Weird job recruiting situation.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been looking for a web development position. My last position was a combination of web development and IT support (help desk, hardware, staging new equipment, etc.). I’m looking for a development position because a position like I had is somewhat unique and if I have to do one of the two things, I’d rather do web development.

A recruiting firm found my resume and contacted me about a position about 20 minutes from home, an acceptable commuting distance. They wanted someone who could support and modify their website and be a backup for IT support. My previous position made me a perfect choice for the position.

I went for an interview and met with a number of different people, including HR and IT. It seemed to go very well. After I got home I called the recruiter and he told me that that had said that they loved me and that I was exactly what they were looking for. All I had to do was go in one more time and meet with the CEO. I got the impression that this was a mere formality. This was on a Friday and the recruiter said that he’d get back to me early the next week about scheduling the meeting.

By Wednesday I hadn’t heard anything so I called the recruiter. He told me that he had spoken to them and that they had said that they had been busy with other things and would get to him.

A couple of days later he contacted me and asked me if I would accept the position on a contract to hire basis rather than starting out as a direct hire (which it originally was supposed to be). I agreed and he said that he’d get right back to me.

A couple of days later the recruiter hadn’t called so I called him again. This time he told me that they were working on drawing up a contract (Isn’t there standard boilerplate for this?).

By the next week I still hadn’t heard anything so I called again. This time he told me that the employer’s hiring manager had told him that upper management had told them that could not hire anyone for any reason at the current time. He said that the manager was quite upset at not being able to hire me. I asked him how long this hiring freeze was for and he said he didn’t know, maybe weeks, maybe months. As you can imagine, this was quite a kick in the ass.

A while later, I was browsing dice.com for jobs and ran across the same job I had interviewed for at the same company. The posting date was 2 weeks after I had interviewed.

So I emailed the recruiter a link to the posting and asked him if the hiring freeze had ended. Then I phoned him about it. He stated that they had seen it a couple of days ago and thought that I might notice it. He said that it was probably an “accidental repost” and that he’d call the company to be sure and get back to me if they were hiring again.

Alll of this was starting to sound very fishy to me. I maybe could buy the accidental repost idea, but combined with the stringing along I had received, it seemed like something was very rotten in Denmark.

So I decided to Google the name of the recruiting firm. What came up was various forums and review sites full of people complaining about the incompetency and dishonesty of this firm. It seems that it engages in shady practices and then, when it gets a bad reputation it changes its name.

Then my daily jobs email from Monster arrives and guess what was in it. A new posting for the same job. This time it was marked “Confidential” instead of listing the company name but it was the same exact text as the other one and in the same city.

At this point I was thinking about bypassing the recruiter and contacting the employer directly, but I didn’t want to directly ask what the hell was going on, or appear to be going behind the recruiter’s back.

So what I did was send an email to the IT manager (who had given me his card) thanking him for seeing me and saying that the recruiter had told me that they were interested in hiring me but couldn’t because of the hiring freeze, and that I hoped that he would keep me in mind when he was again able to hire.

He responded and said that he didn’t know why the recruiter had said that there was a hiring freeze because that wasn’t true and that they had simply decided to not use a recruiter and post ads directly themselves. He didn’t say anything about whether or not he wanted to hire me directly and I have no idea what all went on while I was being strung along that might have caused them to give up on me (if they were even really interested to begin with).

I wrote back and told him that I was through dealing with that recruiting firm due to their dishonesty and that I was interested in the job if he wanted me, and that he should disregard any quotes from the recruiter and deal directly with me.

If I hear from him at all it likely won’t be before Monday. It may be that they won’t be able to hire me without paying a fee to the recruiter, or maybe the dishonesty of the recruiter might void any agreement. I don’t know.

I’d love to know what the hell went on while they were stringing me along all that time. It seems like there must have been negotiations that went sour for some reason and then they lied to me about a hiring freeze so I wouldn’t contact the employer directly, since they want to make money by placing me elsewhere (they’ve lost that opportunity for damned sure).

2

Recruiting firm is unethical.

In other news, new Pope is likely to be Catholic.

3

Yeah, I know. But there are some out there with good reputations. This outfit contacted me and the job sounded good so I went with it.

4

Did you also provide references?

Is it possible that things looked good until one of your references gave a less than glowing review?

I’m not trying to infer anything about you or your credentials; I’m just posing this as a legitimate possibility as to why things went south and suddenly everything was secretive and deceptive.

5

I provided 4 references to the recruiter. I have no idea if he passed them on to the employer or not, but I would be totally SHOCKED if any of those 4 people gave me anything other than a glowing reference.

6

I have a theory as to what went on. When this whole thing started the recruiter told me not to talk numbers with the employer and to let him handle that.

He’s a young guy, just out of college. That’s one of the complaints I’ve read about this firm. The agents are all recent grads with a high turnover rate.

I’m thinking that he looked at my resume with over 20 years of experience and a variety of skills and decided that I was some sort of hot property (I’m not, by a long shot, but a young kid might think so). He saw dollar signs and decided that he was going to hang tough and not place me for less than some outrageous amount. This led to the contract to hire request as they wanted to make sure that I was really worth that much, and even then they finally decided that it was a ridiculous amount (My fear is that the recruiter told them that I was the one insisting on it).

Then, when he lost the account, he still thought he could make big money off of me by placing me elsewhere, so he wanted to make sure that I didn’t try contacting the employer directly so he made up the hiring freeze.

That’s my theory at least, I have no idea if it’s correct or not.

7

Not that the recruiting agency isn’t full of scumbags (because it sounds like they are), but it could be that the company wasn’t all that interested in you. Sometimes interviews are weird like that :frowning:

Now, it could be they aren’t hiring you because then they would owe the recruiting company a finder’s fee, and they don’t want to pay that (although, i have always wondered… how would the recruiting company know? But then, I assume you don’t want to work for a company unethical enough to go behind their back and they don’t want someone unethical enough to do that to work for them).

But, it could also be they decided you weren’t a good fit, for whatever reason (maybe you wore a green tie and the hiring manager hates green). Recruiter makes up ridiculous story to keep you on the hook (i.e. figures you would go to a different recruiter if you got turned down). Seems like the IT manager would have said “we wanted to hire you but couldn’t because of X” if they actually wanted to hired you.

I don’t mean to burst your bubble; I’m sure you’re a capable guy and the new company is missing out. But I dunno if 100% of the blame lies on the recruiting company. Maybe just… 90%.

8

Of course, I realize that. You’re not bursting any bubbles. I’ve had enough interviews over the years.

But it seems odd that the recruiter would string me along the way he did with stories about CEOs and contract to hire negotiations. It’s too much theater. If they just wanted to string me along why not just tell me that they were leaning in my direction but hadn’t decided yet? Why all of the complications?

In any case, I wanted to let them know that I was available in case they really were interested. As far as unethical, in my mind the recruiter’s lies ethically absolve the other parties. Also, I’ve been looking for months and need work.

9

Not going to defent the recruiter/staffing agency. Many of them are either unethical or simply uprofessional. But there are some competent ones out there as well. It’s the luck of the draw from a job seeker’s perspective. In time you’ll learn to screen them as well. However, they all want to get paid and there is little reason for them to string you along. Based on what you described so far, I’d say the fault lies with the hiring company. Maybe they changed their mind about you, or, maybe they changed their mind about the position requirements, or, maybe the hiring manager thought he had budget to hire but the people with the money told him there ain’t no money, or, the project lost funding so now the position is up in the air but they still want to collect resumes to make the selections process quicker when the funds are available (because by then you may not be). All those things are possible and probably more likely than the recruiter stringing you along for no reason. Recruiters make money when they place people. They do not waste time on you when it’s clear to them there is no position available. That’s been my experience.

10

I admit that I have no idea how it works in your field, but is it really necessary to use these sort of recruiters? In your OP you state that you found the same listing twice on your own.

11

I understand that there are ethical recruiters out there. They’ve gotten me positions in the past, but going by the online reviews and comments this recruiting agency appears to be unethical or unprofessional.

Obviously that doesn’t mean that they were unethical in this particular case and obviously it doesn’t necessarily absolve the employer.

It seems odd that the recruiter would lie about a hiring freeze if they knew that wasn’t the case and that new ads for the job would likely appear online, but it also seems odd that the employer would lie to the recruiters and then be honest about it to me.

I’m wondering if there was some kind of misunderstanding between them, or maybe the IT guy wasn’t aware of what HR had told the recruiter.

All in all it’s an odd situation and I’m not going to deal with that agency anymore.

12

No, it’s not absolutely necessary, but when you’re looking for work and a recruiter contacts you with a possible job, especially one that seems to be such a perfect fit, you don’t just dismiss it. The other issue is that a good proportion of online job postings are placed by recruiters, so in a serious job hunt you pretty much end up having to deal with them.

There are professional ethical recruiters out there and many good jobs don’t advertise online and are only available through a recruiter, so I’m not going to dismiss that resource simply because some portion of them are incompetent or unprofessional.

13

+1
I got my current job through a recruiter, and I am very happy at my work. But, I’ve also gotten calls from scumbag recruiters (“I know your profile says you’re not open to relocation, but how about moving to San Diego” “I live in Atlanta, so that would be relocation. Goodbye”)

14

Sometimes they send me emails about jobs that are a zero match for my background saying something like “this is a perfect match for your background.” I suspect that some simply use software that scans dice.com or whatever for keywords and then sends out emails. Of course for some I get I can’t even imagine what keyword it would have matched on unless it’s something like “developer” which is so generic as to be meaningless.

15

I found myself nodding to your last two posts, as if you could see me. Yep, there’s good and even great people in recruiting, yep there’s some who just have no idea what they’re doing, yep there’s scumbags, and yep I get emails saying “this is a perfect fit for you!” which are equivalent to sending a radiologist an email about pediatrical positions.

16

I’m in precisely the same boat.

I’ll also add how I can time, to the minute, where I’ll be getting calls from folks with Thick Indian Accents after updating my profile on Dice.

You’d think, if your job was to place people in technical positions, and to interact with people every day in doing so, that you’d want to be able to communicate with them. I’ve thought long and hard about this, because I put a lot of stock in not being or acting racist, and it just seemed counter to my ethical goals to say ‘I can’t stand it when someone with a heavy <race> accent calls…and I won’t do business with them.’

But honestly, I’m going deaf as it is, and their language issues are creating yet another barrier to overcome in trying to get employed.

The other situation I’ve seen: Dish Network has a BIG facility here. They have a well established reputation for burn out and high turnover. But I got a LOT of calls from people hiring indirectly for them. The Recruiter is hiring for a Contractor, who is working for Dish.

17

I just received an email from the manager of the company saying that they’d like me to come in for another interview if I’m interested.

So my persistence may pay off.