Open Letter to All IT Recruiting Agencies
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Why should I contribute to a company who off-shored their recruiting jobs?
Because you want to work and they may have a the job you want? This feels like you're cutting your nose to spite your face. Yes, they are parasites but they do provide a service (however poorly many of them do so). I have worked with one or two agents for well over 10 years (in the UK) and they are superb. I've only been back here a couple of years so still trying to figure out how they are different.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures
John, I'm afraid you will find that a lot of the "recruiters" today are not professionals in the field they are recruiting for (not all, but most). Most of them (especially the new ones) have shifted from selling homes (which went south a few years ago) to that most lucrative recruiting gig. I truly believe that they feel it can't be that hard. They seem to have no clue how the industry works or what the words mean. I've had to educate a few, and it is very frustrating. Not like the good old days when the recruiters were true professionals that knew the business, not someone just trying to move bodies, hoping one sticks. John Julian
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I'm a programmer with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and have experience in most of the currently relevant Microsoft technologies. I've been the victim of right-sizing, cost-cutting, contractual obligations regarding returning veterans, and most recently, out-sourcing, so I'm looking for a new "opportunity". Before you get yourselves into a lather and unleash your legions of "senior recruiters" with their itchy send-email fingers in my direction, know this. I can understand that you probably use some sort fuzzy-logic word matching application to process the thousands upon thousands of IT-related resumes on the various job-search web sites. I get it - I really do. It's a brilliant method for weeding out the non-IT candidates from those lucky millions of others that you would like to represent. However, you STILL have a problem - several, in fact. First, your "senior recruiters are merely emailing (or even worse, cold-calling) EVERYONE that might be a match for a given job posting. Take me for instance. ALL of my online job site profiles have that little box checked that says "WILL NOT RELOCATE". It seems that your "senior recruiters" conveniently ignore that fact, and I get notices for jobs all over the world. Here's some info that may keep your people out of my inbox - I DO NOT WANT TO WORK IN BUM-F*CK EGYPT, NORTH CAROLINA, OR ANY STATE THAT STARTS WITH THE WORD "NEW". In point of fact, if it ain't within 50 miles of my zip code, I don't want to know about it. Make your "senior recruiters" eyeball EVERY resume and Monster profile before sending an email or making a phone call. Furthermore, even if I knew someone that might be interested in such a position, it's your job to find them - NOT my job to give you their name, so don't ask me to do it. If you're so lazy that you can't properly do a job that admittedly doesn't take a lot of cerebral fortitude, maybe you should find more meaningful work. I suggest looking into sweeping standing water off sidewalks, or maybe maintaining the machine that puts the little ridges on checkers. Next, teach your "senior recruiters" a little something about US geography. For the record, Houston and Dallas are NOWHERE NEAR San Antonio. Neither location qualifies as a "longish commute" (and yes, I had some idiot call it that today). Finally, given the fact that so many American programmers are loosing their jobs to off-shore "programmers", don't add insult to injury and have some third-world janitor call me on the phone in the middle of his lunch break a
Although I agree with much of what you say, and believe (but cannot prove) that I am the victim of age discrimination (recruiters show interest at first, but thereafter won't even return my followup emails, at times, after they've realized, I think, that I'm no spring chicken), I don't understand why you'd hang up on somebody for not being an "American," whatever that is (I have three strains of Native American in my heritage, and could make a snide remark about who is really a true American). As for your aversion to states beginning with "New" I get the New Jersey and New York revulsion, but Hampshire and Mexico are nice places. Then again, you don't want to relocate - neither do I, I get that same thing: recruiters contacting me for jobs all over the place, when I have indicated I'm not interested.
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I'm a programmer with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and have experience in most of the currently relevant Microsoft technologies. I've been the victim of right-sizing, cost-cutting, contractual obligations regarding returning veterans, and most recently, out-sourcing, so I'm looking for a new "opportunity". Before you get yourselves into a lather and unleash your legions of "senior recruiters" with their itchy send-email fingers in my direction, know this. I can understand that you probably use some sort fuzzy-logic word matching application to process the thousands upon thousands of IT-related resumes on the various job-search web sites. I get it - I really do. It's a brilliant method for weeding out the non-IT candidates from those lucky millions of others that you would like to represent. However, you STILL have a problem - several, in fact. First, your "senior recruiters are merely emailing (or even worse, cold-calling) EVERYONE that might be a match for a given job posting. Take me for instance. ALL of my online job site profiles have that little box checked that says "WILL NOT RELOCATE". It seems that your "senior recruiters" conveniently ignore that fact, and I get notices for jobs all over the world. Here's some info that may keep your people out of my inbox - I DO NOT WANT TO WORK IN BUM-F*CK EGYPT, NORTH CAROLINA, OR ANY STATE THAT STARTS WITH THE WORD "NEW". In point of fact, if it ain't within 50 miles of my zip code, I don't want to know about it. Make your "senior recruiters" eyeball EVERY resume and Monster profile before sending an email or making a phone call. Furthermore, even if I knew someone that might be interested in such a position, it's your job to find them - NOT my job to give you their name, so don't ask me to do it. If you're so lazy that you can't properly do a job that admittedly doesn't take a lot of cerebral fortitude, maybe you should find more meaningful work. I suggest looking into sweeping standing water off sidewalks, or maybe maintaining the machine that puts the little ridges on checkers. Next, teach your "senior recruiters" a little something about US geography. For the record, Houston and Dallas are NOWHERE NEAR San Antonio. Neither location qualifies as a "longish commute" (and yes, I had some idiot call it that today). Finally, given the fact that so many American programmers are loosing their jobs to off-shore "programmers", don't add insult to injury and have some third-world janitor call me on the phone in the middle of his lunch break a
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
For the record, Houston and Dallas are NOWHERE NEAR San Antonio. Neither location qualifies as a "longish commute"
What's a 4 hours drive? ;P
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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The passwd system file isn't encripted, only the password field. Does not take that much more effort to create a dummy user and copy it's password over the root, at least not on the debian distro we were using.
Sentenryu wrote:
Does not take that much more effort to create a dummy user and copy it's password over the root, at least not on the debian distro we were using.
Creating a new account? Editing the (shadow) password file? Well, yeah, when you're root, its trivial to get root :D
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Sentenryu wrote:
Does not take that much more effort to create a dummy user and copy it's password over the root, at least not on the debian distro we were using.
Creating a new account? Editing the (shadow) password file? Well, yeah, when you're root, its trivial to get root :D
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Sentenryu wrote:
Does not take that much more effort to create a dummy user and copy it's password over the root, at least not on the debian distro we were using.
Creating a new account? Editing the (shadow) password file? Well, yeah, when you're root, its trivial to get root :D
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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The trick was based on appending /init=sh on the bootloader config, or something like that, i don't remember (alread more than a year since i did it last time), i don't remember how to get elevation once in the shell :laugh:
probably "init=single" -- boot system into single user mode with a shell running as root. That's why they repeatedly say, if the bad guy has physical access to the machine, its not secure :)
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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probably "init=single" -- boot system into single user mode with a shell running as root. That's why they repeatedly say, if the bad guy has physical access to the machine, its not secure :)
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
it was "init=/bin/sh", but I think it basically does the same thing. and yeah, with physical access, there's no stoping the bad guy. there was also some other bad thing he showed us that could be done using ssh, but i don't remember anymore, first thing i did after being aproved was to forget all that was mentioned in class.
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I just found the procedure online here: http://www.linux.it/~rubini/docs/init/[^]
mount -n -o remount,rw /
was all that was needed before changing the root passwd.
Which is why mount is supposed to be restricted to root users. If that works as a mere mortal user, then it means someone lobotomized the existing security mechanisms. Hard to fault the OS for a configuration flaw... although you could lambaste those who created such an insecure distro :)
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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I understand your pain. Like you I have been working in the field for an extended time, 20+ years. I have on my resume that I do not want to relocate, but constantly get recruiters contacting me about opportunities "up north." At the beginning of my career I lived in one of those northern states whose name begins with "New", and have since escaped to the mountains of eastern Tennessee via Atlanta. I guess that since I worked up north at one time, recruiters think I would be eager to return to snow-blower country, places like Boston, Philly, NJ, or NYC. I found that no matter how much I would indicate I was not interested nothing seemed to deter recruiters from repeatedly wasting my time and theirs. I finally got smart and started speaking their language, $$$$. Now when contacted by a recruiter about a position in an area I am not interested in I simply state "To get me even remotely interested in going to so-and-so the rate will have to be something God-aweful, like $100,000/hr. Now if you have something closer to my area I can come down significantly." I just love the shocked silence that ensues. I have yet to have a recruiter contact me a second time.
Cheers, Tim W.
The problem is that they can't pay me enough to work in a blue state, especially if it's above the snow line. To be honest, it's hard enough to stay in Texas.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
I'm a programmer with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and have experience in most of the currently relevant Microsoft technologies. I've been the victim of right-sizing, cost-cutting, contractual obligations regarding returning veterans, and most recently, out-sourcing, so I'm looking for a new "opportunity". Before you get yourselves into a lather and unleash your legions of "senior recruiters" with their itchy send-email fingers in my direction, know this. I can understand that you probably use some sort fuzzy-logic word matching application to process the thousands upon thousands of IT-related resumes on the various job-search web sites. I get it - I really do. It's a brilliant method for weeding out the non-IT candidates from those lucky millions of others that you would like to represent. However, you STILL have a problem - several, in fact. First, your "senior recruiters are merely emailing (or even worse, cold-calling) EVERYONE that might be a match for a given job posting. Take me for instance. ALL of my online job site profiles have that little box checked that says "WILL NOT RELOCATE". It seems that your "senior recruiters" conveniently ignore that fact, and I get notices for jobs all over the world. Here's some info that may keep your people out of my inbox - I DO NOT WANT TO WORK IN BUM-F*CK EGYPT, NORTH CAROLINA, OR ANY STATE THAT STARTS WITH THE WORD "NEW". In point of fact, if it ain't within 50 miles of my zip code, I don't want to know about it. Make your "senior recruiters" eyeball EVERY resume and Monster profile before sending an email or making a phone call. Furthermore, even if I knew someone that might be interested in such a position, it's your job to find them - NOT my job to give you their name, so don't ask me to do it. If you're so lazy that you can't properly do a job that admittedly doesn't take a lot of cerebral fortitude, maybe you should find more meaningful work. I suggest looking into sweeping standing water off sidewalks, or maybe maintaining the machine that puts the little ridges on checkers. Next, teach your "senior recruiters" a little something about US geography. For the record, Houston and Dallas are NOWHERE NEAR San Antonio. Neither location qualifies as a "longish commute" (and yes, I had some idiot call it that today). Finally, given the fact that so many American programmers are loosing their jobs to off-shore "programmers", don't add insult to injury and have some third-world janitor call me on the phone in the middle of his lunch break a
I have experienced most of the idiocies you describe, and more (although I'm a bit less upset by requests to recommend other candidates when the message offers a USD$500 "commission"). Let's add a couple more: I have retired(I still take small projects), so I have removed my resume from all the job sites. I still get E-mails stating the recruiter found my resume on Monster, or Career Builder, or ... In other words, yet another form letter. Why did I retire? I just got too tired of the idiocy of the recruiting process. The IT recruiting industry seems to have implemented a common "unsubscribe" mechanism (through something called "jobseekers"). However, the unsubscribe applies to the recruiter, not the company. WTF? Finally, like you, I've got quite a few years of experience (try forty-four). In the U.S., it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of age. So I became accustomed to being rejected for "not being energetic enough." How energetic do you need to be to sit in a cubicle and type on a keyboard? Given that experienced programmers are more productive, and make far fewer bad design decisions, they are a better choice, even economically. And, of course, if you (the employer) need to save money (in a short-term calculation that amounts to cutting your throat to satisfy your shareholders while losing (see, I spelled that right ;<) your customers), you can always lay me off, or out-source my job to China (where an entire team of programmers were unable to even understand the code I provided). Sigh.
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The problem is that they can't pay me enough to work in a blue state, especially if it's above the snow line. To be honest, it's hard enough to stay in Texas.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
The problem is that they can't pay me enough to work in a blue state, especially if it's above the snow line.
I feel the same way. But if a company want me bad enough to pay $100,000/hr then I could manage "force" myself to work there, for a couple of weeks. Even in the heavily taxed Northeast, I would be taking a nice chunk of change home. I would be able pay off all the bills and still be able to take a few months/years off after working a few weeks. Do I think a company will really pay me that kind of money? No. Never. But it does encourage the northern recruiters to remove me from their databases, which is what I want.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
To be honest, it's hard enough to stay in Texas.
It is the same here in northeast Tennessee. Most employers here do not want to pay much but then want you to work like a slave. Right now I am working as a consultant/contractor; The pay is okay and I get treated better than the employees. I have had to work away from home at times. I can make 2X what I make locally when I work away from home. I limit myself to areas within the Southeast when I do consider working out of the area. I tend to work near Atlanta a lot, mostly because (a) I have college friends there who are amenable to leasing me a couple of rooms in the basement at a decent rate and (b) I already have working relationships with the local recruiters.
Cheers, Tim W.
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It certainly does take time, it can be alien after windows. I don't really use windows at home anymore. Linux is faster, safer, cheaper and I like it. Trouble is it makes me very impatient and dissatisfied with windows at work. 15 minute boot time? And they charge money for that? Forget about it.
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
15 minute boot time?
Only way I can imagine that happening is if you have basically everything on the box in the system tray. Which means they all start up every time you reboot. Or alternatively there is something seriously messed up with your hardware.
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Yes. This is all true. But it's still Windows. I just spent the whole morning re-installing VS2010 twice. It's possible to break Linux programmes too, but you don't have to pay for them, and you could rebuild the entire system from the ground up four or five times while waiting for windows to do it's thing. :zzz:
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Yes. This is all true. But it's still Windows. I just spent the whole morning re-installing VS2010 twice. It's possible to break Linux programmes too, but you don't have to pay for them, and you could rebuild the entire system from the ground up four or five times while waiting for windows to do it's thing. :zzz:
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
and you could rebuild the entire system from the ground up four or five times while waiting for windows to do it's thing
You must work on some really, really different systems then. Spent many years on windows and unix variants and performance problems in the OS were always a result of the environment that I set up. If I changed the environment then it worked better. True for unix. True for windows.
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I understand your pain. Like you I have been working in the field for an extended time, 20+ years. I have on my resume that I do not want to relocate, but constantly get recruiters contacting me about opportunities "up north." At the beginning of my career I lived in one of those northern states whose name begins with "New", and have since escaped to the mountains of eastern Tennessee via Atlanta. I guess that since I worked up north at one time, recruiters think I would be eager to return to snow-blower country, places like Boston, Philly, NJ, or NYC. I found that no matter how much I would indicate I was not interested nothing seemed to deter recruiters from repeatedly wasting my time and theirs. I finally got smart and started speaking their language, $$$$. Now when contacted by a recruiter about a position in an area I am not interested in I simply state "To get me even remotely interested in going to so-and-so the rate will have to be something God-aweful, like $100,000/hr. Now if you have something closer to my area I can come down significantly." I just love the shocked silence that ensues. I have yet to have a recruiter contact me a second time.
Cheers, Tim W.
SirTreveyan wrote:
To get me even remotely interested in going to so-and-so the rate will have to be something God-aweful, like $100,000/hr
Perfectly reasonable but you should actually pick a rate which, presumably, isn't ridiculous and yet if they did agree to that then you would be happy accepting the job. You might also want some other requirements as well such as length of employment and early termination severance.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Why should I contribute to a company who off-shored their recruiting jobs?
Considering it is HR that goes around handing out pink slips, I would be happy to see a portion of HR activity outsourced and the HR critters themselves handed pink slips.:rose:
Sadly, to say, HR is only the messenger of the bad news. The 'firing" manager is to blame. That person can make the decision, but cannot carry it out directly. They sit smugly in their office with the door closed as the employee receives the news and cleans out his desk. But, when you're the manager, that is one of the perks. Kind of like the Mafia. The boss gives the orders, but does not perform the execution.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
loosing ... most US kids nowadays cant speak the language either
Or write it.
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I'm a programmer with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and have experience in most of the currently relevant Microsoft technologies. I've been the victim of right-sizing, cost-cutting, contractual obligations regarding returning veterans, and most recently, out-sourcing, so I'm looking for a new "opportunity". Before you get yourselves into a lather and unleash your legions of "senior recruiters" with their itchy send-email fingers in my direction, know this. I can understand that you probably use some sort fuzzy-logic word matching application to process the thousands upon thousands of IT-related resumes on the various job-search web sites. I get it - I really do. It's a brilliant method for weeding out the non-IT candidates from those lucky millions of others that you would like to represent. However, you STILL have a problem - several, in fact. First, your "senior recruiters are merely emailing (or even worse, cold-calling) EVERYONE that might be a match for a given job posting. Take me for instance. ALL of my online job site profiles have that little box checked that says "WILL NOT RELOCATE". It seems that your "senior recruiters" conveniently ignore that fact, and I get notices for jobs all over the world. Here's some info that may keep your people out of my inbox - I DO NOT WANT TO WORK IN BUM-F*CK EGYPT, NORTH CAROLINA, OR ANY STATE THAT STARTS WITH THE WORD "NEW". In point of fact, if it ain't within 50 miles of my zip code, I don't want to know about it. Make your "senior recruiters" eyeball EVERY resume and Monster profile before sending an email or making a phone call. Furthermore, even if I knew someone that might be interested in such a position, it's your job to find them - NOT my job to give you their name, so don't ask me to do it. If you're so lazy that you can't properly do a job that admittedly doesn't take a lot of cerebral fortitude, maybe you should find more meaningful work. I suggest looking into sweeping standing water off sidewalks, or maybe maintaining the machine that puts the little ridges on checkers. Next, teach your "senior recruiters" a little something about US geography. For the record, Houston and Dallas are NOWHERE NEAR San Antonio. Neither location qualifies as a "longish commute" (and yes, I had some idiot call it that today). Finally, given the fact that so many American programmers are loosing their jobs to off-shore "programmers", don't add insult to injury and have some third-world janitor call me on the phone in the middle of his lunch break a
John, Let me make sure I understand what your issue is.... "Your getting too many offers for work". Did I read that right? Let me know... Lee
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SirTreveyan wrote:
To get me even remotely interested in going to so-and-so the rate will have to be something God-aweful, like $100,000/hr
Perfectly reasonable but you should actually pick a rate which, presumably, isn't ridiculous and yet if they did agree to that then you would be happy accepting the job. You might also want some other requirements as well such as length of employment and early termination severance.
jschell wrote:
Perfectly reasonable but you should actually pick a rate which, presumably, isn't ridiculous and yet if they did agree to that then you would be happy accepting the job. You might also want some other requirements as well such as length of employment and early termination severance.
You are totally missing the point. I have clearly written in my resume I am only interested in specific areas of Southeastern US. If a recruiter would just read my resume they would know I am not interested in opportunities in say Philly or Dallas or San Francisco. In the past I have asked recruiters from these areas to remove me from their databases and subsequently I would still be contacted. I found giving a ridiculous rate achieves what a polite request fails to do.
Cheers, Tim W.