Headhunters/Recruiters Calls & Questions??

[ralphsulser]

I have noticed a similarity over the past few years of the trend in contacting candidates. If a resume and cover letter is sent in response to a posting by a recruitment agency the following thins happen:

1) The recruiter calls your home phone mid morning or afternoon while you are at work even if they have an email available to contact you during working hours. Is it that they know they can leave a short message and then talk on your nickel if/when you return the call? At one point in time I was really searching for something soon after being laid off, and ended up with a $200.00 phone bile from calling back recruiters.

2) They have your resume and cover letter, but if you call them back, they say wait a minute until I find your resume. (which is reasonable) but then ask you questions of information that is already documented on your resume and cover letter. Isn't that the reason they call you in the first place....your resume info matches, or is close to the job opening requirements.

I'm not beating up on recruiters, most are sincere and good folks.
Have others seen this M.O.?

[ScottK]

In Reply to Parent Post by ralphsulser

I have noticed a similarity over the past few years of the trend in contacting candidates. If a resume and cover letter is sent in response to a posting by a recruitment agency the following thins happen:

1) The recruiter calls your home phone mid morning or afternoon while you are at work even if they have an email available to contact you during working hours. Is it that they know they can leave a short message and then talk on your nickel if/when you return the call? At one point in time I was really searching for something soon after being laid off, and ended up with a $200.00 phone bile from calling back recruiters.

2) They have your resume and cover letter, but if you call them back, they say wait a minute until I find your resume. (which is reasonable) but then ask you questions of information that is already documented on your resume and cover letter. Isn't that the reason they call you in the first place....your resume info matches, or is close to the job opening requirements.

I'm not beating up on recruiters, most are sincere and good folks.
Have others seen this M.O.?

For #2 yes. definately yes.

As far as #1 - I don't think it's that they're trying to get you to call on your dime. I'm sure these days that they have unlimited nationwide calling plans. They're inexpensive enough - I have one for home - it was actually cheaper than a local/long distance combo.

Another trend I have seen over the last year or two is emails based on my careerbuilder or monster or hotjobs profile where the recruiter is "asking for help" for positions that are clearly below my qualifications. "If you know anyone please forward this message".
Do your own work for crying out loud. If it was someone on this board or another aquaintance I would consider it networking, but not plucking my resume off the internet.

[Wes Bucey]

Since I am frequently accused of being "glib," there is no further risk to me involved in saying active or inactive job candidates serve themselves best by setting up a separate email account for their "public" resumes (career builder, Monster, etc.) and a different one for when they are actively corresponding with a recruiter or direct employer. Such a sorting will enable you to deal efficiently with "live" leads and attend to "maybe" leads at your leisure, as well as determine where some recruiter got your contact info.

I would NOT put my phone number in a public display of my resume, reserving it only for "live" job leads. The "maybe" leads generated from a public display of your resume are best and most efficiently handled at a time YOU are ready,willing, and able to respond, rather than a phone call at a time inconvenient to you. Worst is a blind voice mail message which has no usable details about the position to allow you to prepare for the "ambush interview" which will ensue if and when you call back.

I am NOT an active or even inactive candidate for a full time job and yet I get similar emails from recruiters for jobs far below the wage level which would induce me to consider a full time job.

May I suggest you respond to such recruiters asking for "referrals" by doing what I do?

I include the following in my response:

I do have a counter proposal for you. There is a Quality Forum which accepts free job listings for positions in the Quality profession. It also has some advice threads for readers who may be interested in a different position than their current one.

Why not take some time to look through the threads about listing a position as well as the advice threads for job seekers? At the very least, running a job listing for free will expose the listing to a very narrow demographic of professionals in the Quality industry.

For candidates:
Thinking about a New Job for New Year?
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=19619
Resume and cover letter - How good are yours?
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=10169
The Job Hunt - Care and feeding of references
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=19094
Tips to get past the "gatekeeper" when job hunting
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9325


For employers and recruiters:
Suggested job listing template
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=17473

Position Openings: Posting Guidelines for Companies and Recruiters - July 2006
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=7807

Companies and Recruiters Advertising Jobs are NOT Vetted!
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=8342

Position Openings: Posting Guidelines for Companies and Recruiters - July 2006
http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=7807

In that way,

1. you won't have the burden of directly hooking someone up with a recruiter who may be a sleaze
2. you won't alienate a recruiter who may someday be of service
3. you may coincidentally help some Cove Reader who can meet the criteria and be happy at the salary offered.

[ScottK]

Wes, you are always the voice of reason.

I typically just disregard such messages from recruiters... but I must admit to gaming one or two of the more obnoxious.

I will take your advice on multiple emails for multiple job sites when it's time to look for a new situation.

[DanDiazKER]

Headhunter putting in his 2 cents, know this is not a recruiter friendly forum

1) Yeah, we have nation wide calling plans, our e-mails are almost never returned, so we gotta call.

2) If someone is on monster, often others in their company are looking, I have contacted a lot of sr quality people who are looking because the company is in trouble and they have given me managers and sr engineers to talk to. So you may not like the contact, but there are many quality people I reach out to who are happy to help their 'guys' land some where good.

3) Recruiters often don't leave too much details about the position, your ambush interview, because they don't know if you are a candidate, fake resume by a company, or a foreign firm that posts thousands of resumes and applies to thousands of jobs to try to steal them and undercut American recruiters (I get at least one a week). Also, don't forget that you might go behind our back to the client, we gotta eat too.

[Jim Wynne]

In Reply to Parent Post by DanDiazKER

Headhunter putting in his 2 cents, know this is not a recruiter friendly forum

On the contrary, your input is welcome here, and helps to balance the discussion.

[CarolX]

In Reply to Parent Post by DanDiazKER

Headhunter putting in his 2 cents, know this is not a recruiter friendly forum

Dan - on behalf of all the mods here - my apologies - we welcome the oppotunity to provide recruiters a place to post job openings. We have been working long and hard behind the scenes to improve this service to our users. Please take a few minutes to look thru the employment board. We have gone so far as to close all new postings with a brief statement to contact the OP. This has stopped the protracted discussions that evolved in the past.

In Reply to Parent Post by DanDiazKER

1) Yeah, we have nation wide calling plans, our e-mails are almost never returned, so we gotta call.

2) If someone is on monster, often others in their company are looking, I have contacted a lot of sr quality people who are looking because the company is in trouble and they have given me managers and sr engineers to talk to. So you may not like the contact, but there are many quality people I reach out to who are happy to help their 'guys' land some where good.

3) Recruiters often don't leave too much details about the position, your ambush interview, because they don't know if you are a candidate, fake resume by a company, or a foreign firm that posts thousands of resumes and applies to thousands of jobs to try to steal them and undercut American recruiters (I get at least one a week). Also, don't forget that you might go behind our back to the client, we gotta eat too.

Thanks for sharing with us the "other side of the fence".

[Wes Bucey]

In Reply to Parent Post by DanDiazKER

Headhunter putting in his 2 cents, know this is not a recruiter friendly forum

I'm not sure how you come by that opinion. Our gripe is not against competent recruiters, but against incompetent ones. Just as you say you have "clutter" from a variety of non-viable sources

candidate, fake resume by a company, or a foreign firm that posts thousands of resumes and applies to thousands of jobs to try to steal them and undercut American recruiters (I get at least one a week). Also, don't forget that you might go behind our back to the client, we gotta eat too.

we get clutter from non-viable recruiters, most often ones who do not have a firm agreement for a fee from the actual employer.

On numerous occasions throughout the threads I have begun, I discuss the fact that "a workman worthy of hire is worthy of pay." It seems to me recruiters who NEED to protect themselves [from candidates learning about the identity of the employer and circumventing the recruiter to apply for the job] have two possible avenues by which they can be circumvented, one which is easily protected, the other having absolutely no protection, regardless of ploys the recruiter may use.

1. Candidate learns name of company from recruiter, stops communicating with recruiter and approaches employer directly.
   Solution - make the phone interview a two step process - first obtain identity of candidate to "register" with employer for protection of potential fee; second, identify employer and proceed with interview.
2. Recruiter goes through everything in step one and candidate betrays recruiter by sending an unregistered candidate directly to employer.
   Solution - none! The problem becomes self-defeating for the recruiter because the best candidates are the ones not desperate enough to deal "in the blind" so the recruiter limits himself to less than sterling candidates in an effort to avoid disclosing the employer because of fear of being cut out of the loop.

There is a long term solution, but many recruiters have a number of hangups which prevent them from implementing it. My experience in once owning a large part of a very successful employment agency which had divisions which handled everything from temporary clerks to six-figure executives was that the most effective and monetarily successful recruiters were those who established a close personal rapport with their employer clients and with each candidate they dealt with. This rapport served to limit the "betrayals" by both employer and job candidate who worked to cheat the recruiter out of a fee.

A smart recruiter soon eliminated certain employers who (with or without "exclusive" contracts to the contrary) engaged in such practices. By explaining up front that they needed to "register" a candidate's name, all of our recruiters were able to continuously update a list which our employers honored (good rapport, remember) which gave us a thirty to sixty day (or longer with some employers) window of protection against an individual candidate trying to circumvent the recruiter. [Today, of course, email registration of candidates can be instantaneous and simultaneous with the interview - no lag time as we had 30 years ago.]

I recognize that, in many modern agencies, the recruiter who deals directly with candidates is often NOT the same agency person who deals directly with the employer client. In such cases, the "TEAM" aspect of a recruiting agency is more important than ever, since everyone's best interest (candidate, agency, employer) is best served by doing everything possible to generate the best candidates. Often the employee who deals with the agency on behalf of the employer is completely clueless about the built-in strong prejudice the best candidates have against dealing in the blind. Those representatives of the employer won't play the game with a recruiter without strong trust in the recruiter. Lack of trust is why so many recruiters are unable to obtain exclusive contracts with employers.

I think many recruiters are aware there are a number of inefficiencies and roadblocks built into the agency recruitment system. A little FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis) usually shows the primary cause of such to be based in the nature of the contract for services for the employer negotiated by the recruiting agency. Lopsided contracts which establish FEAR on the part of the recruiter run contrary to the Deming precept against removing FEAR from the workplace.

Candidates who have a wide awake understanding of the process involving recruiters are often more open to working WITH recruiters, thus making it advantageous for recruiters to shed sunshine on the process for each of their candidates. Truth goes a long way toward establishing trust between recruiter and candidate and between recruiter and employer.

In other threads, I talk disparagingly of "gate keepers" who bar the way for many candidates who might be viable simply because the gatekeeper is incapable of seeing the total value of a candidate and relegate candidates to the trash heap for imperfect correlation with the predetermined criteria. Often, the predetermined criteria are flawed and needlessly bar good candidates. Gatekeepers can be anywhere in the transaction. Sadly, they wield a power far beyond their true value.

Perhaps the ideal is not "gatekeeper," but "door opener" - the one who opens the door to candidates and makes them welcome while getting to discuss and explore HOW THE CANDIDATE can provide value to the organization, regardless of an arbitrary criterion like "MBA" or "ASQCSSBB."