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Third Party Thursday: 7 Things Recruiters Do That Irritate Me
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When I first started my site it was to put an end to the frustration and stigma attached to what I do. Below is a blog entry from one of my long time consultants/technical contacts. I've known him long enough to be able to call him my friend also. I can admit that at the beginning of my career when I all I had in my eyes were $$, I may have be guilty of one if not all of these accusations.
We all know 99% of what's said below is true but putting our heads in the sand isn't going to change a thing. You are fooling yourself if you don't listen to what your candidates have to say. Stop being a pimp, handler, broker, body shop and think about what you say before you say it.
So come on and chick-ity-check yo self before you wreck yo self - Ice Cube - 1993
From a entry entitled: 7 Things Recruiters Do That Irritate Me
Before getting into this post, I think I should state that there are recruiters I truly respect and like and recruiters that I do not respect and probably would not like even if I knew them. This post is about the later category, which I feel are the lazy recruiters who add no value to the candidate-employer relationship.
I got a call today from a recruiter who I would have loved to strangle, if it was only possible to do so over the phone. So here is my list of the top things that irritate me, which I am sure also irritate others. The first three come from my caller this morning, who I will affectionately call Mr. Lazy so i do not post his name here.
1. Ringing my phone over and over again until I answer – This was the issue number one when I talked to Mr. Lazy this morning. If you are going to call my line seven times in a row, my house had better be on fire. I realize this may seem like an emergency to you, but it is not my emergency.
2. Being rude to me on the phone – This was issue number 2 with Mr. Lazy today. I know saying “no, you have to listen now” might be polite talk in India or Pakistan or wherever you are from, but it is consider rude in the United States. It is consider ultra-rude in the south, where I current reside. I am sorry I hung up on you today, which was also rude, but when I tell you I don’t have time to talk, send me an email or give me a call back later. Do not assume your time is more important than mine and I have to listen to you this moment. The message it sends to me is you are smiling and dialing for dollars and not trying to add any value to the proposition.
3. Being rude to my wife on the phone – Once again, I realize you might come from a country where you can beat your wife whenever you want, but it does not mean you can beat mine up. Of course, she is perfectly capable of giving you a tongue lashing and then hanging up on you, so feel free Mr. Lazy. And, yes, this HAS happened in the past.
4. Emailing me numerous times for the same position – This was issue number 3 with Mr. Lazy. I know it takes a little bit of time, but when you go from Monster to Dice to Career Builder, check and see if you already sent me an email. Otherwise, you are showing me how lazy you are and I would rather talk to a recruiter I know and trust about the position than you. NOTE: I can generally figure out who the company is by looking at your req; if not, I will call someone I trust and ask them if they can figure it out. I am NOT going to call YOU.
5. Not reading my resume – When you call me or email me based solely on buzzwords, chances are you have something wrong. Yes, I know you have a lovely entry level .NET position you need to fill, but I am not going to work for $25 an hour 1099 or corp-to-corp. Don’t waste my time.
6. Not reading my location preferences – yes, I realize that there are jobs that are too good to pass up, no matter where they are located. In general, these jobs have a greater than $250k/year salary ($500k/year for California ;->), moving allowance, and no cost health benefits. Yes, I am being a bit ridiculous, but I am not moving for $45 per hour 1099 or corp-to-corp. I can make that here without any headaches. Now, if you have that $1 million per annum, plus bonus, plus moving expenses, plus no-cost benefits, I might even be interested in going to Greenland for a few years.
7. Having me do your job for you – I am far along in my career, I should not have to spend an hour answering email questions for you to send my resume to your client. You should be able to do the work to figure out if I am the right person to talk to.
On point #7, the email today had the following questions and answers, most of which can be determined by READING my resume.
1) Full Name:
2) Present location:
3) Contact Details:
4) INS Status:
5) Availability:
6) Total IT Experience:
7) Total US Experience:
8) Ready to Relocate (Yes / NO):
9) Expected Compensation:
10) Comfort levels (on a scale of 1[Least] to 10[High])
§ OO Design and Analysis
§ .Net
§ C#
§ SharePoint
§ Silverlight
§ Web Services
$ Messaging Framework
§ PL/SQL (Oracle)
§ UML
§ Design Patterns
11) Interview Preferred Timings :
12) Do you bear the needed years experienced
§ OO Design and Analysis 5
§ .Net (C#, Sharepopint) 3
§ Silverlight 1+
§ Web Services & Messaging Framework 2
§ PL/SQL (Oracle) 2
§ UML 2
§ XML 2
BTW, this is not the worst one I have seen. I had one that actually read like a job application (in bad english, of course) and would have me copy almost my entire resume into the email. Do I look desperate?
I was asked by a friend, who is a recruiter, why so many developers hate recruiters. I told him it was because recruiters were not earning their keep. This is not true of all of them, but there are some who are absolutely wasting my time, and the time of others, to try to make a quick buck. If you want to place me, and do not have a dream job, then you should at least take a few minutes to figure out if I am even qualified or would be remotely interested.
For the recruiter friends I have in the area (and some outside the area), I am not talking about you here. Yes, there are some developers that view all every recruiter as scum, but you know I am not one of them. I do have a problem, however, with recruiters that are nothing more than human search engines, as they take way too much of my money for no added value.
Follow Greg on Twitter or read his blog here.
BTW - Greg is a truly awesome guy and I consider myself lucky to have known him as long as I have. Right after he posted it - within 10 minutes - I called him to tell him that I loved it and asked his permission to post it via RecruitingBlogs.com and eventuallly The Anti Pimp. He said, "I thought you'd be one the first phone calls I got..."
He was right.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Glenn on
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There is also #8. Reference checks.
Recruiter: Before I left you go, I need to get at least 3 professional referrences
Candidate: Now?
Recruiter: Yes, I can jot down their names and phone number.
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Permalink Reply by Jim Durbin on
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I always thought that developers preferred to have a recruiter who really understood the technology they were working on. I thought wrong.
When a recruiter really knows their stuff, the developer is forced to defend what they know - and that actually makes it more difficult for the developer to land jobs they aren't qualified for - which as we all know, happens far more than we're willing to admit.
I see something like this pop up on a regular basis, but what do developers expect, exactly? If they could get the jobs on their own, why are they posting their resumes on job boards? Why do they have a resume out there at all?
There are plenty of bad apples in every profession - it's always a bit strange to see someone post a list of things they hate when half of them sound like they found a rude person on the other line, and the other are structural problems the developers aren't willing to work to fix.
Just remember - everyone hates recruiters, but loves "their recruiter," or more accurate - they like recruiters when we're landing you interviews, but the before you need us and two seconds after, we don't exist.
meh.
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Permalink Reply by Sal Petrara, CPC on -
My response would have been similar to Jim's.
We are a necessary evil and do a thankless job.
Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan....
Jim Durbin said:I always thought that developers preferred to have a recruiter who really understood the technology they were working on. I thought wrong.
When a recruiter really knows their stuff, the developer is forced to defend what they know - and that actually makes it more difficult for the developer to land jobs they aren't qualified for - which as we all know, happens far more than we're willing to admit.
I see something like this pop up on a regular basis, but what do developers expect, exactly? If they could get the jobs on their own, why are they posting their resumes on job boards? Why do they have a resume out there at all?
There are plenty of bad apples in every profession - it's always a bit strange to see someone post a list of things they hate when half of them sound like they found a rude person on the other line, and the other are structural problems the developers aren't willing to work to fix.
Just remember - everyone hates recruiters, but loves "their recruiter," or more accurate - they like recruiters when we're landing you interviews, but the before you need us and two seconds after, we don't exist.
meh.
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Permalink Reply by Paula on -
These are the same things hiring mgrs dislike re: recruiters--and I imagine they are the same on both sides.
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Permalink Reply by Kate Harlow on -
Bitter, party of one? Listen, I understand the frustration of dealing with bad recruiters and I think we all have experience defending what we are and how we do it from the victims of Mr. Lazy and his ilk...but, yikes! That post makes me glad that I don't work with developers. There are a lot of obnoxious things that reputable recruiters do on a regular basis that I think we would all much rather hear about--and if those things could be highlighted in a slightly less xenophobic tone (that description is generous), that would be great too... This is a perfect example of why we edit things before we post them on the internet, boys and girls.
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Permalink Reply by Scott Gordon on -
Kate - agreed but fortunately (and unfortunately sometimes) I work with developers and they can be quite precise. The purpose of this post was to shed the ugly light on how we are percieved. We all know it but reading this was like a slap in the face. Sometimes we get comfortable with our "process" after reading this made me re-check mine altogether. Pissy or not...I agree with what he says and "Mr. Lazy" continues perpetuate the bad apples of our profession.
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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on -
I agree with you. Thanks for saying this. I don't think this blog is very helpful in any way, shape, or form.
Kate Harlow said:Bitter, party of one? Listen, I understand the frustration of dealing with bad recruiters and I think we all have experience defending what we are and how we do it from the victims of Mr. Lazy and his ilk...but, yikes! That post makes me glad that I don't work with developers. There are a lot of obnoxious things that reputable recruiters do on a regular basis that I think we would all much rather hear about--and if those things could be highlighted in a slightly less xenophobic tone (that description is generous), that would be great too... This is a perfect example of why we edit things before we post them on the internet, boys and girls.
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Permalink Reply by Jessica Meher - Akken on -
Scott,
This is a great post, sorry you had such a bad experience with "Mr. Lazy." I know so many wonderful recruiters, and unfortunately in any industry you can stumble upon a rotten apple. Recruiting is a tough job, especially if you manage both sides of the desk. I truly appreciate every recruiter who takes the time to balance both the candidate and client relationship, it takes research, communication, patience and a lot of multitasking skill.
Cheers,
- Jessica
Akken recruiting software
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Permalink Reply by Eric Haber on -
Recruiting is a strange occupation. You don't need a license or formal education to call yourself a recruiter, basically all you need is a phone and computer. With that being the said it's no surprise that we have recruiters out there behaving poorly. Being rude to a candidate (or their spouse) is absolutely absurd and gives our profession a black eye.
For the first time in my career as an executive recruiter I'm having unsolicited conversations with people about recruiting. One opinion expressed over and over again is, there are a lot of bad (unprofessional) recruiters and our reputation as a whole suffers. I remind them that other professions have bad apple's, such as lawyers, politicians, soucers and IRS agents just to name a few. ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Maren Hogan on -
I like this post. It reminds me of the first few weeks I was calling myself a recruiter. I had no flippin idea what I was doing and no one around to teach me properly. I tried being charming, tried sounding like I knew what I was talking about, tried everything. Then I had a candidate just rip me a new one. It was so awesome because he was smart and funny and condescending and told it pretty much like it was. And once I got over being really offended (remember I was really GOOD at the job I had before entering the world of recruiting so this whole deal was very humbling) he and I became really good friends. He came to Omaha and we had lunch and we talk all the time about stuff. Some of my best recruiting posts have been inspired by his take on things. I never placed him because he was on crack for wanting to get what he wanted out of the Omaha economy, but I told him that and he was cool. Ahhh, good times. Nice post.
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Permalink Reply by Paula on
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From the er's side--recruiters are coming out of the woodwork trying to drum up business. We get that you need your income, but we are not using recruiters because we too are trying to retain as much of our revenue as possible and with a deluge of resumes coming in, it is not as hard as it was to find quality candidates. Sorry-but that is part of what is happening in this economy--when it turns around, we'll need you again--so keep up the relationship building part of it so that when the boat turns around--YOU are the first we call when a need arises-not a call we dread.
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Permalink Reply by Eric Haber on
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Paula,
Do you think we have reached the point where HR departments in general, are looking to avoid candidates that have a recruiter fee attached to them?
Paula said:From the er's side--recruiters are coming out of the woodwork trying to drum up business. We get that you need your income, but we are not using recruiters because we too are trying to retain as much of our revenue as possible and with a deluge of resumes coming in, it is not as hard as it was to find quality candidates. Sorry-but that is part of what is happening in this economy--when it turns around, we'll need you again--so keep up the relationship building part of it so that when the boat turns around--YOU are the first we call when a need arises-not a call we dread.
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