Author Archive
5 Crysis-era Recruiter-Dealing Tips
Just a reminder that you still need to lookout for yourself. Given the crysis and the fact that it’s a buyer’s market out there in the job hunting field, here’s 5 tips to follow when dealing with recruiters.
- Be nice. It’s a general rule, but not everybody follows it. If you show off your people skills constantly, not just at the interview, your recruiter will have just one more incentive to promote you instead of that other guy.
- Follow up. With huge number of candidates, there’s a high chance a recruiter will submit a bunch of resumes, hardly even remembering who you are. By following up you will stand out of the crowd.
- Ask for references about the recruiter. You don’t want your resume to end up in a pile of “stuff from shitty recruiters” on the floor of the HR room. Most likely your former colleagues or your LinkedIn contacts know someone who knows this recruiter, so do your homework.
- Keep track of what went where. It happens a lot when few recruiting companies get their hands on the same position that may sound slightly different presented by different recruiters. While recruiters may not be willing to disclose the name of the client, they may provide information on location and industry which should ring the bell if you have already submitted resume to something awful lot similar.
- Custom-write every copy of resume you’re sending out. Make sure you use exact wording that is used in job requirement. Work with recruiter on tailoring your resume as close to the requirement as possible. Given the abundance of the work force, companies extensively use HR to weed out candidates that don’t perfectly fit. Since HR may not be entirely familiar with duties and responsibilities, they heavily rely on word-to-word resume to job description matching.
And always remember to network. It may not be your chance today but it will be your chance tomorrow if you play your cards right.
ReOpening of Rate My Recruiter
After much thinking I have decided to reopen this web site as a blog. It has gone through a few iterations already, but finally I have decided to relaunch it as a blog. It’s easier to follow, to comment, to participate and it is much easier to maintain. Given my already busy schedule – it’s an advantage I cannot overlook.
So, without much further ado – here it is, a relaunched RATE MY RECRUITER.
Laser Hair Removal Technician Spam
Being an IT guy (with heavy web development under my belt) I rarely venture out to other fields. However, my personal life brings insights to totally different fields.
As my girlfriend wife is looking for a aesthetician / laser hair removal tech position and professional makeup gigs, we constantly check for job ads on craigslist. Yesterday we stumbled on pretty decent ad that promised (obviously exaggerating a bit) a nice spot for someone with similar background. Naturally, we responded to the ad.
Next day there was an answer laying in my wife’s mailbox, stating that in order to proceed she needs to fill out some form on the web. While such practice is not uncommon for really large companies, going through same routine to get a job at a local doctor’s office or spa smelled fishy to me. The link - quickstrikecareers.com?(numbers) – added to pile of suspicions. I checked whois for this domain (I’m a techie, remember?) and the pile of suspicion (domain uses anonymizing service from Network Solutions, not a reputable organization by itself) got so big I couldn’t see the reason to continue investigation behind it. I did, however, google search for this domain. Out of six search results four were clearly stating that this domain is involved in some sort of scam that gathers applicant’s data and then annoys them with unsolicited calls about various career-related services.
While this bait-and-switch technique isn’t right all by itself, playing people, who (due to recent economy evens) may be desperate trying to get a job and pay their bills is pure thievery.
By the way, the ad has already been taken down by craigslist. Good job.