You are too smart for your market
Today I got yet another call from recruiter. By going throught the regular blah-blah-blah for a hundredth time I can’t help but notice the ever-lasting routine. And how any deviation from it throws people off the charts completely.
Now, I’m sure I am not any different from anyone else. It’s just that I like to have a few things going on at the same time. For example, I work as a software developer for one company and as a web projects manager at my own company, plus I blog heavily that brings some small income too. Question – where do I work? What’s the title or the position I hold? What is the amount I am making? Is this per hour? Per month? Per year? Most of the recruiters will stumble and crumble right here.
Being flexible and able to wear multiple hats has never been a bad thing. However, according to many recruiters, it isn’t anymore. Many times have I heard that “you can’t have two jobs at the same time – it will only confuse your potential employer” or “when will you be able to do your job?” or even “you can’t be working at two places at the same time – it’s impossible!“. Well, sorry to be the one who brings you the bad news, but if you can’t do it – doesn’t mean somebody else can’t.
I went through this routine with quite a few recruiters and my learnings have been sad so far. Being your salespeople, the recruiters aren’t really interested in pitching all your talents. They work off the positions thay receive from employers and invest heavily (in terms of time and efforts) to make sure their submitted candidates fit into the position they want to fill. Which is understandable since it’s the employer who is paying them, not the candidate.
The problem with this approach is that it can easily be gamed and not to the recruiter’s advantage. I can imagine a creative type putting up a few resumes tailored to different variations of the positions most offered (recruiters would love this), then going to the interview with potential employer and present themselves in their own way. It may not land them the job that’s been promised, but it can get them further then recruiter wanted. Additionally, the recruiter himself (or herself) would look like they don’t really know the person they’re representing. Do this often enough and the word will get out.
Berman Larson Kane
This Berman Larson Kane staffing company still puzzles me. In all honesty I don’t remember ever talking to anyone from their staff. Most likely I had a stupidity to respond to one of their e-mails or some job offer that turned out to be an e-mail trap. Berman Larson Kane keeps sending me some correspondence once every few days, which I religiously mark as spam. Eventually, all my e-mail clients start treating their e-mails as spam and we settle. However, after some time either I upgrade a PC or start using another e-mail client, or something else happens – and the name Berman Larson Kane pops up again.
If you do a simple Google search you will find plenty of their job postings, so it’s still a mystery to me as to why this company would not take my e-mail off their can-spam list and start sending me some real jobs. Since their web site still looks like it was developed back in 1992, I guess they just have no idea how to do it.
In case you have a patience and have half hour to spare you can also wait and check out company’s blog. Not much insight, but it will give you an idea of the level of professionalism of this company.
Berman Larson Kane
Phone: 800.640.0126
Fax: 800.748.5351
Email: jobs@jobsbl.com
Mailing address is:
Berman Larson Kane
12 Route 17 North, Suite 209
Paramus, New Jersey 07652
Job Spam Update
If you think those guys have stopped – think again. Latest trend for job-related spam runs with totally new and improved subjects: “There’s a <insert job position here> you might qualify for!“.
Of course, there’s an old URL that is giving this junk away – the cmanager2.aspx?em= followed by your e-mail. Funny as it is, the Spam Assassin already learned to catch this as a spam, so these arrive in my inbox already labeled as SPAM.
Be warned.
P.S. Additionally, if you don’t have a luxury to config your own anti-spam solution, a simple rule for Outlook/Thunderbird/any other e-mail client (including web mail) would suffice, just filter out e-mails that contain the above mentioned line in the body of the message and you should be alright.