Why recruiters should not lie….

Hi there
This is following one of the first poss of mine in this group about
why recruiters’ should not lie, and how it impacts the recruits’
careers and lives. I came across this short news somewhere:
___________________________
Lies And Promises Hidden In Job Offers
Under pressure to hire, beat competition and recruit, employers are
bending many a rule these days. Companies are compromising on hiring
standards, misleading candidates on salaries and are making false
promises to lure job seekers. “Companies often seem to be saying -
damn the process, just get them on board,” says Mr Ronesh Puri, head,
Executive Access, a headhunting firm, adding that scarcity of talent
is pushing employers to another level of talent hunting. At a premier
B-school last year, a Mumbai-based business conglomerate hired
graduates amid stiff competition promising an exciting job profile and
career path. Six months into the job, they quit because promises
seemed too unreal and fudged. CTC is the most abused deception
mechanism for companies as they realise that the young upgrade-brigade
has a special weakness for money. So they puff up CTC with all kinds
of things under it. A Delhi-based company included EMI on laptop it
gave out to its employees as part of the CTC. Last year, some IIT
engineers, hired by a leading Delhi-based infrastructure company, were
given very high HRA as part of the CTC package. Soon they figured that
they were posted to small towns where four of them were staying at a
company-provided accommodation. Companies are also diluting hiring
standards.
Source: 20 Feb’ 07 The Economic Times New Delhi Edition
___________________________

This is just one part of it. Ethics seem to be losing out of this line
of business. I had a 1.5 hour notice on a joining date no-show. I
seriously got pissed off morning 7:30 when a candidate called to
inform that he would not be joining inspite me having taken a final
confirmation yesterday late in the evening. Nice way to start a day,
and an even nicer way to end it. At least we should try to keep our
best going in the industry while peoples’ standards are falling fast
like shooting stars.

A Few Tips On Phone Interviews

So, there I was. Interviewing some candidates on the phone for an imminant job. And it became obvious that nobody had trained these people at all on how to interview on the phone.

I mean, for some of these people, the words they were saying didn’t matter at all. Their demeanor and how they said what they said eliminated them immediately. They might have been perfect for the position, but the world will never know.

As a result of this tragic experience, I thought I’d present to you some tips of phone interviewing.

Please read them before ever talking to me on the phone!

Tip #1 – You Aren’t Talking To Your Friends – These days, it is rare to see particularly younger people doing anything alone without a phone implanted in their head. I know a woman who lives near me who does this all the time.

Well, “know” is a strong word, since nobody in the neighborhood reallys “knows” her. Why is that? Because 100% of the time that she is outside of her house, she is on her cellphone. She pulls her car up to the house, gets out while still talking on the phone, and talks all the way into her house. This lady lives on the phone.

In any case, people who spend a lot of time on the phone get into some bad habits that will kill you in an interview. The worst of these habits is saying every little thing that pops into your mind.

Now, I won’t be the one to tell you that your friends don’t care to hear every little thought that is formed in your irradiated brain. However, I will tell you that your recruiter / HR person / hiring manager not only doesn’t care, but it irritates him to no end to hear your drivel.

Just try to keep in mind that this person, who is at some level in control of the job you want, is trying to do a job. They want certain questions answered and not to sit on the phone and gab. So, please, just stick to the answers. Please?

#2 – Help Stop Interruptus Annoyus – I know that you’ve got a lot to say about how wonderfully qualified you are for this job. And I also know that certain relevant thoughts pop into your mind while the recruiter / HR person/ hiring manager is on the phone.

That, dear reader, is why God invented paper. Write down your stinking question / thought / profundity and stop interrupting the other person! In addition to being rude, interruptions tell me that you’re not really listening to what I’m saying.

What’s more is that there is an instinctual negative feeling that almost all of humanity has when they are interrupted. While most people can’t put their finger on it, the reason for that feeling is that, when you interrupt, you are saying, “What you are talking about is no longer important. Listen to me talk, for I am much more important than you.”

#3 – Try Opening Your Mouth When You Talk – A good part of the position that I was interviewing for recently was dealing with the public on the phone. More than one of my interviewees were either speaking another language or neglecting to actually open their mouths when they were talking.

Mumbling, slurring (particularly bad during an interview), and other word distortions are a way of telling your local recruiter that you’re either:

A) A Half-Human Troglydite who can’t really speak in complete sentences.
B) Drunk / On Drugs

OR

C) Kidnapped and still wearing the duct tape over your mouth.

Cases A & B are pretty much a showstopper for an interview. In Case C it is acceptable to hang up and call 911 as long as you call the recruiter back after you’ve been recovered to explain.

#4 – Preparation Will Do Wonders – As always, I hate to suggest you put some time and effort into your career – you know, the think you’re going to be doing for the next 30 or so years – but I must in this case.

If you’ll prepare some simple, 30-second or less answers to the typical questions (”Tell Me About Yourself”, “What is an Accomplishment That You’re Proud Of”, “Tell Me About A Time You Had Difficulty With Your Boss”, etc), you’ll be way ahead of the game.

In fact, if you’ll have a stopwatch handy, you can time yourself while you’re on the interview and try to keep your answers under 30 seconds. It seems like much longer when you’re on the phone.

Trust me – if the interviewer didn’t get the right information or the detail she wanted, she’ll ask a clarifying question. But, and this is the case quite often, if she didn’t care less about the trail you were going down, you’ve avoided boring her.

A wandering mind is a dangerous thing!

So, there you go. If you’ll abide by these phone interviewing techniques, you’ll do much better on all of your interviews.

Or, at least, if you’ll agree to abide by these rules when you’re on the phone with me, I’d sure appreciate it.

Enjoy the Search!

-Dan from Fracat.com

Zensar feeling the Heat: Asks its Employees to Leave

The tumbling dollar and the meltdown in the US mortgage market have found their first victims in India and these are small to mid-size IT companies. Sources have told NDTV that Zensar Technologies has asked 200 employees to leave, reason, to counter sluggish earnings.

“We have asked 85 employees to leave. Its a routine exercise. We cannot afford to entertain employee bench like the large caps with rupee appreciating 10 per cent. We have not changed performance norms over last five years. Performers will be credited and bad performers will have to leave,” said Ganesh Natarajan, Deputy CMD, Zensar Technologies.

And if Zensar is feeling the heat from the dollar, iGATE is cowed down by the US mortgage market meltdown. iGATE has redeployed about 100 employees onto different projects who were early servicing the mortgage market clients. Its revenues has dipped from the mortgage market from 10 – 7 per cent over a quarter.

In a statement to NDTV, N Ramachandran, CFO, iGATE Global Solutions said, “The revenues from mortgage services seem to be flattening at the current levels. However, these revenues continue to be at risk in view of the on-going sub-prime market turmoil. The sub-prime loan originations in the US have almost ceased and the demand for origination services have dried up. We do not expect this to change in the short term.”

Experts say that with demand and realizations both under huge pressure, underlying theme for IT companies across board is cost cutting. Let alone the mid-caps, the larger companies like HCL are now paying less for any fresh hiring.

“On the pressure mounting on mid-caps and that only the better managed ones will survive in the future,” said Nitin Padmanabhan, Senior Manager-Research, ICICI Direct.

Challenging times indeed for the Indian IT pack, business being attacked from all quarters, massive cost cutting is the only way out especially for the mid sized players.
-Tuhina Pandey

Recruiting a Recruiter

Following retaining recruiter, I have a few thoughts on recruiting a recruiter which I wanted to share. I am sure most of you can add a lot of ideas to this pool. First of all, defining what a recruiter needs to do in his present job has to be done meticulously.

1) What would be the job function? Would it be restricted to sourcing, screening, telescreening, coordinating interviews etc.

2) What is the level of technology/skill understanding that is required for the recruiter’s function? If the recruiter is going to be a part of the sourcing team, it is essential that the recruiter has understanding of various sourcing methodologies, and an adherent follower of divine networking (thats a little over exaggerated to quote, but let me live with it!). The recruiter would be required to understand technology (relevant to the team/group) in-depth. Recruiter should be well-versed with the likely nature of job of candidates that s/he would be recruiting (web developers, desktop application developers, database administrators, apps DBAs, ERP developers, ERP consultants etc.) Moreover, for the recruiter, it would be essential to have the capability to differentiate the positions to be recruited and the peoples’ fitment to these various positions available. For a telescreener, or screener, the above go true, plus a clear idea of the temperament, and consistency (of jobs and thoughts) of candidates. I have observed that a person good at assessing has always been happy about recruiting any position. A coordinator needs to be a people’s person with a good understanding of interviewer temperament, and the ability to identify the right interviewer(s) for the candidates. [Sometimes good candidates are not hired because of being interviewed by wrong people! I am sure many would agree with this]

3) What level of benchmarking of quality is required pertaining to the company/group for the recruiter to adhere to? Sometimes a sucessful recruiter might miserably fail in the wrong company/job/ or function/technology.

4) What is the KRA of the job? Is revenue generation the key to the job? In which case maybe TAT is what that counts. Is cost cutting the key? In which case the number of direct hires, or direct senior hires might count.

5) What is the growth path to the job? More important to understand what the candidate wants to do in life.

Can you guys add more to it.

-Vijay

Okay. I admit it. Recruiters are morons. (OR 8 Rules For Working With Headhunters)

Peter Drucker was close.  It was Recruiters, not Computers.  At least, most of us are. Allow me to explain.

Every single one of us have had the interview with a candidate that starts out, “I was working with this other recruiter, and I even did a couple of interviews, but he never called me back…”

We know. We know we should call you back. We know that you want to know your status. But, frankly, most recruiters don’t do the “no money” calls. Or, at least, they don’t do them until they’re bored and looking for something to do.

However, while this is a serious character flaw among recruiters, unfortunately it’s really your problem. You see, you’re the one relying on the recruiter to get you a job. So, it’s best to learn how to effectively deal with a moron recruiter.

And the good news is that I’m here to tell you how.

1) Use Lots and Lots of Recruiters – Let me be honest. Relying on one recruiter is like picking a wife by being blindfolded, spun in a circle, and pointing. And, while the women that you’re pointing at are all of mixed variety, you know that at least 50% of them will decide that they don’t want to be women any more within the next 90 days.

And another 25% – 30% are “professionals”, if you know what I mean, complete with appropriate ethics (ie. none) and desire to help you (again, none).

Unfortunately, you’ll only find the good recruiters that you can work with if you work with a bunch. Think of it as playing the field.

2) Know What a Recruiter Can & Can’t Do For You – The nature of recruiters is this: They’ve been hired to find someone for a specific opening. The perfect someone would be a candidate that is doing that exact job for the customer’s direct competitor. The recruiter’s ability to get that person is the reason companies will pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees.

If you’re currently working in IT and want to be, say, a ballerina, a recruiter (even a ballerina recruiter) cannot help you with that.

If you don’t have any experience in any of the areas that the recruiter is looking for, don’t say, “But I could learn it!” Yes, you probably could. However, the recruiter is not going to be paid tens of thousands of dollars to find a good person who is not experienced in what they need. And if the recruiter isn’t getting paid, they aren’t helping.

If you’ve got no management experience, don’t expect a recruiter to find you a management job. Again, if you haven’t done it, a recruiter can’t help.

3) Communicate Regularly, But Not On The Phone – In other words, stay in contact with the recruiter to keep yourself top-of-mind. However don’t call the recruiter. They’re not going to answer their phone anyway and they’ve got 40 other voice mails waiting. All of them from candidates saying, “Got Anything? Got Anything?”

A less annoying and more effective way of communicating is sending an e-mail every two weeks or so checking in. (”I’ve interviewed over at Enron, have you heard anything about them?”, “I just took a 3 month contract, but I’m still looking for the full-time gig. Let me know if anything comes up.”, “I just finished training and am now certified in Advanced Sweeping, if you know of anyone looking for that.”, etc.)

4) Pass On Leads – If you hear about companies that are hiring in your area, feel free to pass that along to your recruiter. And yes, you can give the same lead to all of the recruiters that you’re working with. The company involved won’t notice an increase in calls from recruiters. There are always recruiters calling.

ONE CAVEAT: It is unethical to pass along leads to jobs that you found because another recruiter told you about them. If they bring a job to you, keep it under your hat when talking with other recruiters.

5) Introduce Them To Your Friends – If you want to get a call anytime a recruiter has a job in your field (and you do), be sure to refer them to your friends. Most likely, your friends won’t find it annoying to have someone say, “I got a job for you!”, even if they’re not looking.

If you’re not comfortable giving out your friends’ information, pass along your enemies’ information. As long as they’re competant, think of this as a way of getting them out of your companies. Recruiters can be useful idiots for you, don’t cha know…

And, by the way, except for your very closest friends, you don’t know whether they’re looking for a new job or not. Most candidates keep that information to themselves until they take another offer.

The side effect here is that the recruiter feels somewhat indebted to you and will call you with any openings in your field. That way, you get first crack at ‘em.

6) Remember That They’re Lying – Okay, they won’t all lie to you. But enough will for expediency’s sake that you should expect it. The only things recruiters don’t lie about are:

a) Interviews they’ve set up for you.
b) Offers they’ve received
c) Feedback from the customer

And they may fudge a bit on the last one. Anything else about “coulda, woulda, shoulda”, “something coming up”, “something I heard about” is a lie. It may not be an intentional lie, but it’s a lie.

7) Don’t Play Coy – If a recruiter asks you a question, just answer it. They aren’t trying to screw you or trick you or make you take a job you don’t want (if that were even possible). They just want to know where you’re working or what type of work you do or what you’re being paid or whatever.

Tell them. It can’t hurt to get job offers. And you’re fully capable of turning down any offers or interviews that you don’t want to go to.

Remember the Golden Rule – Treat them like you’d like to be treated in their position. Yes, I know that they’re not treating you that way, but that’s the way of the world.

Recruiters actively avoid annoying candidates. Which might not bother you right now, but they’ve put a note in their system not to work with you, which will bother you when you’re looking for a job. And you will be looking for a job eventually.

If you follow these rules, your experience with recruiters will improve immensely!

Enjoy the Search!

-Dan (Courtesy:http://www.fracat.com)

Are IT Recruiters Worthless? (Part 3)

You know, these hot topics are the ones I really love because they get everything all stirred up. And at the very least people get to talking.

I’ve had a lot of comments about something I said in the first installment, and I’d like to clarify something. As a side note real quick it’s always amazing to me the hills people want to die on. Evidently, I can say anything I like about recruiters as long as I’m dressed properly when I say it. As with so many other hot topics I write on, I’ve had no shortage of readers willing to write and give me their opinions on the topic of wearing sweats to a recruiter interview. And as usual, those of you who agree with me (it’s about 50/50), none of you come out in public through the comments, but choose to pat me on the back privately through email. That’s fine as long as you agree, but it would be nice if I weren’t out here all alone.

All that being said, I am going to clarify something finally. It’s not that I have such little respect for recruiters as people, it’s just that I’m so so tired of the whole recruiting process and what they put us through. It’s a joke the hoops they make us jump through just to get to a real interview. They drag us in there and ask us stupid questions that are clearly outlined in our resumes, and make us sit through a presentation of how their company got started and how long they’ve been in business and why they’re so much better than anyone else out there. And so many times they’re just trying to stock their DBs and don’t even have a real job. For some reason the name of the game seems to be just get the client in the office no matter what. It’s like they’re actually trying to sell us something and it would be harder to say no in person. I mean, do they really think we give a flying…flip… about their company? We’ve got one thing and one thing only on our minds; getting a job. That’s it guys. Don’t try to sell us on your company, and don’t try to tell us all the things you’ll do for us. In fact, you know what? If you want to really do something for me then send me on the interview with a minimum of stupid questions, and run-around. I don’t need you inspecting me before the interview. I don’t need you asking me the same questions again and again that are clearly on my resume. I don’t need you calling me and asking me if I’m interested in a job that’s clearly out of my skill set. And I don’t need to drive 30 miles out of my way to get job specs that you could easily send through email or on the phone. So NO, I’m not always going to dress up and treat you like a real interview because so many times it turns out to go nowhere.
It doesn’t take long to get really jaded to the process, and I have a real hard time hiding my contempt for recruiters once they start in on that… stuff. Go ahead… call me up and tell me you were just going through my resume and you wanted to know if I have ever worked with SQL Server. Then ask me if I’m certified. Really, I don’t mind at all… especially since it’s in size 48 font at the very top of my resume right by my name.

I also don’t wear a suit and tie to interviews. I just don’t believe in it. We don’t wear ties to work, nor is anybody else there in a tie, and I just don’t think it’s something that should be necessary to get a job. Put a random piece of cloth around your neck and suddenly become more respectable.

But you wouldn’t see this kind of crap in any other industry. Could you imagine a hospital recruiter brokering jobs for doctors? The recruiters make them come in to talk about a job that may or may not be real. Then they give them interviewing tips and tell them how to talk and what to say. Then they want to know what they’re going to wear, and may even insist on meeting them in the lobby to make sure they look appropriate. It just wouldn’t fly. Many IT jobs require degrees (believe me, a topic for another time), so we’ve all spent years in college too. And I’ve known many medical students and doctors and there’s nothing in the courses that prepares you better for an interview than any other major, so what’s the deal? Why are we put in this position every time?
Fewer people die most of the time when we make a mistake in IT, but it’s every bit, if not more scientific as medicine. IT certainly changes a LOT more than medicine does, and I’ve always been upset that we’re not more highly regarded than we are. It’s not like we’re out here digging ditches. We’re in a highly technical field and doctors have a few years of med school to get their license, but we’ll be studying for the rest of our lives just to stay in the market. I’m constantly studying and I still feel like I’m just barely playing catch-up most of the time. And yeah, doctors have to keep up their skills too, but they don’t have a completely new procedure or product dropped in their laps every other week that they’re forced to learn because it’s what their customers have already bought. It just doesn’t happen. The same goes with lawyers. You would never see them subjected to the same crap we are. Hell, cafeteria workers aren’t even subjected to our degradations.

And the problem is with the companies. They’ve outsourced their HR functions to the recruiters. It’s getting so you can’t even find a direct posting from a company anymore. If you want the job, you’ll only hear about it from a recruiter. So it’s not like we even have a choice most of the time. So, I don’t even play their game a lot of times. If they want me to come to their office, and I’m going to be in the area anyway, I’ll drop by for a few minutes, but if I’m not, then we can conduct all of our business over the phone. And yes, I’ve turned down interviews before because the recruiter refused to set it up until I came into the office.

With that in mind, here are some of the worst ones I’ve seen.

1. I was stood up twice by the same girl who made me drive 30mls to meet her. Then, when I refused to come out the 3rd time, she refused to setup the interview. So I passed on the gig.
2. I’ve had a recruiter actually come into the interview with me to make sure I didn’t say anything I wasn’t supposed to.
3. I’ve had a recruiter insist on driving me himself.
4. I even had one try to insist that I not work with anyone else. That he couldn’t represent me if he wasn’t going to be my only recruiter. I told him that was perfectly reasonable if he would also agree that I was his only candidate. I want him 100% dedicated to finding ME a job. He dropped it, and I dropped him.
5. I’ve been asked to get the contact info of other hiring managers in the company so the recruiter could use them as leads for new positions. This wasn’t for my current company mind you. I was supposed to ask the interviewer this.
6. I’ve been sold as a Java developer before. The recruiter told me it was a SQL job, and told the hiring manager he had an excellent Java guy. Then when I got to the interview, it was just a mess. I was pissed off, the hiring manager was pissed off, and the recruiter tried to blame it on me. There isn’t Java anywhere on my resume. I guess he thought that once they met me they wouldn’t mind changing the position just to get me on board… I’m sure that’s what the hiring manager was thinking too.

That’s all I can think of now. And those are just the absolute worst. I’ve had dozens of horrible experiences of varying degrees with recruiters. In fact, why don’t some of you share your stories with me and I’ll post them. I won’t use any names, don’t worry.

So the moral of this story isn’t that I don’t respect them as people. It’s that I usually don’t respect them as professionals, and I’m not going to treat it as a real interview when it’s not. It’s just not.

Oh, Oh, Oh… I just thought of one more thing to add to the list above… you’re just gonna love this one. You know how they’ll quite often ask you what you liked about your last job, and what your ideal position would be, etc.? Well, I actually answer those questions honestly to the recruiter because they’re supposed to be getting an understanding of what you’re looking for. Well, one time earlier this year during my last round of job hunting, this girl I mentioned in Part 1, was taking notes during this portion of our talk, and when I finally got to the interview, I start getting questions like this:
Why do you think managers are stupid?
Do you really think you’re so much better than everyone else that you deserve flextime?
Why do you find it necessary to send emails to your colleagues cursing them out?
Etc…

She had written down parts of everything I said, word for word, and given it to the hiring manager. And of course, she took everything completely out of context so he thought I said all those things verbatim. If any of you want those things explained, write me and if there’s enough interest, I’ll give you the real questions and answers.

Posted by Sean McCown

Identifying fake Resumes

In Response to a previous write up on fake CV’s  & companies becoming much smarter in identifying fake talent, this is a could be considered a continuation. In a country like India, were every next thing can be found Fake, the last thing one would want an employee whom you are going to hire turns out to be a Fake guy. This is an interesting article contributed by one of our Reader/Recruiter: Freelance Recruiter

“I wrote this, first in a yahoo group, then at a HR forum, and now I am citing it here. This contains a screening mechanism that I have tried and have found 95% accuracy. I am trying to make it better, but candidates are just getting too smart. They learn by their mistakes, and mistakes of others, such as mine, of having posted it on the Internet for everyone to access! Anyways, it might help everyone to add in more ideas…”

Identifying fake Resumes

Here is out of my little experience in elimination. What I have mentioned below are not rules of the logic of identifying fake resumes, but a general observation where the probability of a fake resume falling in the given category is very very high.

1) Absence of personal details
- Date of Birth
- Passport Number
- Residence Address

2) Very sterotype mail addresses, eg., For the name Raghu Reddy, the email address is something like manu_advice@…, or raghuexpert@…, which does not actually associate with a person’s name etc. (I use this email address of mine to stay anonymous, something of that sort. Like manu_advice could be of Manoj, Manish etc., and the person can switch identities, or evade identification easily)

3) Only a first name is given. And if a seemingly full name is
given, it has a lot of initials (hence the chances that a RGB Reddy having other resumes with the name Raghu GBR, Raghu Reddy GB, Raghu Ganesha B R etc is very high.Moreover, I have observed that if the combination of the above is present, the chances that the candidate holds fake experience is almost 95%. That is the reason why I started the mail with a disclaimer because the 5% of the remaining candidates must not lose out because of personal beliefs/assumptions.

Also observed, (in case of IT resumes), the names of clients
associated with projects would be very absurd or ambiguous. Such as “State Bank, US”, “VTC, Sweden” (A few names I found in Raghu’s resume)

*Not to miss out this part*, candidates of this sort would not mention the name of the college they studied in, the branch they specialised in, not the year they passed out, or completed their course in, instead it would be,

” B.Tech from JNTU University, Hyderabad with an aggregate of 75%”

Also, you would notice that the percentage would tend to be rounded figures.

If you would want to confirm this. Call the candidates, the
probability that the candidate would say “I am busy, call me after 1 hour” is almost 90%.

The litmus test:
To eliminate them (to confirm your doubts), have a few (2 ot 3) basic questions in their branch of studies, and also in the area they claim expertise in, such as, in electronics, ask them what ‘noise’ is. Ask what the logic behind a ‘multivibrator’ is and where it is used in real life. Then ask them to tell you to explain how a recursive function would work, and what the flow of logic is. You may also ask questions like what the runtime memory allocation
table would look like etc.

After they have answered none of your questions, use your lively imagination and ask them something really silly and hypothetical and non-existent. If the candidate babbles out some answer, then you have just confirmed that the candidate is a fake.

I hope this was helpful and clarifies my perspective.

Are IT Recruiters Worthless (Part 2)

A couple of you left comments after my last article on this topic, and you were just amazed that I would dare show up to an interview in sweats. You have to understand a couple things. First of all, we’re talking about an 8am meeting 40 miles away.

She’s lucky I wasn’t in my bunny slippers. Second, that’s the favorite game of every recruiter on the planet. They live for making you drive all the way across town to meet you so that they can judge whether you’re worthy to send on an interview. This is another one of those things that makes looking for a job so incredibly unbearable. It’s pretty common knowledge that the only thing you’ll be doing for the first 2-3 weeks you’re looking for a job is running back and forth across town meeting with one recruiter after another. Sometimes they have an actual job for you and sometimes they don’t. And what’s really the point of the meeting anyway? Like recruiters have been given special powers that allow them to see what kind of person you really are for the 15mins you’re with them. It’s a pathetic exercise. I’ve turned down so many interviews because the recruiter insisted on me coming into his office just to inspect me beforehand. It’s like we’re children. Did you brush your teeth? Did you wash behind your ears? Did you bring your list of stupid questions to ask the hiring manager? Did you put on clean undies?
I’ve always wanted to show up at the recruiter’s office in a nice suit looking like a million bucks, and then change into cut-offs and fishnet stockings on the way to the interview. It would be nice to show them that their little 15min meeting didn’t tell them anything about me.
My point here is that recruiters have the job listings so they’ve pretty much got us by the shorthairs. They can demand that we jump through any little hoop they like and we have to do it because we need to get to that interview. I’ve actually had recruiters try to insist on driving me to the interview. I had a couple who insisted on me telling them what I was going to wear. They actually wanted it described in detail to make sure it met with their approval. To be fair though, they both worked for the same company. And I’ve had several who actually met me in the lobby of the company. This was presumably to make sure I was on time and wouldn’t wipe a booger on the hiring manager when I shook his hand.
It’s this level of babying from people who are often times quite a bit younger and less experienced than us that makes a lot of IT professionals resent recruiters.

By HR for HR
Now, I’ve given a lot of thought to the whole thank you note thing. Frankly, I just don’t get it. Maybe back in the 50s and 60s that was how things were done, but today, nobody really cares. I’m convinced that this practice was started by HR managers as some sort of touchy-feely ritual that’s meant to make you feel like you’re going the extra mile. In truth however, it simply doesn’t work in IT. It doesn’t make a difference. I can interview the dumbest DBAs out there, and they’re not going to get the job because they sent me a stupid note telling me how wonderful it was that I even considered them for the job. They can either do the job or they can’t, and nothing is going to change that. They either fit in with the team or they don’t, and nothing is going to change that either. I’ve hired plenty of people and none of them ever sent me a thank you card for the interview. So the same goes with highly qualified people. Man, that guy was qualified, and he sure would fit into the team… too bad I can’t hire him. If only he’d sent me a thank you card.
It just doesn’t make any difference. Now, I know what you’re thinking… it’s just a nice gesture, and it could make you stand out if it comes between you and another guy. Most IT people don’t have time to get a dozen of these things, much less take time to reflect on what a nice he was for sending it. Besides, there are more useful ways to narrow down a selection. Try something novel like looking at what you actually want him to do, and see which one of them meets your specific needs. They may both be excellent DBAs, but one of them is bound to be just a little better for what you need.

Ok, I just noticed this is getting long again, so I’m going to stop here and I’ll pick up again next time.

Posted by Sean McCown

Are IT Recruiters Worthless (Part 1)

This is a very timely topic for me for a couple reasons. First, since I changed jobs this year, I dealt with recruiters a lot, and second, there was a comment posted today that responded to another comment where the guy said recruiters were worthless. In truth, they both have a point… HAH.

On one hand recruiters perform more or less a necessary function. I say more or less because you could really do without them quite easily, but they can make things easier under our current system. I’ve dealt with recruiters from both sides of the desk many many times, and I will admit that if you get a good one, they can take a lot of work off your hands. The problem is that the really good ones are about 1 out of every 500 or so. Most of them simply don’t have any IT background and they do nothing but get in the way. It’s not like there’s any kind of licensing procedure, or recruiting class they have to go through. Pretty much any Tom, Dick, or Moron can be a recruiter. So when you’ve got a good one, you’ll know it, and you can rely on them to really simplify your search.

Again though, the trouble is that most of them are pretty worthless. I’ve been in IT for over 10yrs, which means I’ve had several jobs throughout the years. That also means that I’ve interviewed more times than I can count… from both sides of the desk. And in my experiences, I’ve met 2 recruiters that I can think of who were worth their salt. So what does an excellent recruiter do? Well, there are really 2 main functions of a good recruiter.

The first is to really dig into the company’s needs and know enough about the topic to pull in the most qualified people. The perfect technical recruiter in my field would be an ex database professional who just decided to play for the other team… you know, someone who really knows DBs and can ferret out the good SQL guys from the bad ones.

The second, and this is probably more important the first… is to shut up and get out of the way when he knows absolutely nothing about IT or DBs. His job at this point is to be the keeper of the company’s phone number and pass it along to you and setup the interview… then get out of the way. Don’t try to pretend you know what you’re doing, and don’t try to teach me anything. So basically, know your limitations. If you know you don’t know anything about it, then just pass on the number and let the pros take this one.

I’ll tell ya though… now we’re getting into one of my big diatribes. Like I said above, I’ve been in this business for quite a while, and nothing gets me madder than having to deal with a recruiter who’s been at it for 3-6mos who all of a sudden knows everything about interviewing, and is going to force me to sit down and listen to his ‘pointers’. There’s a recruiter here in Dallas who goes above and beyond the call of annoying. He actually attaches 2 docs to his email when he confirms an interview. The first one is a list of really really stupid questions you should ask the interviewer. I’ll get back to those in a minute. The second one is a pre-configured thank you note template you are to send the interviewer when you get home. I don’t know if I even have the strength to talk about this one, but I’ll try to muster it in a minute.

OK, first, I just looked into my brain and started organizing these things, and I’m actually going to break this discussion up into a small series of posts because it’s just going to be too long for me to expect any of you to just sit down and listed to my entire rant… back to the post…

I had this girl earlier this year who really took herself seriously. First of all, when I went to her office for my meeting, she tried to chastise me for wearing sweats. Here’s basically how the conversation went.
“Are those sweats?”
“No, they’re a new form of loose-fitting business suit.”
“How can you wear sweats to an interview?”
“I was under the impression you were the recruiter, not the hiring manager.”
“I am, but you won’t get to the hiring manager if you don’t impress me first”
“You’re kidding me right? You really expect me to believe you’re going to give up a commission because you think I should dress up for you at 8am? You haven’t done this very long have you?”
“Well, the fact still remains that you have to get past me first.”
“OK, whatever. So you can either tell me about the position, or we can part ways now, but I’m not going to dress up for a recruiter.”
That’s basically how it went. She decided that she wanted to just forget it for now, but that I’d better be dressed more business-like for the interview. Ok, now I’m getting mad all over again. This girl was like in her early 20s, and I wasn’t even sure if she still lived with her parents or not. Not to mention, that’s just an insult. Because I don’t dress up for you, you assume I don’t know how to dress for an interview? Anyway…

So right before I went on the interview, she sent me an email and said to be sure to dress in a suit and tie because I represented her and she didn’t want to look bad. I immediately cancelled the interview. She called me right away and was just shocked. She couldn’t understand why I’d pass on such an excellent opportunity. I told her it was because I wasn’t going to have her baby me like I was in grade school. I can find a job pretty much anywhere around here and I certainly didn’t need hers. She said she was sorry, and I said I didn’t care. I wouldn’t work with her anymore. I had someone else at that company call me later that day and said he was my new recruiter and did I still want to go on that interview. I said, sure.
Now, I did get a chance to talk to the original girl a couple weeks later, and we had a nice long talk about our respective careers, and as it turns out, she was in clothing retail 3mos ago, and started doing this when she lost her last job. So, she’s been doing this for 3mos, and all of a sudden she knows more about IT interviewing and recruiting than I do. Most of us in IT have seen it 100 times. Those kids who come in as recruiters and start bossing us around like we’re children. All of a sudden, we’re stupid and they know everything about getting a job in IT.

That’s really what I want to say in this first part of the series. Recruiters just don’t realize that by the time you’ve been in the business as long as I have, we’ve seen recruiters come and go. And come and go. And come and go. Yet, even without all these brainiacs we still manage to get one job after another… go figure.
And for the record, that girl is no longer a recruiter. She moved out of state and went back into retail.

Posted by Sean McCown

Orkut India and HR

Corporate India is actively scanning Orkut and other social networking websites to fill up its ever expanding ranks. 

Recruitment through social networking websites is a new trend, but one which is expanding rapidly.

The benefits of using Orkut and other social networking sites like LinkedIn as a recruitment platform far outweigh its disadvantages. Companies scan profiles and then initiate contact with people who have potential.

But while these sites are useful for sectors and companies where the volume of recruitment is small, a company like the Tata Consultancy Services, which recruits over 15,000 people every year, prefers traditional routes like campus placements or employee referrals for their needs.