Employment agencies – what are they and how to proceed if you do not want to pay for their services?

Is it your first time in Poland? Do you speak little or no Polish? Don’t know your way around the Polish job market? You need a job now, but you don’t plan to work in Poland for years?

If you’ve answered “yes” at least once and you’re still looking for a job in Poland, it’s natural that you might come up with the idea of using the services of an employment agency.

Such companies in Poland not only help you find a job, they also take care of the employment formalities and sign a contract with the employee instead of the actual employer. Unfortunately, their services are most often paid for by those who are looking for work, i.e. the employees.

📌 Why can’t employer and employee work together directly, without a third party?

Of course they can, but employers prefer to pass the responsibility for employees on to employment agencies! So, for example, Polish hotels often use agencies instead of looking for people to work themselves.

📌 How do employment agencies charge for their services?

In some cases, the employee pays for the agency’s services immediately (one time), in others, the fee may be taken from the first (or several first payments). It also happens that the agency calculates the costs for its services from the daily or hourly wage. For a period of one or several months. Unfortunately, it is possible that for the entire period of your work in the place that the intermediary company has found.

📌 The risks of working with an employment agency

The first and biggest risk – you never know how long you will work at a particular workplace. On the other hand, if it turns out that for some reason you cannot work there, unfortunately the agency will not reimburse you for the costs you incurred for their services. More often than not, the agency will offer you another job, but again – no one will guarantee you that it will be in the same city, with similar schedules and employment conditions.

📌 What to do if I don’t want to pay employment agencies?

Honest answer – try to look for a job yourself. On the internet, through friends and colleagues, and also don’t be shy about asking if establishments in your area sometimes need workers.

(We wrote about websites where you can look for jobs on your own some time ago, we will post a link to them in the first comment under this post👇).