service Recruitment. Obviously too many of us were seeing QS and skiping to the next ad. Don’t like rubbishing people on open forums, but for QS I make an exeption. Truely Awful in every sense.
JT Recruit in Derby.
I worked for them both as a temp and a consultant; good firm. Been going for a long time; Jon was a consultant for HMS then Initial, back in the mid-1990’s, then set up on his own. Becky and Natalie, two of his branch managers, have been there since I worked for them too. If you go in to register at Derby tell Becky that the bearded old bugger with the Harley referred you.
Sidevalve:
JT Recruit in Derby.I worked for them both as a temp and a consultant; good firm. Been going for a long time; Jon was a consultant for HMS then Initial, back in the mid-1990’s, then set up on his own. Becky and Natalie, two of his branch managers, have been there since I worked for them too. If you go in to register at Derby tell Becky that the bearded old bugger with the Harley referred you.
Got to agree with the above JT are good agency and seem to be advertising and picking a lot of work up at the moment for some reason I know a few lads who have been with them years too so that’s a good sign ! . I’ve worked for a few Best connection aren’t to bad either if u work for Derby office just put your foot down with them and don’t let them feed u with spile ! They kept me going for last 3 years before April when I decided to take a full time job after 6 years on agency . Also avoid Smart recruitment like the plague !
dandyhighwayman2:
ocean city recruitment Nottingham…been with them two years always get me work summer/winter good hourly rate always paid right and on time.signed on with other agency but none compare.
Totally agree about Ocean City Recruitment. I worked for them for 9 months last year/early this year at NR Evans at Hilton. Always had work for me on the days I wanted it, even in the supposedly quiet months - January & February. On the rare occasion there was a quiet day they had the decency to ring me the day before to foreworn me so I could get work elsewhere and always asked if something did come up did they want them to ring me or not in the morning.
Always paid correctly on time, only reason I’m not with them now is the start times didn’t agree with me - mostly 3-5am starts but that’s not there fault, they just ask for drivers when the company asks. Its Mel, James or Mike you want to speak too.
Judehamish:
Ocean City at Nottingham were the best I found also. They used to give me my shifts a week in advance when I was working for Transfreight at the Toyota plant. Money was always right and the pay was good (£10 an hour - 2.5 years ago).Avoid Q.S. like the plague!!
Never worked for QS and never would. How the hell do they get any drivers at all at the shocking rates they pay.
calsdad:
Thanks,I’ll get on to them in the morning.
Found out about QS by trial and error. Hence this post to avoid another similar experience. Have you noticed they are now using there full name on adverts Quality Service Recruitment. Obviously too many of us were seeing QS and skiping to the next ad. Don’t like rubbishing people on open forums, but for QS I make an exeption. Truely Awful in every sense.
Yeah log on directgov and out of 18 pages of jobs from the last 3 days easily more than 50% are QS (sorry Quality Service Recruitment!!!). No wonder people skip to the next ad at there appalling pay rates. Me personally, I love reading them and having a good chuckle to myself that they think for the East Midlands they can get away with getting and keeping drivers to work for them on that pay.
Tried JT Recruit before after coming across drivers singing their praises. They Found me difficult as i live and like to work between their mansfield and derby offices. Got passed about a bit.
Are N R Evans still sticking to only paying by the day. Been offered it loads of times by every agent i’ve come across. Always avoided it because it sounds open to transport office abuse, and other agency drivers have warned me off it.
calsdad:
Tried JT Recruit before after coming across drivers singing their praises. They Found me difficult as i live and like to work between their mansfield and derby offices. Got passed about a bit.Are N R Evans still sticking to only paying by the day. Been offered it loads of times by every agent i’ve come across. Always avoided it because it sounds open to transport office abuse, and other agency drivers have warned me off it.
Would assume so, it was £110 Mon-Fri, £120 Sat and £140 Sunday. May have gone up but I’ve not been in there since March. If not its worth asking for more based on the current shortage of drivers. As for being open to abuse by the transport office I can tell you they are a really good bunch in there, start in the morning and the next interaction you will have with them in any form is when you finish later in the day, you get given your run which you always knew the day before and that was it, no phone calls adding on runs or work to your day. you get back from what you are given for the day and you go home.
They do the Home Bargains work and also milk runs on the Dairycrest contract. I preferred the Home Bargains stuff, 1 or 2 store deliveries per day. Most runs around 10 hour days, sometimes less, sometimes slightly more but as an average I found about 10 hours right. Some of the guys would refuse and tell the agency they will only do the milk runs and not Home Bargains and some the other way around so there was scope for doing which you preferred.
strange that i have 4 guys who have left their to go to a dhl contract!
and from my own experiences of the nottingham derby agency scence (as a driver), manpower are good for royal mail work and laura is a good lass.
always got on quite well on a agency level with ocr and have to admit the guys seem sound.
edited original post as naming may cause issue for tnuk.
A mate is on for Pertemps and loves it, he is a landscape gardner and just fills in when he needs the work but he seems to be happy with it, mainly Royal Mail or Boots work
Thought i would post an update in case anyone finds it useful. Thanks for posts btw.
Tried Ocean, if im honest I was a bit put off by the fact the phone was answered (derby office) by a very eastern european lady with poor english. Not a racist but when your last agent has under cut you with polish drivers working for crap rates you don’t want to go there again. Lead agent did ring back sounded ok no silly promises or anything but didn’t have much work in my area.
JT were helpful. As before i fall between there offices so they find it hard to deal with me. They aren’t alone this happens a lot as i live in the sticks a bit. Where honest with me tried to sort it but struggled. Would recomend them from what i found seem honest.
I start tomorrow with Employ in Ashbourne. Mate put me onto them. Rates aren’t sparkling (£11ph £15 sun Ltd) but they seem to have the work. They happily wrote me an agreement for min 45 hours per week til xmas. Say they are lead vendors on most of their sites (hence the lower rates - found this with ADR) so no shortage of hours. Agent was straight forward said work hard be reliable put in the hours and you will move up our pecking order of drivers who get most work, if you let us down only want odd days you move down the list. Seemed fair enough. Ill let you know in a couple of weeks how it goes.
good luck they do moy park in ashbourne. expect you will be in there a lot, why would they drop you down the order if you only want a few days a week? as long as i know in advance its not a reason to drop a decent driver down the ‘list’.
calsdad:
Can any of you professional agecy drivers recomend an agent in East Midlands Derby/Alfreton/Chesterfield work area.Just been dropped in it by agent been working through for pas 3 months. Rang my back up agent, who left yesterday for gardening leave and new guy is clueless.
Looking for good rates and minimal bs.
Thanks in advance
Try Reynolds in Nottingham speak to jeff
I’m with an agency called McCarthy Campbell based just off the Markeaton Park roundabout in Derby.
From the minute I signed up to them, they had 7 different clients I could pick from straight away, so basically you have a good choice of where you want to go depending on what you are after.
They have work all over the place too, I’m working out of Doncaster but I could just as easily get work from them much further South, a mate of mine is working for them out of Castle Donington, but they have work as far as Crick and Lutterworth they told me.
They aren’t too fussed if you go somewhere and it’s not for you either. I did three shifts out of Wilko’s at Worksop, and it wasn’t really for me as there’s no POA in the job so you struggle to do much above a 50 hour week, which defeats the object of being self-employed and trying to earn as much as you can. Told them it wasn’t for me, and they had me elsewhere the next day. They are very laid back and easy to deal with.