For anyone looking for work in the tech industry, I have two words for you when it comes to these guys: Don't bother. From my dealings with them and what I've read online, it seems like their procedure is to scour Monster, Dice, LinkedIn and the like for people to call up. Regardless of the actual situation, they'll tell you about all their great clients that they could get you interviews with, and bring you in. If they actually don't have anything for you, they won't tell you that. They'll ask for all the info on who you've been interviewing with - what company, what was the name of your interviewer, the works. Then they call you again every few weeks to repeat the process. They do this so that even if they have nothing for you, they can string you along and try to pick up work from the places you've interviewed at.
I got a call from them out of the blue one day. The guy who called me seemed really persistent and desperate in that
telemarketer kind of way: I told him I was just about to head out the door, and
That he call me back in a few hours. About three or four times before he relented, in fact - I should've just told him to
go away and hung up. He called back 40 minutes later than he said he would, and I scheduled an appointment anyway. After all, what did I have to lose?
Just some time, it turned out. I got called by the recruiter who contacted me on my way up to their 44th Street
office, asking if I was really coming. Kind of weird, but alright, maybe he was new at this whole interviewing thing. He also asked me to send my resume out to him when I could - asked him why, since he already had it from Monster or wherever he'd gotten it, told me he needed it in a Word format. I only give it out in PDF, because I've had less-than-reputable recruiters add technologies to my resume in the past, which interviewers have asked me about. It's professionally embarrassing to me, so when I distribute my resume, I do it in a format that's harder to edit. I asked the recruiter why he needed it in Word, he couldn't tell me.
Once I got there, I spoke with the recruiter who called me. He gave me his card, told me he's the only "non-technical" person on his team, and went over my resume with me. He asked me who else I was interviewing with,
and wanted a lot of details: what company, what position, my interviewer's name, a lot of stuff, "to understand where
you're at right now." He told me a bit about clients they would consider sending me to interview with, then had the rest of his team talk to me (why?).
This entire sequence of interviews amounted two was his three teammates coming out to the lobby, giving me
their cards, and going over my resume for barely a minute. One of them didn't know what a GUI was, and he was
supposed to be one of the technical ones... Suspicious. Another one spent so little time talking to me that it took me longer to stand up, shake his hand, and sit down again than our conversation lasted.
They all had that fratty, partied-my-way-through-a-business-degree-with-a-C-average vibe to them, but I still sent off a follow-up email: first guy told me that a client he wanted to send me off to wanted to hire someone by the end of next week, so I asked if they were going to set up an interview with them or any of the others he mentioned. No response. A few days later, I sent off another email. No response.
Three weeks later, the guy who originally contacted me calls again, to tell me about this great position that totally fits me - a senior level position requiring 7-10 years of experience in technologies I don't even know. He has my resume, obviously, but either he didn't bother looking at it or didn't care. Of course, he also asks me who else I've been
interviewing with. I asked him about the emails I sent to him: his response is "he didn't see them". Obviously, he wasn't being helpful to me, so I told him not to call me back and hung up. A little while later, his manager calls me, and starts talking about how the job really does fit my skills, and that I can't be picky in this economy, especially when they're trying their best to help me. I practically had to shout "I don't care, don't call me again" at the guy to get him to shut up.
Long story short, these guys are incompetent and unhelpful. If they don't have any jobs for you, they'll dance around
the fact and try to use you to find out who's hiring, so they can get themselves work without having to help you.
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