Question for those with representation

My agent told me I'd have revisions to make once I signed on, but she didn't make me do them before she represented me. Most of the revisions were minor. It wasn't a big overhaul or anything.

My suggestion, though, would be to get your manuscript to the best place as possible, and even then, an interested agent will probably see things that you didn't see and have ideas for fixing things that you don't know how to fix.

Then again, I have a friend whose agent sent her manuscript out to publishers exactly as is. Experiences vary, but for mostly every agent and every manuscript, if too much work is needed, the agent may just flat-out reject it. They also may give you suggestions and then look at it again when the changes are made, but that's not an offer of representation.

Mine has gone out exactly as it was submited to my agent.
However, we have had some discussion about aspects of it that may need attention depending on editors' responses

I think the key is to submit a work that in your opinion as the author is in the best possible shape you could imagine. You don't want to make any assumptions that an agent can help fix a less than perfect MS. Not only is that not their job, agents are pretty clever and I bet they could tell if you were being lazy or drawing any assumptions about what they owed you.

However a lot of agents do wind up giving editorial advice (I know mine did), but again there is no guarantee, even if they offer suggestions, even if you take them, that they will represent you.

It's a pretty good sign that they want to work on your MS with you, but until an agent has said, "I will represent you", there is never any guarantee of anything.

When my agent called after reading my proposal, she had some things that she thought needed to be changed (and she was absolutely correct), but by the time that phone call was over, I had an agent. I believe the key was not so much that I would make the exact changes that she wanted, but that I showed a willingness to listen to her advice.

I think it varies from agent to agent and project to project. My agent took my project on as is (and I had multiple offers of representation on the book as is). I agree with Toothpaste that you should send the best possible work you can. First, if there are problems that you see, they'll have to be fixed at some point (either by agent or editor) so you may as well go ahead and fix them. Second, I think agents see a lot of stuff that isn't polished and I think you can really stand out by sending polished work.