Category: Job Search

Read this article on one of the jobs boards… 

It’s nice to see that I’m not alone. Now the question is; What do we do to solve this problem.

Games Recruiters Play – (Written by John Herrit, Posted on Jobcase) https://www.jobcase.com/conversations/33af68d3-7558-572a-805c-6faa5c592980

There are many games that IT Recruiters play. Here is are examples of just a few:

(A) The ‘bait and switch’

I receive many requirements in my email. One common game that IT Recruiters play is what I call ‘bait and switch.’ This game consists of me responding to a specific requirement. A recruiter calls me and says ‘I think you’d be a great fit for this position (calling it Position A) but I think you’d be even a better fit for this other requirement we have for Position B. Usually, Position B and Position A are completely unrelated. Sometimes Position A and Position B are different places or with different customers.

(B) The ‘Fake’ Job

This game is particularly frustrating for any job seeker. It’s when I respond to a requirement expecting that the customer needs someone right away. When the recruiter contacts me, I ask them what is the time table for their customer to fill this position. It’s when I don’t get a straight answer it’s then I realize that the recruiter’s company is working on a PROPOSAL for a contract. The hurtful thing about this game is you may NEVER hear from the recruiter, in reference, to this requirement again or if you do it’ll be sometime down the road (perhaps months)

(C) The Generic Job Description

I find this game to be very annoying because I respond to a particular requirement and I ask the Recruiter for a copy of the job description. I receive a job description that is so vague that it could apply to almost any job.

(D) The Multiple Submissions ‘Trap’

One of the cardinal rules for both Recruiters and Job Seekers is avoiding multiple submissions (e.g., having your resume being submitted to the same position multiple times). The paradox is that I’ll receive a copy of the same requirement for the same job from different Recruiters (often from the same Company). I get contacted by a Recruiter for this particular position and I point out to the them that I’ve received multiple emails regarding the same position. Some will try to tell me that their not the same but as I read the email that they’re describing the same position, at the same customer, often are worded almost identically. I like to point out to the Recruiter that their undermining their own efforts to fill the position. I sudden hear crickets chirping on the other end of the phone.

(E) When was the Last Time You Used this Skill?

This part of the pitfall of just about every job seeker. It’s called the ‘Resume Gap’ where you’re required everything you’ve done for the past zillion years. It turns out that there are time gaps when you’re unemployed or perhaps sick or you’re doing something else with your life. My experience is that Recruiters will zoom in on those ‘gaps’ in my resume. In my case, I was homeless from February 2004 – August 2004 and from February 2005 to August 2005. I would rather not talk about it since it was an incredibly painful time in my life. One of the favorite questions that a Recruiter will ask is ‘When was the last time you used ? ‘ If you don’t answer ‘last week’ then you’re pretty well hosed when it comes to a particular requirement.

(F) You Can Call It Stigma, Discrimination, or Whatever You Wish. It’s Still Means You’re Not Hired!

I’ve been bullied, put down, threatened and been blamed for just about everything under the sun in the workplace. I’ve dealt with stigma or age discrimination or harassment in the workplace. I’ve suffer from major depression and an anxiety disorder (I want to respond with ‘I’m not suffering from mental illness. I enjoy every minute of it!’). I was on a contract at the Coast Guard and I admitted that I suffered from a mental illness. All of a sudden, people thought I would go off on them at any moment. Then there’s the matter of my age (I’ll be 60 next month (06/28)), Experts say that older job seekers should edit out dates out of our resumes. Doing this raises a lot of questions from Recruiters or prospective Employers. Looking for a job seems like an eternal ‘Catch – 22.’

(G) Credit Checks and Security Clearances

I don’t know too many people who haven’t had credit problems or other financial problems in our lives. Yet some employers insist on doing credit checks on a candidate. My response is ‘I’m NOT applying for a car loan or a mortgage so why do you want to look into my credit history!’ We need a job to make money so we can PAY our bills so lets get abolish the financial background check as a prerequisite for employment. Having a security clearance is, for many positions, is essential to get a job in the Federal Government or as a Contractor with the Federal Government. I DID possess an Active Top Secret but don’t have it any more due to no fault of my own. Yet I’ve never had an opportunity to give my side of the story as to what happened.

(H) H 1-B Visas

H 1-B Visa program is designed to bring in high tech workers mainly from China and India. When talking about this problem, I don’t wish to sound like a racist or prejudiced. (My parents taught me to accept people as they are!) I’ve been on contracts where I’ve been the token ‘white boy.’ I get very annoyed when I hear about Companies who say they HAVE to fill positions using H 1-B visa workers because they’re aren’t any qualified Americans. I believe that there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who are more qualified to fill those positions but these Corporations don’t wish to pay them. I found H 1-B visa workers to be very good, don’t get me wrong, but they work for a lot less than a American.

(I) Calling and Not Leaving a Message

For me this is the ultimate faux pas! This is the most aggravating thing in the world. I have other things to do in my life so I can’t be waiting for the phone to ring. A corollary to this that most firms use 1-800 numbers to conceal their identity so I can’t tell if it’s a recruiter or a bill collector. It’s horribly rude and disrespectful!

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!

In my long and mostly fruitless job search one thing became abundantly clear. The internet is not the job-seekers friend.

Dice, Monster, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and the myriad other sites serve only to give false hope, waste the job seeker’s time, mask real opportunities, and further isolate people seeking positions from companies with actual positions available.
“Now Hiring” signs don’t mean “We’re Hiring here at this location.”
“Now Hiring” means, “Go to our website, fill out an application and maybe we’ll get back to you… Probably not though.”
But there’s something else I’ve recently been considering;
The Frustration!

In times past, you could fill out an application at a particular location, and then check back with the same location via telephone to find out if you were likely to be called in for an interview.
Now you check back on a website, but what you get is something like “Under Review”, then you check with the website a few days later and the status is “Closed”.
Okay, fine, but couldn’t you have just sent an email rather than forcing us to log back into your system, and navigate through surveys about our satisfaction with the application process?

For God’s sake, most company’s SPAM us with truly useless shit all the time. Surely, a form email telling an applicant that the position has been filled, isn’t too much to ask.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
After 4 or 5 hours of that fruitless grind, plus filling out endless applications and personality surveys, (85 pages of questions in one case.) It becomes soul crushing.
As the unpaid bills mount up, you’re wondering when you’re going to lose your home, and while yet another “Placement Agent” blows smoke up your skirt… Well, you might tend toward getting well and truly;
PISSED OFF!

As I’ve expressed before, the internet is a way to isolate us rather than unite us.
The internet allows corporations to ignore their customers while maintaining the illusion of being helpful.
“Your call is important to us, Please hold for the next available incomprehensible offshore representative. Most of your questions can be answered online by visiting www.wedontgiveadamn.com”
The Walled Gardens of corporate hiring processes allow CEOs speaking before congress to make the case, “There aren’t enough qualified workers.”

The suits speaking in front of Congress have stats to back up that claim. They in fact, aren’t lying when they say they need more H1B1 visas. The data holds up, because the information they have, is generated by their HR department, and their HR department has such narrow focus, that no out of work American workers are even considered.
After all, very few American workers seeking positions are recent graduates of Bangalore Technical University! But there are plenty of H1B1 Visa applicants who are.

It’s safer and easier for an employee to pass something up the chain of command than to make a “wrong” decision about anything.

Hiring decisions are no longer at a manager level where the Manager of a department can say, “This person is qualified enough. What they don’t know, they’ll pick up in a week or so, and the PERSON, the human being, would fit nicely in our corporate culture, and my department.”
Instead a manager must sit, or more often a designee sits in a committee and the group decides who gets hired, much like the decision about who gets to be prom queen.

The frustration and anger simmering in America today is not, as South Park says, “They Took R jobs!”
It’s “We never got the opportunity to even be considered by anything other than a computer system or some Orwellian group think.”
We’ve taken the humanity out of employment, and business, which simply feeds the cycle of frustration and anger.
We need to start dealing with each other as people again.
Facebook friends are not actual friends, if you’ve never met them in person. Twitter friends are nothing more than names.
If you’ve never met the people behind the screen do their opinions really matter?