Clueless recruiters
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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 -
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:
My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
Same thing here. I thought it was just me. :-D
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
My wife answers the phone, not me. She weeds out the ones that have a heavy accent. I refuse to deal with people that I can't understand. I can deal with accents, but do not expect me to take a language course to talk to you on the phone.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
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?
This also happens all the time. In fact, I'm dealing with it right now. A headhunter that I dealt with in the past called me about a position that he is working on with another headhunter from another company. So, he tells me about the position, and I told him to go ahead and submit me. The other guy calls and we talk about the position, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with my skill set. He even misled the other headhunter to get my contact info.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
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?
That's usually a dead giveaway that it's not a real position, and they are simply harvesting contacts.
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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:
and 10 years of C#' ???
Yeah, back in 2002 (through 2004) I was looking for work (after fifteen years of C on OpenVMS), but the C# ads all said they wanted a minimum of two years professional experience. Well, gee, I had read the first spec of C# in 1999, shouldn't that count for something? * The only work available on OpenVMS at the time was in COBOL!
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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 tDude, I get about 20 of those per day... how did you escape the torture for so long? I usually respond with broken english and try to sell them something. Although... once I did get a phone call after doing that. Had a nice conversation with the person and she has hope for the future now. I no longer work with recruiters who call me out of the blue.
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles. -
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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Christopher Duncan wrote:
My resume & job postings say I won't relocate. I continually get job queries for out of town.
Same thing here. I thought it was just me. :-D
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Poor communication skills. If you can't correspond in a professional manner, how professionally are you going to represent me?
My wife answers the phone, not me. She weeds out the ones that have a heavy accent. I refuse to deal with people that I can't understand. I can deal with accents, but do not expect me to take a language course to talk to you on the phone.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
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?
This also happens all the time. In fact, I'm dealing with it right now. A headhunter that I dealt with in the past called me about a position that he is working on with another headhunter from another company. So, he tells me about the position, and I told him to go ahead and submit me. The other guy calls and we talk about the position, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with my skill set. He even misled the other headhunter to get my contact info.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
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?
That's usually a dead giveaway that it's not a real position, and they are simply harvesting contacts.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
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.
Yeah, that one has happened a few times:mad: I am in the middle of looking for a job myself, what I can't stand is how recruiters are to wussy to tell you after your interviews, when you haven't got the job.:sigh:
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Chris Losinger wrote:
i get tons of job offers by email, too. most of them are for unspecified work i can do at home.
Let me guess - potentially UNLIMITED opportunities? :)
yeah! they say i can be my own boss! sounds freakin awesome!
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
I remmeber the time I was recruited to change an existing website (coporate) into SOAP. That was pretty much the job description "Convert our current corporate intranet site into a SOAP site". There was of course the usual crayon drawings and such but it only occured to me that the employer didn't know what SOAP was when he asked what language it was written in.
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
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.
Yeah, that one has happened a few times:mad: I am in the middle of looking for a job myself, what I can't stand is how recruiters are to wussy to tell you after your interviews, when you haven't got the job.:sigh: