Clueless recruiters
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That's okay. The night watchman's attack Chihuahua will still be there when you get around to it. :)
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Do you make a lot of money from your books? I asked a prof once and he said after publishing costs and the universitys cut he made barely enough to make it worth while.
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Do you make a lot of money from your books? I asked a prof once and he said after publishing costs and the universitys cut he made barely enough to make it worth while.
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It's worthwhile. :-D The academic and commercial worlds are, well, worlds apart.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
My moment of truth as to how useful recruiters were (from a Trivandrum context) was when my main contact with an agency sent me a job offer for the very same position (network admin) I had sought their help to fill. Apparently she mailed this out to the wrong mailing list, but it was a little bit of a shock to see the very same job description I had painstakingly written up (trying to make it sound spiffy and attractive) in my inbox the next day. I replied to her sarcastically asking her if she'd help me set up an interview date with myself. She phoned up and apologized and I did give her a second chance, but eventually that specific agency didn't prove too fruitful.
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*) -
Do you make a lot of money from your books? I asked a prof once and he said after publishing costs and the universitys cut he made barely enough to make it worth while.
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Do you make a lot of money from your books?
How many red Corvette owners do you know who don't make a lot of money? :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*) -
Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Isn't that tautology.:-D
the last thing I want to see is some pasty-faced geek with skin so pale that it's almost translucent trying to bump parts with a partner - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before. -
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Do you make a lot of money from your books?
How many red Corvette owners do you know who don't make a lot of money? :rolleyes:
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*)Well yeah but that could be independent of the books. Yall should let me know if your ever looking for a co-author with a huge ego, pompous attitude, and a juvenile sense of humour.
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
I've had my fair share of them. Some of the "offers" I even show to my manager to spread the humour. The best one I had is one Company in the Texas, USA wanted to hire me for a lead developer. I told the Recruiter my wife and I did not want to relocate to the states. HOwever, if the company wanted to relocate to Kamloops, BC I would consider it. The recruiter told me he'd get back in touch. (I couldn't believe he said that after I told him what I already did). I get a phone call back a few days later from the same recruiter, he told me the company didn't have any plans to relocate to Kamloops. Would I still be interested in moving to Texas? Again, I told him I'd only consider it if they moved their entire company to Kamloops.... Again he told me he'd get back in touch with me. A few weeks later I got another call from him saying they declined the offer for me to purchase their company and move it to Kamloops... I was scared... I thought I was in the Twilight zone...
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Point 2 which you raised is the second best one ever. I get tons of job offers in my email, and most are Java. But, my favourite would be cluelessness to the point of 'do you have 5 years of WPF and 10 years of C#' ???
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog
Christian Graus wrote:
I get tons of job offers in my email, and most are Java.
i get tons of job offers by email, too. most of them are for unspecified work i can do at home.
image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Fox News
Standard behaviour from recruiters.
Kevin
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Fox News
And yes I know there are ways of countering some of these. Also, some of this client behaviour could be construed as being quite reasonable depending on the context. All of these reasons describe either experiences I have had or adverts I have seen, sometimes slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect.:) 1. They interview you before getting budget approval, and then tell you afterwards that the budget has not been approved. 2. They set technical tests and get their own answers wrong. 3. They ask you what your weaknesses are. Would Tony Blair tell you what his weaknesses are? He was asked a similar question on the BBC Today programme and answered: “that’s for me to know and you to find out.” 4. They give as a reason for rejecting you after interview that you do not have adequate experience in skill X when you admitted prior to interview that you didn’t. 5. They give as a reason for rejecting you after interview that you do not have adequate experience in skill X when it wasn’t asked for in the first place. 6. You are a contractor and you have a gap of a few months on your CV and it’s known that the IT market is in a downturn. They ask what you’ve been doing? Trying to find work of course! 7. They hold interviews when they know that the job will be filled internally. 8. Human Resources (aka Human Remains) interview you and ask you lots of stupid questions, none of which have any relevance to whether you can do the job. 9. The job is a contract position and they insist on knowing your career aims for the next 20 years. 10. You have 10 years’ solid IT industry experience, yet they insist on your having a 1st class honours degree from a top 10 university and 3 A’s at A-Level before they’ll even look at you. 11. You have 10 years’ solid IT industry experience, yet they insist on your having a 1st class honours degree from Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial. So those who graduated from Harvard magna cum laude need not apply then? 12. They ask you to give them an idea on how to proceed with the problem that is forcing them to look for a contractor in the first place. In other words, they want free consultancy as part of the interview. But once they’ve got the consultancy they hire someone else. 13. They advertise a job that specifies that the candidate must have at least 3 years’, but no more than 10 years’, experience in C++.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Fox News
And yes I know there are ways of countering some of these. Also, some of this client behaviour could be construed as being quite reasonable depending on the context. All of these reasons describe either experiences I have had or adverts I have seen, sometimes slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect.:) 1. They interview you before getting budget approval, and then tell you afterwards that the budget has not been approved. 2. They set technical tests and get their own answers wrong. 3. They ask you what your weaknesses are. Would Tony Blair tell you what his weaknesses are? He was asked a similar question on the BBC Today programme and answered: “that’s for me to know and you to find out.” 4. They give as a reason for rejecting you after interview that you do not have adequate experience in skill X when you admitted prior to interview that you didn’t. 5. They give as a reason for rejecting you after interview that you do not have adequate experience in skill X when it wasn’t asked for in the first place. 6. You are a contractor and you have a gap of a few months on your CV and it’s known that the IT market is in a downturn. They ask what you’ve been doing? Trying to find work of course! 7. They hold interviews when they know that the job will be filled internally. 8. Human Resources (aka Human Remains) interview you and ask you lots of stupid questions, none of which have any relevance to whether you can do the job. 9. The job is a contract position and they insist on knowing your career aims for the next 20 years. 10. You have 10 years’ solid IT industry experience, yet they insist on your having a 1st class honours degree from a top 10 university and 3 A’s at A-Level before they’ll even look at you. 11. You have 10 years’ solid IT industry experience, yet they insist on your having a 1st class honours degree from Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial. So those who graduated from Harvard magna cum laude need not apply then? 12. They ask you to give them an idea on how to proceed with the problem that is forcing them to look for a contractor in the first place. In other words, they want free consultancy as part of the interview. But once they’ve got the consultancy they hire someone else. 13. They advertise a job that specifies that the candidate must have at least 3 years’, but no more than 10 years’, experience in C++.
Now that's a list! :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Finally got to you eh? ;) Just a bit ago you had the position of relationship building in response to a similiar post. Nice to see this one. And by the way, I agreed with your other points too. A recruiter sent me a listing from the name Neo Anderson. Right there I was worried. Then reading further, they want someone with 1 year exp, in maintaining meeting room hardware. Never mind that I've been a software engineer for 10 years. Heh. Turns out that one of the apps was written by a former employer of mine, so he probably assumed I would be qualified. I never used any of their apps except the one I was developing and that was only to develop it. I pointed out the issues, tried your advice to make some small talk with the guy, but no response. Eh, oh well.
This statement was never false.
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Point 2 which you raised is the second best one ever. I get tons of job offers in my email, and most are Java. But, my favourite would be cluelessness to the point of 'do you have 5 years of WPF and 10 years of C#' ???
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog
Christian Graus wrote:
But, my favourite would be cluelessness to the point of 'do you have 5 years of WPF and 10 years of C#' ???
Yep. Once I had an interview (two years ago) where this HR girl was looking for a C# programmer with 10 years of experience. I couldn't help it and just laughed at the poor clueless girl. When she asked me why, I replied the obvious. She was really ashamed, and told me that by polithics of the enterprise, they always ask for 10 years of experience. Of course, I didn't get the job because after that, they changed the requirements and were looking for a Java programmer. They offered me the possition though, but you know, I'd rather live in the Antarctica than program in Java. I started to date her though :).
A polar bear is a bear whose coordinates has been changed in terms of sine and cosine. Personal Site
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Now that's a list! :-D
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
I had plenty of idle time in the 2001-2 downturn to write it! :)
Kevin
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Finally got to you eh? ;) Just a bit ago you had the position of relationship building in response to a similiar post. Nice to see this one. And by the way, I agreed with your other points too. A recruiter sent me a listing from the name Neo Anderson. Right there I was worried. Then reading further, they want someone with 1 year exp, in maintaining meeting room hardware. Never mind that I've been a software engineer for 10 years. Heh. Turns out that one of the apps was written by a former employer of mine, so he probably assumed I would be qualified. I never used any of their apps except the one I was developing and that was only to develop it. I pointed out the issues, tried your advice to make some small talk with the guy, but no response. Eh, oh well.
This statement was never false.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Finally got to you eh? Just a bit ago you had the position of relationship building in response to a similiar post.
Actually, I'm considering putting some courses / seminars together for the recruiting companies to show them how to correct all the mistakes they make when dealing with techies. Relationships work both ways. :)
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Being an engineer, I've always tried to find software jobs where I worked with hardware. I spent a long time trying to explain to a recruiter what I was interested in and finally to make it very simple for her, I said if it's just a computer running the software, forget it. I want the computer hooked to a piece of hardware so either I do something in the computer than makes the hardware do something or something happens outside the computer and I recognize it in the computer and do something about it. A few days later she called me and said she had the perfect job for me. It was a desktop calendar program. When I told her I totally wasn't interested and it came no where near what I'd explained I was willing to do, she told me I had to be reasonable. :doh:
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance idiots like CSS.
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
One of my favourites was an ad for VB on Unix. I suppose it can be done with emulators, but who in their right mind would ? Something I find very disturbing is recruiters describing jobs as Sexy. Unfortunately, recruiters (scum of the earth) are really just salesmen & women, and if they process enough numbers, they will eventually find a pay-cheque.
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Here's what I've often experienced in the UK when using such companies to recruit on this side of the pond. a) Many 'IT recruitment consultants' hardly know anything about the industry, other than a few buzz words here and there. So you try and explain your perhaps specific requirements and they go 'yeah - I've got just the person you're looking for' and guess what - it's not even a remotely close match. b) I reckon a lot of the more knowledgeable 'IT recruitment consultants' are actually techies who the relevant recruitment company have consistently failed to place, but to the ears of the 'very knowledgeable' (!) recruitment consultant they are talking to, sound brilliant and eventually get offered a job in recruitment. So you enter a vicious circle of stupidness in these organizations. (It's a theory - but I don't think it's that far from the truth!) c) And then there's the fact that they are really just commission based salespeople at the end of the day (and not very good at it either). So all they can do is churn out irrelevant resumes to companies looking to recruit which is very, very frustrating (and I tend not to use the company too much longer!)
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Although tech recruiting companies have been my life blood for over a decade, it continually amazes me how many of these folks are just plain clueless in how they approach programmers. Here's some of my favorites.
- My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
- Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
- Mismatched tech skills. Exactly where on my resume do you see the words Java / UNIX / Oracle? So why are you asking me about such a position?
- Punctuality. If you wait three days to return a phone call or email, how do I know that my paychecks won't arrive in a similar haphazard manner?
These are just a few of my favorites. I could go on, but I don't want to hog the platform. :) What are your favorite Clueless Recruiter attributes?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Back in 1998, I was a consultant. Once I received an email from a recruiter having found the perfect job matching my skills. He wanted my phone number to call me ASAP. I gave him my phone number and this is our phone conversation: [Recruiter] "Hi Dan, this is {recruiter name} from {company}. I have the perfect job matching your skills!" [Me] "Can you tell me what skills you are looking for?" (I have many skills; I love writing C++ code, and also capable to lead a project) [Recruiter] "Well... your skills..." [Me] "Have you read my resume?" Then there was a long heavy silence. I could feel over the phone the guy was embarassed, because I am sure he never looked at my resume. My skills are written at the top of my resume. The silence lasted a full 12 seconds (my phone has a timer on it). Then, the recruiter told me about job benefits with the opportunity to contact him if I want further information about the job. The entire call lasted 38 seconds. [About Spam] I think I am now receiving spam from recruiters. I run my own business and currently hiring, yet I receive offers for "my perfect job". I receive about one job offer per month. This is the last offer I got. Nowhere in my resume suggests I am interested or skilled in UNIX. All I have is some experience in UNIX. What is more interesting is this spammer recruiter is asking me what job I am looking for. If this guy spent one minute on my resume, he would know I just released GenoPro 2007 (www.genopro.com[^]) a few weeks ago.
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 4:21 PM Subject: Great Resume Hi Daniel I would like to learn about what you are looking for. It is highly likely I can help you get what you want. I see you’re skilled in both C/C++ and UNIX. We are very interested in that combination as well as your experience in codes and multi-threading. Core Search Group, est. 1999, Specializes in connecting the top infrastructure software engineers in the world with the companies that provide the environment and tools you need to innovate. We are working with a number of companies now who would find your experience very attractive. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of working with recruiters who aren’t interested in you as a person. Please give us a try so you can see how our methodology is different. We start with discovering what you want and then work t