Recruiter contacts me via LinkedIn about a job the other day. I respond with some preliminary questions. She responds back with an answer and begs me to send my resume, which I do.
Then, nothing until I check back a week ago…
“did you get my resume?”
“oh… yeah, I did… I forwarded it to the hiring manager, we’ll call if we want to move forward.”
You know, I accept that it’s the new standard that nobody ever contacts you with even a perfunctory “Sorry, the position’s filled, kthxbye”. Fine. I get it. But seriously, she cold-calls me to get my resume and then doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s received it? Pitiful. Just pitiful. And people wonder why I say that corporate recruiters are the bottom-feeding scum of the earth. No manners, no ethics, no knowledge, no nothing.
The politeness of recruiters and HR is directly proportional to the job market. If we ever get back to near full employment ,they will be much nicer and wonder how you misunderstood them.
Recruiters love to call/e-mail/IM me with the whole “Do you know someone who would be good for this position?” thing. And then they have the nerve to get all uppity when I ask for a finder’s fee if they get hired.
What? I should spend my time building a recruiter’s business and earning money for them without any compensation for myself?
Are you referring to headhunters or recruiters? It doesn’t matter much because they all lie almost all of the time. I am 100% serious and I have talked to hundreds of them over the past 12 years. There are a few good one but there is no way to know that in advance. Out of all that I have known over the years, I can think of four that I would piss on if they were on fire. Two are real good.
I am sure that we could put together a list of horror stories. I have plenty of my own. My worst was getting this nice consulting job with a reputable company. I got right after the interview!!! The paperwork just had to go through. After a week, I called the headhunter about a start date and he said just give him a day. The same thing happened the next day and the next. Finally, he gave me a start date the following Monday. I needed to ask him some things about where and when to go and he flat out refused my calls every again. As far as I know, my job never existed in the first place.
Headhunters also lie about where you stand among the other candidates. You will almost always be #1 although five other people are #1 as well. They are among the scummiest professionals out there bar none.
Refuse every single call or solicitation from recruitment call centers in other countries. Just hang up so that they can find another mark. Use your best judgment when it comes to dealing with recruiters and headhunters. Always realize that a random one only has about 5% - 10% of not being a lying scumbag trying to exploit you.
We’ve had an almost complete turnover in management since April and almost everyone has gotten at least one call from a “headhunter” looking to hire us away to some other company. Since I know that jobs in my industry are a dime a dozen, I see no reason to enrich these people any further.
In the U.K. they seem to have a fetish about C.V.(American Resume’)collection whether or not there is a job.
Recently after sending off my C.V. after being E-mailed by a recruitment agency about a specialist management job I was phoned up and asked to supply more detail about my military record as the recruitment manager had asked for this(There was a brief mention on my C.V. about being a member of a Special Forces Regimental Association).
Though the position I was being put forward to had nothing to do with security or things military it WAS in a garrison town so I thought maybe the companys H.R, guy was ex army.
I duly complied with the request and phoned the agency to see if there had been any interest shown by their clients.
“Oh well actually the client is on holiday at the moment and wont be back until next week”
IE. the client HADN’T asked for details about my service history,in fact couldn’t have because he was off sunning himself on a beach in Spain somewhere, but the recruitment agent had wanted to satisfy their vicarious curiousity about Special Forces and had tried to use/abuse their position to achieve this.
I personally agree that many if not most of recruitment agency staff are low life scum,lower even then estate agents.