Day: July 28, 2017

I killed the LinkedIn, Dice, Monster, Indeed, Glassdoor, and I don’t remember how many more, accounts because they were bringing no value and no job leads. They were however wasting a lot of my time.

These sites opened my email box to a seemingly never-ending stream of “Job Leads” that can at best be described as useless. I think of them as SPAM.

I relented recently. The company I work for kept telling us to join LinkedIn “Greatest thing since sliced bread” according to them… In reality it’s nothing more than a pain in the ass. I have no interest in reading the company propaganda on my own time.

Recent events and the realization that I will not be able to advance in any way with the  company forced me to reconsider my position about using these employment oriented websites. 

So I also started a job search using the only method left to me, the job sites. 

Einstein said something like; Continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

So I’m crazy. Not by choice, but by necessity.

Knowing what I was in for has helped make this insanity a bit more tolerable. 

I was looking at my email this morning and had 24 emails from headhunters that pretty much all start;

“Hi I’m a recruiter from (blah blah technical sounding name) and I found your resume. I think that you’re exactly what my client is looking for…”

The stroking goes on from there. Most often there is a considerable amount of boilerplate crap about what a wonderful, well respected, profitable, and important “mover and shaker” the recruiting company is. (Do a Google street view address search of many of these places and you’ll find a hole in the wall between a whorehouse and a bar.)

By the time the “recruiter” gets to the point and describes the actual position two things become obvious.

1) This “Professional” recruiter hasn’t read your resume.

2) They have no concept of geography.

I’ve written about this in the past.

I never bothered to keep any statistics on the emails, until now.

How many are actually valid?

How many are from real placement firms?

I got a sample set of 24 in the past week. I’m thinking about how to work up a way to represent the statistics in a nice chart form. If I’m successful I’ll post it here.

For now though, here’s a quick take away from the current sample of 24.

Of those, only 6 were for positions in my actual area of expertise.

Only 2 of the 6 were actually in the state in which I reside

Only 1 of the 6 was within 200 miles.

Yipeee! I’m going to have a new job any day now.

All but 3 of these “Leads” were from Indians (Dot, not Feather)

The 2 leads in my state were from people with European names, and were in fact, local recruiting firms.

1 of the original 24 leads started out with a bald faced lie. “I’ve tried repeatedly to reach you”

Uh, no you haven’t, there’s no record of anyone calling my only phone, from the area code, prefix, or number you listed in your email, much less a voice mail.

The remaining 18 “Leads” were for positions that were ludicrous. A one month contracting position in NJ. A 3 month position in NY (for the kings ransom of $15 an hour, No benefits) and all of these were nothing like what my resume says I do. I’m not a software engineer, or developer. I’m also not a clerical person.

At the bottom of each of these “Great & exciting opportunities” is a message, “Please forward this email to anyone you know that might be qualified.”

Nope! Won’t do it. I’m not going to do your job for you Mr. recruiter. If you want candidates to fill these positions, you probably better start beating the bushes.  I’d suggest getting on your knees and blowing me, if you want my help. But I value my dick too much, and wouldn’t want to contract some screaming gow gow that rotted my member off at the root.

Needless to say, I fully recall why I gave up on the job search boards.  Of the applications that I have submitted for jobs that I’m capable of…

Zilch! Nada! 

Those applications have disappeared into a black hole.

So tell me again how the job market in California is improving???

Not that I’m surprised by any of this. If have a couple of friends trying to get the hell out of the place that we work. They’re encountering the same BS and we’re wondering collectively what the next move is.

For the time being we all just keep holding onto the jobs that we have and keep working to get something better.

All of us are fighting the depressing reality that we may be royally screwed.

Well, Chin up. Think of England!