Sweet revenge

[jdev mgr]

About 2.5 years ago, while looking for a job I came across adds posted by recruiting companies. Knowing nothing better, I gave my details to one of these boiler-room operations and even proceeded to meet them in person. From the first minute, I understood the mistake I made. These companies are all about getting SOMEONE placed in a position and not YOU placed in a position. By collecting data about you, and the companies you interview with, they call upon these companies and often undercut you - offering other candidates that are similar to you. The end result is that you gain instant competition.
I logged my remarks back n the day and recommended to all NOT to work with recruiting companies. Instead work directly with the HR departments and contact the employer directly. Big companies will often work with one headhunter and this is also a good sign. No matter what you do - DO NOT provide recruiting companies with any info about the companies you are interviewing with!

Today, I serve as a Development Manager for an emerging software company. During the past 2 months, we have doubled our development team, and we have open positions posted on Monster and Dice. Having positions open and posted, realy grabs the attention of the recruiting companies. As you can imagine, I get daily calls from these sleaze balls. All three companies try the same exact pitch which goes something like this:

1)As I start my day, they call; pretend to be my best friend, to inform me that they have an unbelievable candidate. This candidate is currently working, but is looking for a better opportunity. The candidate is currently interviewing with 4 other companies � but he/ she can squeeze me in to the interview schedule if I act fast.

2)At that point, I normally break the foreseeable sale pitch and ask to get a resume by e-mail. I would have you know that the policy I enforced is that we first like to see a resume of a candidate, then conduct a phone interview and only then bring the candidate in for a face-to-face interview.

3)The boiler-room-used-car-sales-man-now-turned-recruiter on the line then starts a long explanation/ discussion trying to come up with a reason why they can not follow the process I explained in #2 above. Usually, saying that the candidate schedule is busy/ they already filtered this candidate for me/ bla bla bla.

4)I NEVER budge! I hang up on them, put them on hold for hours, give them disinformation about the position and do anything that will ensure these scum bags are spending time with me in infertile attempts. I feel like every minute that I put them on hold is another minute that they are unproductive, and their company is losing money. Hoping that I do my limited part in eliminating this unethical bazaar.

5)After a day or two with one sales person/ recruiter I usually get moved to another one from the same company and the next recruiter tries the same drill all over again.

And the best part of this story is that we actually have an in-house recruiter, and she is surfing resumes online. She single handed found 6 developers in 2 weeks!!! All are 1.4 certified, and have started to work�

[Damian FRACH]

>>> These companies are all about getting SOMEONE placed in a position and not YOU placed in a position.

These companies are trying to place their best candidate with the highest salary to get the highest commission

sounds logically for me

also the recruit agent market is quit big and stable, what can indicate that these companies do the right job ...

I do not clearly understand your concerns ...

[Mark Herschberg]

"jdev mgr",

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[Scott Dunbar]

Originally posted by Damian FRACH:
These companies are trying to place their best candidate with the highest salary to get the highest commission

I guess it depends on who you've worked with. I also have dealt with the meat market head hunters - they barely read your resume but know that you are the best candidate for the job. They are simply trying to be first - it does not matter to them if you and the job are a good fit - they don't get paid unless they place someone in the position.

Originally posted by Damian FRACH:
also the recruit agent market is quit big and stable, what can indicate that these companies do the right job ...

Again, I guess it depends on your background. Yes there are big ones and yes there are ones that I would trust. No, I've never worked with a large firm where I felt like anything but a piece of meat to be thrown to the tigers. The small one or two person head hunting firm where the head hunter wants to meet you before s/he sends your resume anywhere are the people to work with. They want your repeat business in 2-3 years.

[Eric Lemaitre]

Hi !

I understand your bitterness, but your reaction is both unfair and unprofessionnal : you cannot realy distinguish meat-sellers from honest recruiters simply because you are not there behind the scene when your output info is processed, and both recruiters types, fair or foul, use the same tools. What is more beware, you may have to change job later and need them, so don't put all of them against you.

I suggest you use another approach we had in france, by creating a kind of "junk-recruiters.org" web site, where all people looking for a job gave their bad feelings about recruiters estimated fouls. Main rules were :

_ People who made testimony were anonymous, so as not to be recognized by recruiters when they went to them later. Of course there is a risk of fake testimony, but it was estimated as weak.

_ All recruiters who had a blame against them were immediately warned by email and had one full week to answer back before testimony against them was published, so they could present an explaination or defend at once aside the accusation.

You can guess this turned often to trench war between totally oposite testimonies and back replies, or even insults, but the goal was reached anyway : when companies understood that any interviewee could make know his bad feelings to all their potential IT pros future clients, they almost all adopted a much more professionnal behavior. They didn't leave job seekers without an answer and did in relevant time, they explained at least briefly why they were not selected for the job, they looked for real adequation between job and candidate, and they were much more cautious about number of resume sendings.

Of course there are some risks of trails, but US constitution shoud be in favor of job seekers anyway, and foul recruiting companies will make anything to avoid bad form of publicity like trials for it would be too dangerous for their business.

A track to follow ? It would be much more constructive anyway than your attitude which looks inspired by bitterness and sorrow, for even if you were tricked by foul recruiters many others are serious, so rather share honestly and professionnally your experience, this looks to me like the best way.

Best regards.

[Henry Wong]

Don't mean to throw more oil onto the fire... but...

A decade ago, when I was in-between jobs, the head hunters that I worked with were very professional, gave candid and useful appraisals, and many of them keep networking with me years after I was off the market.

Last year, when I was again in-between jobs, the quality of head hunters seems to have drastically dropped. My opinion is probably that I was too pricey for them -- all the jobs they discussed were more for junior people... but still... how hard is it to return someone's phone call in a timely manner?

In the end, I got a new job through regular networking with friends and former colleagues.

Henry

[peter wooster]

Originally posted by Henry Wong:
Don't mean to throw more oil onto the fire... but...

A decade ago, when I was in-between jobs, the head hunters that I worked with were very professional, gave candid and useful appraisals, and many of them keep networking with me years after I was off the market.

Last year, when I was again in-between jobs, the quality of head hunters seems to have drastically dropped. My opinion is probably that I was too pricey for them -- all the jobs they discussed were more for junior people... but still... how hard is it to return someone's phone call in a timely manner?

In the end, I got a new job through regular networking with friends and former colleagues.

Henry

The quality of placement agencies has always been varied. I had a runin with a terrible agency many years ago, during a recession. I was looking for a system programmer job and they sent me to a large department store, where I was dumped in with the Christmas help. I told them the agency get lost and found a job through networking. As it turned out that employer had hired the same useless agency who immediately demanded a fee for placing me, even though they had not bothered to send me there. This nearly cost me the job.

Thir quality and behaviour varies the most with the type of market. When the job market is bad they treat prospective employees like trash, when the market is good they treat you like gold.

On the suggestion that they are "used car dealers", that's an insult to car dealers, who at least know when they are lying. Many of these guys are too incompetent to be able to tell.

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Henry Wong:
Don't mean to throw more oil onto the fire... but...

A decade ago, when I was in-between jobs, the head hunters that I worked with were very professional, gave candid and useful appraisals, and many of them keep networking with me years after I was off the market.

Last year, when I was again in-between jobs, the quality of head hunters seems to have drastically dropped. My opinion is probably that I was too pricey for them -- all the jobs they discussed were more for junior people... but still... how hard is it to return someone's phone call in a timely manner?

In the end, I got a new job through regular networking with friends and former colleagues.

Henry

The QUALITY of headhunters has dropped? Around here, the QUANTITY has gone through the floor - good, bad and indifferent. It never recovered from the recession.

The major difference I saw in the last+1 recession over the last one was in last+1 headhunters would "go fishing" even though they had no place to put you in the hopes that something would come up. In the last recession, they didn't even bother to fish.

[Sam Robinson UK]

So thats why they asked me who I have interviewed with!!!

Thanks for the valuable advice!