2012-03-05

Say What?

   Sorry for the looooong delay... I thought I was going to have a guest blogger fill in, and it didn't work out.  Oh well.  Anyway, on with the show.

   I'm going to take a bit of a side trip right now, from our perusal of typical direct initial contacts.  Why?  Because I came across an indirect one that was just so horribly bad, that this lazy hypocritical idiocy just cries out to be exposed!

   Suppose you are a recruiter, trawling through the new profiles on Monster or Dice or Careerbuilder or whatever.  I don't know what facilities they provide recruiters, but let's suppose there's some way to search for profiles tagged as having certain skills.  Suppose some candidate, whose profile clearly states that he is a Ruby on Rails developer, has a profile consisting entirely of something like:
dear friends i want a positions for Andriod developers , contact me at myname@myisp.com or call me at 123-456-7890 .for qualifications please contact me.
   Are you going to contact him?  Not bloody likely!  Leaving aside the punctuation, grammar, spelling, case, etc., he's hardly told you anything, only his contact info and that he's interested in an Android developer position (assuming someone hasn't just invented something called Andriod)... and that, while "raising his hand" for RoR slots instead.  (Don't worry if you don't know the difference, just realize they're different.  Very different.  Occasionally used together, but there's no particular connection.  More like peanut butter and cheese, than peanut butter and jelly.)  Doesn't follow directions, doesn't consider your needs, horrible English (while using what looks like a USA phone number), near complete lack of communication skills, a total train wreck.

   Now let's turn the proverbial tables.  Suppose you are reading LinkedIn, or some such business (as opposed to social) networking site... and you're reading one of the several Ruby on Rails groups (don't get me started on redundant groups), and find this gem:
dear friends i have a positions for Andriod developers with my direct client , contact me at bob@mycompany.com or call me at 123-456-7890 .for requirement please contact me.
   (Edited only to take pity on the lazy moronic jerk and not expose his contact info.)  And to top it off, it's in the normal Discussions, not under Jobs.  (At least, it was before I did my Good Deed For The Day and flagged it as a Job -- and as Inappropriate.  Too bad LinkedIn doesn't have user reputations for it to count against.)

   Raise your hand if you seriously expect anyone with any self-respect to apply to that job, from that posting.  Put yours down, Bob!

   And yet... this is the normal, accepted, even expected level of quality and effort from the recruiting industry!

   The poor shlubs begging for any help in finding a way to eke out a living are expected to make their resumes, cover letters, etc. as perfect as humanly possible.  They must convey all information the recruiter and client need -- but still be concise.  They must thereby demonstrate excellent communication skills, and command of whatever language it may be in.

   Yet recruiters regularly get away with not only ignorance of anything about the job itself (which can be forgiven as it's usually not in their actual field), but also brazen laziness, utter lack of communication skills, and blatant disregard for the time or needs of the candidates, or even anyone else trying to read the forums they're... well, let's call it what it is, the forums they're spamming!  (And by extension, blatant disregard for the time and needs of their clients as well!  Candidates get fed up and look elsewhere, making the slot take longer to fill.)

   Does this seem right to you?  Can you think of any semblance of an excuse?  Or are lazy buffoons like Bob doomed to fail, as badly as they already "#fail"?

8 comments:

  1. The one thing I've wondered when I see those posts on LinkedIn is how successful those recruiters really are.

    I know I don't give a second thought to those posts, nor to companies that post similar items via a corporate recruiter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. At first I was tempted to reply, "if it weren't successful they wouldn't do it." But then I realized that it's even more like spamming than I first thought -- it only has to be successful *enough* to cover an essentially negligible additional cost. :-(

    Anybody out there got stats?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Dave! I've read your website and spoken with you before. I saw this blog come up in my LinkedIn updates and it caught my attention.

    Unfortunately, I know several recruiters who do this, and I doubt they ever receive responses. Many of the recruiting agencies out there only require/teach their recruiters to do "buzz word" searches, and then submit the candidate to every job req. that requires said skill, and see what sticks. I think it's just as bad when recruiters send out blast emails saying they have the "perfect opportunity" for you without knowing anything about the candidate.

    The company I work for has a different approach. Yes, we do buzz word searches on the job boards, but instead of wasting the candidates' time by sending them a dozen job descriptions that might not even make sense, or pitching that we have the "perfect opportunity," we talk to the candidate to find out what they're looking for before presenting any opportunities.

    - Kelly Jeanes

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Kelly! Yes, I remember you, you were one of the few recruiters who actually read my web site before contacting me, and therefore had some clue what I wanted, what I could do, etc. (Seems like many don't even bother reading my resume first, let alone the web site.) Good on you for doing the "due diligence" that so many recruiters utterly fail on! You're one of those that restore my faith in recruiters as not just a pack of spammers. I hope you wound up finding that Scala programmer you were looking for.

    Would you like to be a "guest ranter" here? I didn't want this blog to end up so one-sided, and really want some representation from the other side of the table. I can anonymize your entries if you want.

    Thanks,
    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dave. . .

    I too have dealt with these Vegetables-that-walk-like-men who call themselves recruiters. Who sift through databases looking for keywords, and then spam out mail-blasts to anyone with one or more key-word matches.

    Me for example: I'm a network security guy. I've used Checkpoint FW-1, Sidewinder G2, Cisco Pix and ASA, and several other firewalls. And yet I get hit, all the time, for "Cisco Engineers". Generally from recruiters with English-sounding email accounts (JamesXYZ@GenericRecruiter.com) and yet sign their names that are typically Indian.

    Or worse, see my profile that says: "Northern Virginia" and "Not Willing to Relocate", and ping me for jobs in Florida, Texas, or California.

    WHY is it so fricking hard to expect a recruiter to actually READ your resume and profile ?? Especially for the fees they charge. . .

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even worse, I get the *combination* at least a few times a week! One gang of idiots in particular, Sriven Technologies, sends me one every few days or so; Monday's was about a six-month Senior AIX Administrator contract in Westlake Texas. Earlier this week, Vyshnavi Infotech spammed me about a 12-month System Admin contract in Jacksonville -- at a rate about 3/4 of my rock-bottom consulting rate, and "requiring" lots of specific experience that is nowhere to be seen on any version of my resume, web sites, profiles, etc. At least when Mindlance spammed me five days ago, about working in Oregon, it was an otherwise appropriate job -- but they also pulled "Dear Actively" on me (see http://www.recruitingrants.com/2011/12/goose-sauce-part-i-dear-actively.html), so two strikes out of three.

    Yeah, I'm namin' names. No more Mr. Nice Employee. Eventually I plan to put up a Hall of Shame page with the actual emails, including author email addresses and all....

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hilarious. I came across this blog while browsing Dave's website and I must say, this is great stuff. Why was I browsing Dave's website? Well ahem, I'm a ('R' word) Recruiter. Except, I know exactly what you folks are talking about. I've been subject to the same for 10 years of my past life as a Software Engineer. Plus, and here is where I can provide a unique perspective, I'm Indian-American :/.

    Its sad to hear how unqualified recruiters are ruining the staffing industry and leaving the talent - you guys, with a bad taste in your mouth.

    So what are the qualifications required to be a recruiter? Unfortunately, not much.

    There are a several though, that are professional and structured in their recruiting efforts. Most of these are mid to large sized firms and have reached that level of success by doing things the right way and hiring the right people.

    I will drop in, every once in a while. Thank you for the brief period of levity!

    - Akeel

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  8. Hi Akeel! Great to have you drop by. Glad I could add a moment of levity to your day. Having worked both sides of the table, you are probably much more able to spot the "interrobang moments" your colleagues create. Would you like to be a Guest Ranter here? I won't ask you to name names, or even sign yours if you don't want, but I really do want to have someone from the Dark Side, er, I mean, the other side of the table, represent their POV here.

    Thanks,
    Dave

    ReplyDelete

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