Goddamn fucking headhunters that never call me back after I don’t answer 100 fucking percent of the questions on an interview correctly, and don’t get an offer.
When I do get an offer, everyone one of you is gonna hear from me.
Goddamn discourteous bastards!
OMG this.
I’ve had to deal with these people far too many times in recent years.
1.) Don’t make me fill out your form in excruciating detail, including all my past jobs, when all that information is right there on my resume!
2.) You obviously didn’t read either my resume or my filled-out internet form, because you keep sending me jobs that I am clearly not qualified for, or over-qualified for, or which HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MY SKILL SET!
3.) You’re obviously all on the same mailing list, because when one job close to my qualifications comes in I hear from a dozen of you at the same time.
4.) don’t expect me to tell you the other headhunters who have contact me, or for me to tell you all the other position that I’ve applied for. There’s a LOT of them, okay?
5.) my biggest complaint – I have NEVER, EVER, gotten a job that was sent to me by a headhunter. Not Once.
Well, I have to change that last one. I did once. It’s the job I have now. I’m amazed that, after decades of using the services of Executive Search Agencies, one actually came through. So it COULD happen. Just don’t hold your breath.
Fun fact:
Two months ago my Wife left her job here in Sarasota because the stress and the hours were too much.
Three days later I got an unsolicited call from a new headhunter (from Michigan) about an exciting, high-energy opportunity which just opened in my area.
I was polite and professional and simply told her that I was already aware of the details of that position,
It would have been more fun if the headhunter had contacted your wife about the position.
Number 2 and 3 are big annoyances to me also. Especially 3. I am on exactly one tech job board, where it clearly says I will work in New York City only. For the last fucking time, I DO NOT WANT to work in Irving, TX, or Montvale, NJ
4 is a new one to me. Is there any level too low to which these fuckers won’t stoop?
As for getting jobs, all of them I have gotten other than my first many years ago have been through headhunters. I am in the tech field, and it’s worked well for me, so I’m not complaining too much. But if I put in a few hours of review and an hour or so for the interview, they could at least take one minute and let me know where I went wrong.
I just agreed to this from a position I am being submitted for: “As discussed, it is mutually agreed that $XX/hour on W2 is to be paid for this position and you agree that $XX/hour on W2 is not renegotiable, at the time of the offer/acceptance of offer.”
Oooooh. I’m so intimidated. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that if I get two offers at the same time and the other is higher, that it’s unethical for me to let them know I won’t accept theirs unless they can match it, even if I do agree to this. Right? IOW, isn’t this a bit out of line? Or maybe I should have just told them to forget it.
This is interesting, though. I don’t recall ever seeing something like this. Sure, I confirm agreed upon rates all the time. But never this. I was reading an article the other day about how their seems to be an epidemic in the tech world of people just not showing up for jobs, because they got a better offer elsewhere.
I’ve had headhunters call me and try to pitch jobs that sound suspiciously similar to ones that recently departed co-workers held. Made me wonder if they really read the resume or not…
My job source situation is this: 3 jobs found by headhunters. 1 where the employer found me directly, and 2 that I went out and applied for and got.
Points 2 and 3 are definitely valid though, along with the inverse of #2- a lot of them are too technically ignorant to realize that some tech skills and jobs are equivalent and/or fungible, especially often with versions of software. I mean, someone who’s really experienced with writing queries for SQL Server 2008 is not suddenly somehow useless and hopelessly out of date when the 2014 version came around. But these dumb-ass headhunters can’t seem to get that kind of thing- they’ll go bug the guy with 2 years of SQL Server 2014 instead of the guy with 10 years of SQL Server 2008 because the buzzwords match up. We saw this kind of thing when we were hiring people at my prior job, and I’ve seen it in my own job searches as well.
And yeah, that whole “I’m only interested in working in these 4 cities surrounding my home” (I live in NE Dallas, TX) and then getting calls asking if I want to work in Kalamazoo, MI used to bug the absolute crap out of me when I was in the job market.
That, and the whole “My salary range is from $X0,000 and up”, and then getting calls for jobs that are like 20% lower in potential pay.
Or when it gets worse, and you have to go through the dog and pony show, just to find that out.
ETA: On an “opposite” note, on multiple occasions, when I ask for their best rate and they assure me they have given it, but it’s just way too low based on what I’m currently making, all of a sudden, as if by magic they can immediately meet it. And I’m talking a 25-30% increase in a lot of cases.
One of my best friends is in IT, and headhunters are always contacting him.
He’s very good / qualified, and as such is entitled to be picky. When he had his resume out there, he put disclaimers such as he was looking for a full-time position, he wouldn’t consider anything under “x” level, etc.
He gets an e-mail from a headhunter about a position that is essentially a contract part-time, entry-level job. He took the time to make a “new” resume that was completely a joke. For skills, I think he mentioned something like “being good at the hula hoop.” His achievements were hilarious, and I wish I could remember them. Honestly, it was one of the funniest things I’d seen in a while.
He ends up sending it to the headhunter, and lo and behold, a week or so later, he gets a call from the company. They said that they were so bewildered by the resume that they wanted to make sure he didn’t mistakenly send some sort of joke document.
My friend explained to them his background and requirements for a job, and that the headhunter either didn’t notice it or disregarded it. He then said that the fact that the headhunter was willing to pass on the “joke resume,” shows the quality of work he does, and the quality of candidates he promotes. The company rep and he spoke for a little while longer about how horrible headhunters were, and it ended with my friend’s strong recommendation not to accept any candidates from that guy ever again. The rep said that they wouldn’t.
Personally, I love the headhunters who contact me about a position in a sub-set of my field (in which I have no experience) and where I’d need to move halfway across the country. I used to engage with them and ask why they thought I’d be a good fit, but now I just ignore them. But they always end their pitch with, “Even if this isn’t a good fit, if you know somebody who would be interested…”
One of the things I really like (not) is when they try to drill me into providing information on who the IT manager is at my last clients. When that happens I don’t know the IT manager from Adam, even if we share a desk. Or rather: I know them, and I’ve never met an IT manager who wanted to get sales pitches; much less from people who don’t even know what the words they’re using mean. IT managers have minions for that 
Oh Gawd! How did I forget about this one? I put only full-time on all mine, and would put stuff like “Not interested in contracts” in any kind of special comment field, etc…
And yet 2/3 of what I’d get calls or emails about were contract positions. Non-fucking-stop. As in, for a while there, multiple calls each day.
On a slightly different topic, how does the headhunter ecosystem populated by Indian recruiters calling with contract jobs under your pay rate in other cities work? Is it just one of those numbers games where if they get a gang of 15 people calling 50 people a day about a set of jobs, that eventually one of them will succeed, and since these folks probably make peanuts compared to US workers, it’s actually profitable?
I got a LOT of those emails and calls when I was in the market for a new job.
Oh, the bullshit I’ve seen. I did accept a contract job last summer. Halfway through the contract, my contact guy at the agency just disappeared. I ended up sending a message through the pay stub contact info to get someone to respond.
I have told recruiters who have done this that they seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am interested in a job as a cashier at Walmart or a stock-boy at a grocery store. I do not fill out forms. You may have a 2 page resume, or a 15 page CV. All of the information is there. If the company requires me to fill out a form, I do not want to work there.
I’m sort-of involved in the insurance industry with my job. I have nothing to do with sales, I am not licensed to sell, and my resume makes no mention of selling. I get calls and emails all the time for insurance sales jobs.
I had something similar happen to me like what happened to DrFidelius’s wife. About a week after I quit a totally crappy job I got contacted by someone with “a position that was perfect for me!!!” They emailed me the details and I recognized the wording from the online ad from when I applied for the job. I said thanks but no thanks.
For 26 years, I worked as a mechanical engineer or an aerospace structural engineer for the Dept of the Navy. Before that, I was in the Navy as an avionics technician. I also taught a semester of College Algebra in a local community college.
Exactly what from those positions suggests I’d be interested in selling insurance?? But for a while there, I got emails all the time, addressed to me specifically, offering me great opportunities in that field. I’m inclined to think insurance company headhunters are desperate people.
My son in law is dealing with another frustration: “We’ll let you know by Thursday…” and he never hears from them again. How hard is it to send an email or text saying “Thanks for your interest, but sorry”??
As a complete hijack, have you seen the article in the Navy Times about the Fitzgerald report? Jim Wright says this paper “soft soaps” pretty much anything that might make the Navy look bad, so if this article is this critical, the report must be worse than we can imagine.
I’m never been in the armed forces, but this … debacle must be really horrifying a lot of people, and making them all pretty damned demoralized.
Don’t want to read a whole report, or the Times article. Can you at least give us a hint what it is, and how it relates?
Apparently, impossible.
I connect techie graduates with employers all the time, and I’ve NEVER heard of any company making good on their promise to “let you know either way”. Even if they want to hire someone, they’ll drag it out for weeks or even months. I always tell job hunters “The employer’s running on a completely different timeline than you are. You need a job NOW, but if they can wait a month to fill a position, BAM, they’ve saved a month’s salary and benefits.” And if they promoted someone from within, they immediately forget about all the other applicants (who spent weeks polishing portfolios/resumes/CVs/shoes, and sneaking away from their current job for multiple interviews).
HR departments have gotten trashed in various layoffs, and don’t respond anywhere near as well as they should and as they used to.
For already spoken for jobs, a sure sign is absurd specificity - 1.25 experience with App Y for instance - that shows the ad is required in order to prove there is no one like the desired candidate. Internal job candidates get screwed when applying for jobs where the winning candidate is already chosen. Mostly no one wants to spend the time interviewing someone from outside for this.
For long delays, there are several reasons. There might be some candidates scheduled for interviews which look as good or better. There can be infighting in getting the offer approved. There could be a sudden freeze. Or, the candidate might be barely okay, but you’re looking for someone better. Or if the person has interviewed in multiple groups, you might be waiting for all of them to give an answer.
Really hot candidates in hot markets get offers right away because otherwise you might lose them.
It has no relation to this thread, which is why I said it was a hijack.
I thought it might be of interest to FairyChatMom, because she’s ex-Navy and the article discusses the contents of the extremely scathing internal review the Navy performed after the Fitzgerald ran into a cargo ship in a shipping lane in Japan. The article was printed in a journal that is pretty much Navy propaganda, so the fact that it was highly critical of the ship and its officers is apparently very surprising.
Amongst other things, the investigators found jars of urine and kettlebells in the CinC; that neither the CO nor the XO were on the bridge during a tricky passage, nor were they called to the bridge, and that they were regularly absent from the bridge; that equipment was malfunctioning to the point that the officer on deck did not even bother calling the CinC to find out what the equipment was reporting; and a host of other issues. The crew was extremely fatigued and most were so poorly trained that all but 3 of the officers failed a test on sea traffic rules.
I was simply wondering if **FCM **had seen the article and how she felt about it. Probably should have put it in another thread, but she was here and so was I.