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I was supposed to get a call from a recruiter last Thursday, to discuss possible positions. He didn’t call me at the agreed time, but rather two hours later, apologizing he forgot about our appointment and then had trouble with his phone on the car.
I totally understand that mistakes happen, and that everybody is a human and can screw up now and then. I was a good sport about it, and he’s going to call for a new interview next week.
But can you imagine what would have happened if I, as the candidate, had made that mistake? Most likely I would’ve been disqualified immediately. Hey, there are companies who sort out candidates for much less than that.
It seems to be symptomatic of the relationship between employer and employee. Employers are the alpha specimens, employees have to grovel and be thankful for the crumbs. The idea that loyalty and trust are two-way streets seem to be lost.
So my job hunt continues. I have a (face to face) interview scheduled for next Wednesday, please cross your fingers.
They just called me. See subject.
Thanks everybody for your good wishes. I’ll have yet to think about what it means for this blog, though.
As you know I have been looking for a job recently (with some success as it seems, though it’s not yet signature time). But there are two things that I find quite worrying.
First of all, about 95% of the inquiries I got via monster.com were simply – crap. Seriously, they were nonsense. In the best cases it was clear that the recruiter had done a simple keyword match. Sometimes, even that wasn’t clear, and I can’t but help to think that they simply sent their positions out to everybody. (I call this the “shotgun method of recruiting”.)
The second thing is the lack of responses you get. Remember the people who actually had the guts to ask for me to take a stiff cut on my salary? Well, guess what – it’s been six weeks and they never got back to me. Am I asking too much to expect a company to actually send a rejection if they find my conditions unacceptable?
Recruiters/employers always expect a candidate to bend over, and many will throw your application out if you make even a small mistake. I have come to the conclusion that most recruiters do not live up to their own standards.
In a classic case of moral superiority, I have sent the salary cut people a polite email stating that I have received another offer and that I am withdrawing my “application” to them. And I managed, through a lot of willpower, to avoid mention that the other company will pay market prices for salaries… or to call them out on their failure to get back to me with a “sorry it’s taking so long” or a rejection.
But they should not hope that I will ever again be available to this company, or to this recruiter… and I won’t have any problem telling my friends privately who they were.
I had that second interview today. They had planned two hours, but a total of I think ten people divided up into six groups grilled me for over four hours. I already knew that the job would be interesting; but now I can also say that I like the people and the company.
The interview was okay – not perfect, not a disaster either. I left feeling tired and very exhausted. I slept most of the way home. Just now, maybe half an hour after I got back home, I got a telephone call from the department boss.
“Mr. Secretgeek,” he said, “I know we said I would give you feedback next monday, but after discussing everything with my team I decided to call you already.”
Uh-oh?
“Everybody agreed that you made a very good impression, basically you got six ‘thumbs up’ from the six interview groups. I have forwarded your CV and our notes to our company boss with the recommendation that we hire you. You will now have to conduct a telephone interview with him but that’s pretty much a formality only. He wants to get to know the new employees; and you’d have to make an actual effort to fail this one.”
Wow. That I did not expect.
So, as you can imagine, I am quite happy about this result. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.
They called back. 2nd Interview is with four people (”manager”, team lead, senior tech, one hr guy, “plus others, we do not know the names yet”) in another city (3h travel time). On a date that is really bad for me. But I really can’t say “no”.
Four or more interviewers… I am damned nervous already. I hate job interviews… and in this one I will be under a lot of pressure. I mean, sure, it’s not like I need that job. But you all know I’d really like to get the hell out of my current job, and it is extremely unlikely I will get a better opportunity than this one anytime soon.
I talked the HR person. The company sounds interesting. The job is pretty much what I am doing now. Conditions? Much worse. I’d have to work more for less, and likely be on-call permanently. I’ve told the guy that I’d definitely need to negotiate those terms. I seriously doubt they’ll offer me a decent package though.
Let’s hear some opinions: Would you guys accept a fun job if it effectively means a 15% salary cut?
…Updating my CV.
…Support a software written in Perl on Windows servers.
Brrr!
I didn’t quite believe it: I got two inquiries today. That in itself is not all that amazing. However, both read like the recruiters actually read my profile. Both are actual tech jobs, and both are outside this country. Amazing! Now, the emails are very light on details, but I will definitely honor the effort these recruiters made and reply.
My buddy Marcus has problems with job applicants, and I have problems with those looking for employees. I know that some may think I am too picky – I sometimes wonder myself – but I do think that I am really not. After all, an employer would expect applicants to put some care in the way they apply for an opening; so why should I not expect prospective employers to do the same?
It’s been a while since I posted my CV over at Monster.com. As you may have noticed in other posts on this blog I really don’t like my job, but since there are some nice side benefits I am not in a huge hurry to run somewhere else; it’s not “unbearable”. Therefore my job search has been pretty passive.
And I do get replies from monster.com. There are a few genuine ones that just aren’t interesting enough, but most fall into two categories:
One: The people who clearly didn’t read and/or understand my CV. They offer interviews for positions which I am only borderline qualified for, or which mismatch some other criteria. For example, I quite clearly did not check “Germany” as an acceptable location for a job, but they would offer a position in Germany.
Two: The people who fish for contacts. This is usually done by stating that they have JUST the right position for me, and if only I were so kind as to contact them directly with my CV they’d tell me what this is about.
I don’t even bother to reply to these people. I think they’re just automatically sending that garbage out to any profile they come across and which matches certain criteria (location of applicant, for example). “Category One” head hunters need to improve their filters, at least. “Category Two” head hunters should just go to hell and die a slow death.
If you cannot take the time and energy to at least somehow match your responses to applicants, then why should I talk to you? If you automate even such basic tasks, does this mean that my superior in your corporation will be a decommissioned car manufacturing robot?
Let me talk to an HR person who at least marginally knows what type of skill set they are trying to hire and I will be all ears.
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