Recruiters suck.

[SunnyD]

Rewind back to about November of last year... I found a listing for a Jr. Software Engineer position at a large company down here in Orlando, and it basically reads as my skill set and experience. So I send along my resume, not expecting much action during the holiday season.

It was a good assumption, but at least contact was made with the recruiter there, and things were confirmed to be moving slowly through the holidays. But at least it was there, and I expected it.

January rolls around and I step up efforts. Took a while to get ahold of the recruiter, but things were now moving ahead. Come February, I miss what may be an interview call, but the following next 7 days none of my emails or more importantly phone calls were ever returned. Mid-February again I finally get an email response, saying that things shifted a bit and they were knee deep in interviews for a higher level position. No big, once those were done they would be going back and looking at the other positions.

March... April... no email or phone call replied to.

Finally, here at the end of May, I email the recruiter as they have been continuously listing software engineer positions (same generic one) on Monster, to see if any headway has been made or whether the original position had been filled or shelved. Turns out, it's shelved indefinitely (as I had expected), and the explaination for the continued listing on Monster is simply to farm resumes for the next opportunity.

I feel so used... employers should not be allowed to post listing simply to farm resumes. I just wasted 6 months of effort pursuing a job that may or may not have ever been there in the first place. (Yes, I have been looking elsewhere in the meantime as well.)

 

[QED]

Meh....

You probably spent just as much time composing that rant and writing it down as the time you actually spent in pursuing that job.

Besides, consider what the recruiter did to you a favor-- you now know how his company respects the time of their prospective employees-- so you can only imagine how they treat them once they are hired. Now just think of all of the time you saved by not getting the job...

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: MathMan
Meh....

You probably spent just as much time composing that rant and writing it down as the time you actually spent in pursuing that job.

Besides, consider what the recruiter did to you a favor-- you now know how his company respects the time of their prospective employees-- so you can only imagine how they treat them once they are hired. Now just think of all of the time you saved by not getting the job...

I'm not sure if that's supposed to make me feel better or if it was an insult. Either way, up until the beginning of April, it was at least an email once a week and a phone call/voice mail every other week.

 

[bigrash]

weak rant

 

[poopaskoopa]

I think you were not getting the signal.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: poopaskoopa
I think you were not getting the signal.

and the explaination for the continued listing on Monster is simply to farm resumes for the next opportunity

Reading comprehension isn't your strongest suit is it?

 

[bonkers325]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: poopaskoopa
I think you were not getting the signal.

and the explaination for the continued listing on Monster is simply to farm resumes for the next opportunity

Reading comprehension isn't your strongest suit is it?

its a quarter past noon

 

[poopaskoopa]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: poopaskoopa
I think you were not getting the signal.

and the explaination for the continued listing on Monster is simply to farm resumes for the next opportunity

Reading comprehension isn't your strongest suit is it?

Probably as weak as yours. It was a comment on you calling/emailing the recruiter for months while getting little to no response.

 

[Stuxnet]

99% of the recruiters out there are basically just car salesmen... the only difference is their business is slave trade, not cars.

Most of them are skill-less, slithering, schmucks who leech off the talent and abilities of people who actually WORK for a living.

 

[Ronstang]

If you would have been a stand out candidate with special skills they would have called you the minute they reviewed your resume. If you have to track them down they don't want you.....it really is that simple.

 

[athithi]

Originally posted by: jbourne77
99% of the recruiters out there are basically just car salesmen... the only difference is their business is slave trade, not cars.

Most of them are skill-less, slithering, schmucks who leech off the talent and abilities of people who actually WORK for a living.

Absolutely agree. Recently recruiters for contracting companies have started asking for references even before they will tell you who the client is - my wife reluctantly gave her reference this time and the recruiter called up the manager and tried to drum up new business from him instead of getting a reference about the work my wife did at the organization :disgust:

Recruiters are the scum of the earth, in general. I did recently work with a great headhunter out of Austin, TX and in 10 years of working this has been my only positive experience. Frankly, the world would be a nicer place without recruiters in it. Their work is sh!t, they work like sh!t, they are jealous that people who really work make more than them, they lie for a living and the way they treat candidates is indicative of the way they feel about their own lives. The purpose of their existence is to merely make a buck off somebody else's ability without adding any value to the world around them. They are leeches all the way. :|

 

[RagingBITCH]

I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

 

[Schfifty Five]

I hate when that happens. It's frustrating and annoying. On one hand you kinda want to yell at them for stringing you along for so long, but on the other hand, if you did that, you can garauntee that you won't get the job.

Right now I'm waiting for an answer from a company about an engineering position. Everything has gone well up to now, meaning I had a good phone interview, and was promptly invited for an onsite interview. Now HR has already promised on 2 occasions a date on when they would have an answer and both times they never call. I always have to do the call back and it's getting irritating to have them tell me an exact date they would get back to me only to not do it.

 

[QED]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

Yep... don't understand the fuss. But I must ask those who think recruiters are the scum of the earth a question: if recruiters don't add any value to the hiring process, why do companies keep using them?


In any case, if you don't like dealing with recruiters, then don't deal with recruiters. Not that hard really...

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

yeah. Little do they know that good recruiters are your best networking resource. They know what is going on with companies in town and whose doing what, and they have the contacts. Good to have a few good relationships with the top ones.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

yeah. Little do they know that good recruiters are your best networking resource. They know what is going on with companies in town and whose doing what, and they have the contacts. Good to have a few good relationships with the top ones.

Exactly. I work at a firm who hires on $100+ an hour SAP consultants on for projects. These guys all know their stuff and certainly aren't in the business of just stringing people along. Everyone's stereotyping recruiters who hire people for $12 an hour office temp jobs with real recruiters.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

I've worked for recruiters, and I've had recruiters work for me. I have 7 years of in-depth experience with recruiters, and that experience comes from many different angles. Of all of them (which is a TON), I've met ONE that I would consider a decent human being.

This isn't stereotyping. Recruiters are schmucks not because I say so, but because THEY ARE.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: MathMan

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

Yep... don't understand the fuss. But I must ask those who think recruiters are the scum of the earth a question: if recruiters don't add any value to the hiring process, why do companies keep using them?


In any case, if you don't like dealing with recruiters, then don't deal with recruiters. Not that hard really...

Recruiters have wedged their way between employers and prospective candidates. This is a very long and lengthy subject (about how it came about and why it has stayed that way), but any more, their survival is a function of "that's the way things are done", not because they actually bring value to the table.

There are exceptions, of course, but they're disgustingly far outnumbered by the rest of them.

 

[sygyzy]

I can't help but laugh. Why would you keep pursuing it after so many failures?

 

[Baked]

If they don't call you within the week, move on. Keeping it in the file means you'll never get hired, EVER.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

I've worked for recruiters, and I've had recruiters work for me. I have 7 years of in-depth experience with recruiters, and that experience comes from many different angles. Of all of them (which is a TON), I've met ONE that I would consider a decent human being.

This isn't stereotyping. Recruiters are schmucks not because I say so, but because THEY ARE.

Wow, please back up your opinion with facts. Oh wait, you can't. I don't give that you haven't had the intense personal relationship which apparently, you're lacking with recruiters, to make you see them in a better light.

99% of the recruiters out there are basically just car salesmen... the only difference is their business is slave trade, not cars.

Most of them are skill-less, slithering, schmucks who leech off the talent and abilities of people who actually WORK for a living.

The same thing can be said for any CEO. Do you think all those rounds of golf are really helping the company? Oh wait, I just made a false, baseless generalization just because my impressions of the ones I've met have been negative. Excuse me.

 

[gigapet]

r u serious? get a clue man.

 

[athithi]

Originally posted by: MathMan

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
I like how everyone's stereotyping and making judgements against recruiters. :roll:

Yep... don't understand the fuss. But I must ask those who think recruiters are the scum of the earth a question: if recruiters don't add any value to the hiring process, why do companies keep using them?


In any case, if you don't like dealing with recruiters, then don't deal with recruiters. Not that hard really...

Just because recruiters are stupid fvcks it doesn't make the process of recruiting unnecessary. What's so difficult to understand about that?

Recruiters are quite possibly the worst networking contacts - they rarely have an idea of what kind of work is going on and what skills would be required. All they care about is the margin on top of your billing rate. I know this first hand. There are very, very few recruiters who take pride in the quality of their work. To them the concept of matching a skill to a position and getting additional business leads out of it simply doesn't exist. Their modus operandi is to chuck as many resumes as possible at managers and hope that a few will stick. I know for a fact that hiring managers hate recruiters just as much as candidates do. Unfortunately, the decision to use a particular vendor is typically made at a much higher level and the ill-effects of poor recruiting practices rarely affect that strata of management in the near term.

Obviously, there are a few good ones out there - like the person I worked with recently. She went to great lengths to match me to the right position after a few false starts and over the next 3 months she put in a lot of effort providing me with information and truly made me feel she was batting for me. But that is the exception, not the norm. Every other recruiter I worked with was simply a moron. I would've easily worked with over 50 different recruiters in 10 years and this lady is the one single person who was conscientious about the work she did.

 

[GeneValgene]

the recruiters who helped me get hired at the last two companies i have worked at have been awesome

i still keep in touch with them

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
SNIP

Wow... taking this personal, are we?

You sound like someone trying to justify their existance. I don't feel the need to get involved in that. The fact is, my 7 years of close interaction with recruities DOES qualify me to make the statements I've made. If you can't deal with it, that's your problem.