Neil Bradley wrote:

> I posted my resume on Monster.com back in December when I was laid off. I
> got flooded by calls from various headhunters, but one occured last week
> that really put a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to headhunters. It
> went something like this:

[%X]

> I've gotten other really bizzare calls, too - one who couldn't get it
> through her head that I didn't want to move 120 miles away no matter how
> many times I told her, nor matter how much she increaesd the pay.
> 
> This is my first experience with headhunters. Are they all this retarded?

Of the order of 90% are probably retarded to this sort of degree. Of the 
remaining 10% half will be quite decent worthwhile companies that will be 
quite clued up on the positions they are offering. The trick is finding 
those few.

I don't know any US ones but I do know some good UK ones.

-- 
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett ....................<email://p...@amleth.demon.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy .....<http://www.amleth.demon.co.uk/>;
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095
Going Forth Safely ....EBA. http://www.electric-boat-association.org.uk/
********************************************************************

Jim Stewart wrote:

>Which begs the question "are there headhunters
>for headhunters?"

No.  Headhunters are for hard-to-fill positions.  
Nobody is going to pay that extra expense for a 
position where a newspaper ad gets them more 
applicants than they can handle.

Grant Edwards <g...@visi.com> writes:
> On 2005-04-11, Neil Bradley <n...@synthcom.com> wrote:
> 
> > This is my first experience with headhunters. Are they all
> > this retarded?
> 
> Not all, but a lot of them are.  There's a very high turnover
> rate, and most of them only last a few months.  They typically
> have no training or experience in either HR or the field for
> which they're recruiting.
> 
> Most are just sales people making cold calls with a script in
> hand.

I was contacted by a recruiter for a job that sounded
interesting but the job description/location/etc. was
somewhat vague and I wanted some questions answered.
When I got the guy on the phone after not being able
to get any answers via email, he said that he makes
$200/hour and doesn't have time to answer questions!

If they know anything about programming they wouldn't be headhunting
programmers but they'd get their own programming job!

    Norm

"Neil Bradley" <n...@synthcom.com> wrote in message
news:1...@corp.supernews.com...
> This is my first experience with headhunters. Are they all this retarded?

The short and irresponsible answer: yes.

In my experience HH firms are generally manned by failed salesemen and
managers. One bad thing is that they are messing up the job market by their
sheer ignorance, but worse is the effect that they create a barrier between
employer and employees. A barrier that wasn't there afew years ago when
real people actually spoke directly togehter about the real issues.

HH ads that I see all to often goes almost like this:
  "Engineer wanted for company."
The people that puts up ads like that probably know little more than what is
literally stated. IMO that's an insult to both the anonymous company and the
potential employee.

Another strange thing is that many firms seemingly care more for exposing
you to (bogus) "personality tests", than examining your professional
ability. How low can you go?

There may be competent HH firms out there, that does something more than
leeching. I hope to make such an observation one day, but maybe I'll be
better off looking for Dodos :-D

DJ
--

"Dr Justice" <s...@no.spam.wanted> wrote in message 
news:zxA6e.734$184.472@amstwist00...

<snip>

> HH ads that I see all to often goes almost like this:
>  "Engineer wanted for company."

Yeah, that's how it always starts out.  They may SAY they just want some 
company, but they want a lot more!

But before you know it, you're holding hands, then engaged, then married 
with 2 kids...

Give 'em inch, they'll take a mile.


<grin>
-- 
...The Bit Eimer     NAR 84054      L1
"My goal in life is to be the kind of person my cat thinks he is"
[remove keinewurst and reverse letters in domain to email me]
--------------------------------------------------------------

Here's one for you...

A while back I was contracting and was contacted by a head hunter about 
a job "involving linux running on a proprietory platform". She couldn't 
tell me much more about it but set me up with an "interview" with the 
client the following day.

I turn up, and they tell me that they'd like to be able to run linux on 
their hardware (I can't recall which processor it was, but Linux already 
ran on that processor). I told them that I've never actually 
bootstrapped Linux on another platform but couldn't see why it wouldn't 
be possible, and that I can look into it. With that they nodded and 
walked away.

So here I am, sitting at the desk, thinking they'll return in a few 
minutes. I think nothing of it and start to look into things, read doco, 
source etc. Before I know it, it's lunchtime and they're inviting me out 
to lunch. We return to the office, they ask how I'm going, and I say 
that I'm confident it's do-able (they had a 4 week schedule). Again they 
leave me to it. By about 3pm I'm starting to think they're milking some 
free advice so I get up and try to find someone (the office is almost 
empty). After a quick chat I realise that they're under the impression 
that this is no interview at all - and that I've actually *started* 
working for them!!!

I go downstairs, ring the HH to find out WTF is going on and she swears 
it was supposed to be an interview! I leave the matter with her to sort 
out and head home.

[At the risk of being labelled a sexist pig, I actually met this HH a 
few years beforehand and her only saving grace was the fact that she 
was, quite simply, stunning! ;)]

As luck would have it, that same afternoon I get a call about another 
(longer term) contract with former colleagues and I could tell the HH 
"thanks, but no thanks". They obviously had a lot of trouble trying to 
find someone to do the job because she begged me to reconsider and 
offered me more money just to stay for a few days until she found 
someone else!

Regards,
Mark

Mark McDougall wrote:
> Here's one for you...
> 
[...]
> that I'm confident it's do-able (they had a 4 week schedule). Again they 
> leave me to it. By about 3pm I'm starting to think they're milking some 
> free advice so I get up and try to find someone (the office is almost 
> empty). After a quick chat I realise that they're under the impression 
> that this is no interview at all - and that I've actually *started* 
> working for them!!!
> 
> I go downstairs, ring the HH to find out WTF is going on and she swears 
> it was supposed to be an interview! I leave the matter with her to sort 
> out and head home.
> 

If I had a file, this would go into it. You can't make this stuff up!


[...]

"bit eimer" <b...@ten.xoc> wrote in message
news:OuB6e.6690$EX4.1671@fed1read01...
>
> "Dr Justice" <s...@no.spam.wanted> wrote in message
> news:zxA6e.734$184.472@amstwist00...
 [snip]
>
> > HH ads that I see all to often goes almost like this:
> >  "Engineer wanted for company."
[snip]
> But before you know it, you're holding hands, then engaged, then married
> with 2 kids...
>
> Give 'em inch, they'll take a mile.

LOL - Undoubdedtly! :D

Heres an HH anecdote:

One time I had announced myself available and registered my CV.
The CV is the kind that a computer/embedded engineer has.
As it happens it has the word "development" in it. This led to
an HH contacting me, wanting me to start working in
a property broker firm doing "property development".
He was very insistent that I  would be a good man for the job
with all my development experience...

DJ
--

"Ian Bell" <r...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:d3e31g$9in$1...@slavica.ukpost.com...
> Neil Bradley wrote:
>
> >
> > This is my first experience with headhunters. Are they all this
retarded?
> >
> >
> No, most of them are *much* worse.

I must've been really lucky then. All my recent pimps have
perfectly well understood what "embedded" means, and how
my CV and potential jobs will relate to each other.

Richard [in PE12]