Never believe a word that recruitment agents tell you
Ludwig
the earth, but here's another example of their duplicity. Last Wednesday
I had an interview at a local company. After it, the agency told me that
the company wanted to employ me. However, I had another interview lined
up for Friday. The agent asked me if I would forego the latter interview
if he could secure me a certain salary. I said yes. So, he was allegedly
"negotiating" my salary and I still hadn't heard from him on Friday, so
I went for the second interview.
Earlier this week the agent told me the first company was still
negotiating my salary. Meanwhile, the second company turned me down.
Today the agent tells me that the vacancy at the first company is being
withdrawn. He also lets slip that the salary he was "negotiating" was
actually at the very bottom of the scale they were offering.
In other words, he must have known all along that the issue was not the
salary, but the very existence of the job. He was prepared to let me
forego the opportunity of another job so that he could get his commission.
I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
Jon Green
> I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
> dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
> face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
Not all, to be fair. Just the bottom-feeders. But, my golly, there are
a lot of those!
Jon
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SPAM BLOCK IN USE! To reply in email, replace 'deadspam'
with 'green-lines'.
Tim Ward
news:WsOdnTJ0zZ8kiFPX...@bt.com...
> Ludwig wrote:
>> I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
>> dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
>> face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
>
> Not all, to be fair.
Yes indeed. I knew one honest one once.
--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor
Paul Oldham
> What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
counts? chants? clints?
--
Paul Oldham ----------> http://the-hug.org/paul
Milton villager ------> http://www.milton.org.uk/
and FAQ wiki owner ---> http://cam.misc.org.uk
"Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?"
Jonathan Anderson
> I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
> dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
> face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
You should never deal with them again and go somewhere else, if at all
possible.
Then name and shame.
If you are somehow forced to continue using them then I pity you.
Jon
Fevric J. Glandules
> Ludwig wrote:
>> I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
>> dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
>> face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
>
> You should never deal with them again and go somewhere else, if at all
> possible.
ECM are often mentioned as being an agency with Clue.
Ludwig
Thing is, I would never have heard about the (putative) job were it not
for this agency. It was not advertised on the company's Web site or
anywhere else I looked.
I have probably got on the books of 20 agencies[*] since I was made
redundant 6 months ago, and in my experience they are all pretty the
same - promise you all sorts, usually deliver nothing, never let you
know what's going on, and drop you like a stone if you "fail" them.
Of course it has occurred to me to go behind the agencies' back, but
clearly that reflects badly on me for both the employer and the agency
(if, heaven forbid, I need to deal with them again).
[*] Not through choice; I work in a niche area and they mostly contacted me.
Henry Lockwood
I can second that! I've found 67% of my post-graduation jobs via ECM.
HNL
Ben C
> I know no one here needs telling that recruitment agents are the scum of
> the earth, but here's another example of their duplicity. Last Wednesday
> I had an interview at a local company. After it, the agency told me that
> the company wanted to employ me. However, I had another interview lined
> up for Friday. The agent asked me if I would forego the latter interview
> if he could secure me a certain salary. I said yes.
That was your basic mistake. Do all the interviews then wait until
you've heard from everyone, then make your mind up. Nobody will really
mind if you do that, although they all pressure you for instant
decisions ("we need you to start right away" etc.).
> So, he was allegedly
> "negotiating" my salary and I still hadn't heard from him on Friday, so
> I went for the second interview.
>
> Earlier this week the agent told me the first company was still
> negotiating my salary. Meanwhile, the second company turned me down.
Well, you turned them down by not going to the interview.
> Today the agent tells me that the vacancy at the first company is being
> withdrawn. He also lets slip that the salary he was "negotiating" was
> actually at the very bottom of the scale they were offering.
>
> In other words, he must have known all along that the issue was not the
> salary, but the very existence of the job. He was prepared to let me
> forego the opportunity of another job so that he could get his commission.
>
> I am reluctant to name the agency or the agent, as unfortunately by not
> dealing with these cowboys one is cutting off one's nose to spite one's
> face. What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
Be nice about it (even if through gritted teeth :) and you will move to
the top of their priority list of people to actually make an effort for,
and may end up with a better job anyway.
Good luck.
Eleanor Blair
*ahem*
John Burnham
> Ben C wrote:
>>On 2009-10-08, Ludwig <gf...@fsdsf.com> wrote:
>>> I went for the second interview.
>>
>>Well, you turned them down by not going to the interview.
>
> *ahem*
If I read it correctly, the OP went to the second interview with the first
company but not the first interview with the second company, so one way of
parsing "second interview" is "interview with second company". Isn't
English fun ?
J
Eleanor Blair
>
>If I read it correctly, the OP went to the second interview with the first
>company but not the first interview with the second company
That's not how I read it. He still hadn't heard from the first company
by Friday, so he went to the second interview (that he had lined up, ie
the interview with the second company).
John Burnham
> John Burnham wrote:
>>
>>If I read it correctly, the OP went to the second interview with the first
>>company but not the first interview with the second company
>
> That's not how I read it. He still hadn't heard from the first company
> by Friday, so he went to the second interview (that he had lined up, ie
> the interview with the second company).
Fair enough. Could the OP clarify the situation ? I'm perfectly inclined
to accept I'm having a Friday moment here.
J
Jon Fairbairn
> Ludwig wrote:
>
>> What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
>
> counts? chants? clints?
That reminds me of the flyer for the film "Firefox" in which "CLINT
EASTWOOD" was rendered in the same curvy sans-serif font as the
"Firefox" of the title. Fortunately my eyesight was better back then.
(I can't find a reproduction of it on the net -- all the posters out
there use a different font for his name, so perhaps someone noticed the
problem, or perhaps it was produced by the local cinema)
--
Jón Fairbairn Jon.Fa...@cl.cam.ac.uk
http://www.chaos.org.uk/~jf/Stuff-I-dont-want.html (updated 2009-01-31)
Ludwig
Yes. Sorry, my first message was confusing. I did go to the interview
with the second company. To be strictly fair, the agent wasn't asking
that I forego the second interview until he got back to me.
Still, I do believe that my thinking the first job was in the bag meant
that I was a little more laid-back about the second interview that I
would otherwise have been. That was my mistake, but I don't think I was
unreasonable in thinking that, essentially, I'd already found a job.
My main frustration, obviously, is with the fact that I had a job pulled
from under my nose, but the fact is that the agent did lie to me. He
claimed to be "negotiating" my salary but since the requested salary was
at the very bottom of the range they were offering, why would that be
necessary?
Tim Ward
news:7j8i2pF...@mid.individual.net...
>
> Still, I do believe that my thinking the first job was in the bag meant
> that I was a little more laid-back about the second interview that I would
> otherwise have been. That was my mistake, but I don't think I was
> unreasonable in thinking that, essentially, I'd already found a job.
It is completely unreasonable to regard yourself has having found a job
until you've got a signed contract. (And even then some jobs have
disappeared between contracts and starting date.)
> My main frustration, obviously, is with the fact that I had a job pulled
> from under my nose, but the fact is that the agent did lie to me. He
> claimed to be "negotiating" my salary but since the requested salary was
> at the very bottom of the range they were offering, why would that be
> necessary?
There do seem to be some misconceptions about agents.
The agent is *not* there to find you a job. In theory the agent is there to
find the best staff for the employer - it's the employer they're working
for, you can tell this by the fact that it's the employer that pays them,
not the candidate.
This theory rarely plays out in practice however. In practice the agent is
working for himself. He does *not* try to find the best staff for the
employer, he tries instead to make the most profit for himself, which is
*not* always the same thing.
Whatever, the concept of "finding you a job" never enters an agent's brain
for a nanosecond, it's simply not what they do.
paul.l...@googlemail.com
Name and Shame. Thats the approach I take, in my new webpage at
http://www.paullee.com/bandb/
- bookmark this page as I'll be updating it often, from NatWest being
a load of ****s to crap car parking!
Paul Bird
I think that's an own goal. Whatever chance you may have had of gaining
employment with the companies and organisations that you list on your
website will be damaged for the future should they choose to do a bit of
rudimentary research on you on the web.
Would it not be better to vent your spleen elsewhere than on such a
public forum? You are, after all, still relatively young in the working
world and whatever your personal disappointments I cannot see that going
about things in this way will be to your credit in the longer term,
unless you have a private income of course, which is by no means clear
in your post.
Paul
paul.l...@googlemail.com
Ludwig
> Would it not be better to vent your spleen elsewhere than on such a
> public forum? You are, after all, still relatively young in the working
> world
Is 37 relatively young?
> and whatever your personal disappointments I cannot see that going
> about things in this way will be to your credit in the longer term,
> unless you have a private income of course, which is by no means clear
> in your post.
>
I do sympathise with his frustration, although I agree that you have to
be careful about making that frustration public.
As for getting rejected by interviewers: yes, it's damaging to the ego,
but they have to reject somebody.
That "not having the requisite skills" line is something I'm familiar
with. The economic situation is such that employers are being very
cautious, and if they can't find someone with exactly what they're
looking for /and more/, they simply don't recruit. But the chances are,
in the current market, there's some ****ing superman applying for every job.
My conclusion is this: if you're good at your job, forget it. You have
to be /perfect/.
And not acknowledging applications: the days of common courtesy are
over. Those of us who grew up with it just have to accept that it
doesn't exist any more. It's nothing personal.
At the moment it is an employers' market and it will stay so until the
final collapse of the world economy in a couple of years' time.
Paul Bird
> Paul Bird wrote:
>
>> Would it not be better to vent your spleen elsewhere than on such a
>> public forum? You are, after all, still relatively young in the working
>> world
>
> Is 37 relatively young?
Some years ago I had a discussion with family about the best age to
stick at, if such a thing were possible. I said 25, somebody said 35.
When I asked why they said at 35 you can do everything you could at 25,
only better. The guy is significantly closer to 22 (leaving Uni) than
65 therefore I stick with relatively young.
<snip>
Paul
charliejuggler
As someone who has recruited in the past and is actively looking for
people (http://www.flax.co.uk/hiring.shtml) I have to say I wouldn't
even consider you, even if your skills did fit, based on what you've
said on that webpage.
You're closing off your future career options I'm afraid.
C
magwitch
> Paul Oldham <pa...@the-hug.org> writes:
>
>> Ludwig wrote:
>>
>>> What I will say is that they're all lying c**nts.
>> counts? chants? clints?
>
> That reminds me of the flyer for the film "Firefox" in which "CLINT
> EASTWOOD" was rendered in the same curvy sans-serif font as the
> "Firefox" of the title. Fortunately my eyesight was better back then.
>
> (I can't find a reproduction of it on the net -- all the posters out
> there use a different font for his name, so perhaps someone noticed the
> problem, or perhaps it was produced by the local cinema)
>
John Burnham
> Yes. Sorry, my first message was confusing. I did go to the interview
> with the second company.
Ah, cool. My misreading, so my apologies to Eleanor :)
> Still, I do believe that my thinking the first job was in the bag meant
> that I was a little more laid-back about the second interview that I
> would otherwise have been. That was my mistake, but I don't think I was
> unreasonable in thinking that, essentially, I'd already found a job.
Being laid back in an interview isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some of my
most successful interviews have been where I was pretty laid back due to
various reasons.
>
> My main frustration, obviously, is with the fact that I had a job pulled
> from under my nose, but the fact is that the agent did lie to me. He
> claimed to be "negotiating" my salary but since the requested salary was
> at the very bottom of the range they were offering, why would that be
> necessary?
Whilst not excusing the agent's behaviour in any way, I've been burned
like this myself in the past and don't assume I have a job until I get a
written offer from the employer.
Without knowing the whole story, it's difficult to say what actually
happened but it does appear that the agent at the very least bent the
truth - although I guess there is a small chance that they were being
messed around by the company....
J
Paul Rudin
> When I asked why they said at 35 you can do everything you could at 25,
> only better.
I'm not really sure that's so. Athletes are generally not able to
maintain the top levels of performance at that age.
I'm not sure about cognitive stuff. For example, I'm sure I read
somewhere that most ground-breaking maths results tend to come from
people younger than that ... but I don't know of good source for that
factoid off hand.
Paul Bird
Yes, for research and athletics I'm with you. To accept your point more
widely is to ignore experience and maturity.
Paul
Paul Rudin
Yes... when preparing my post I did intially type a sentence about
experience, but I couldn't really think what say beyond essentially:
"experience is good". In my youth I'd probably have been able to come up
with something :)
Paul Bird
age those of us beyond 35 have little hope of ever being employed again!
There must be *some* advantages to anno domini shirley?
Paul
Ludwig
In my line of work, experience counts for a lot. I am 40, and I can pick
up new technical things much more quickly than I could when I was 30,
because I have learned so much on the job. I am not sure, however, that
most employers appreciate this.
It's true that scientists tend to come up with their best work when
they're young. I wonder if it's partly because they're not encumbered by
prejudices about "the way things work". E.g. Einstein's career stalled
because he just wouldn't accept the probabilistic nature of quantum
mechanics, and wasted his time trying to find a unified theory that
excluded it. That said, he continued to come up with ingenious
challenges to the quantum view of reality, which kept the quantum
physicists on their toes.
Also, don't forget that once people are in their 30s they usually form
families. From observation I have seen how the distractions and strains
of family life sap people's mental energy and concentration.
Unlike scientists, writers, artists and (serious) musicians tend to peak
between their late 30s and early 50s. They have synthesised knowledge
about the world, deepened their understanding of things, and honed their
technique.
Judgment certainly improves with age, until the brain cells start dying
in serious numbers as you approach 60.
Jules
> On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:25:13 +0100
> Ludwig <gf...@fsdsf.com> wrote:
>
>> From observation I have seen how the distractions and strains
>> of family life sap people's mental energy and concentration.
>
> I think you mean that the pressures of work distract from enjoying
> one's children and spending much of your time and energy on them rather
> than on things that don't benefit you as much.
The sad thing about that being that society invents jobs to keep
people employed even when it doesn't need to be that way - expect that
nobody's figured out a useful way of tackling the comsumption side with
little income.
cheers
Jules
Mike Clark
Ludwig <gf...@fsdsf.com> wrote:
> Paul Bird wrote:
[snip]
> It's true that scientists tend to come up with their best work when
> they're young. I wonder if it's partly because they're not encumbered by
> prejudices about "the way things work". E.g. Einstein's career stalled
> because he just wouldn't accept the probabilistic nature of quantum
> mechanics, and wasted his time trying to find a unified theory that
> excluded it. That said, he continued to come up with ingenious
> challenges to the quantum view of reality, which kept the quantum
> physicists on their toes.
What about scientists such as Fred Sanger that come up with several good
ideas during a career?
I think the biggest problem is that scientists are rarely allowed to
remain as purely bench scientists as their career progress. Instead they
are expected to take on other roles as supervisors, lecturers, managers,
administrators, reviewers, ambassadors etc.
Fred Sanger is an interesting example because he was very strict about
not allowing his time in the laboratory to be diluted too much. He
disliked going to too many conferences and he had a strict rule that he
could only be disturbed on administrative business during a designated
few hours each morning. The rest of the time he devoted to bench
research.
>
> Also, don't forget that once people are in their 30s they usually form
> families. From observation I have seen how the distractions and
> strains of family life sap people's mental energy and concentration.
That too.
>
> Unlike scientists, writers, artists and (serious) musicians tend to
> peak between their late 30s and early 50s. They have synthesised
> knowledge about the world, deepened their understanding of things,
> and honed their technique.
I think that what happens is that scientists in their 30s to 50s get
quite good at synthesising and analysing their science in the small
amount of time they have left to devote to it each day.
Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | caving, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"
Mark Goodge
typed:
>
>Of course it has occurred to me to go behind the agencies' back, but
>clearly that reflects badly on me for both the employer and the agency
>(if, heaven forbid, I need to deal with them again).
Agencies are for introductions, once you've made contact then the best
thing to do is go behind their back.
I got made redundant last December, and signed up with a bunch of
agencies as part of the job hunt. One thing that agencies always do is
to remove any contact information from a CV that you submit to them so
that putative employers can't get in touch with you other than through
the agency. So, since I'm a web author, I made sure that my CV
contained a selected portfolio of sites that I've worked on -
including my own personal blog and several other sites which link
directly to my contact details and considerably more information about
me than the agency would pass on. At all the interviews I got
(including the one which led to the job offer I accepted), this was
mentioned as a factor in calling me for interview.
Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk
Tim Ward
news:pp5vc5legbjmj19tq...@news.markshouse.net...
>
> One thing that agencies always do is
> to remove any contact information from a CV that you submit to them so
> that putative employers can't get in touch with you other than through
> the agency.
They will also typically remove all the careful layout and formatting that
you've done, and the really good ones will introduce spelling errors that
weren't in your original.
Mark Goodge
typed:
>"Mark Goodge" <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:pp5vc5legbjmj19tq...@news.markshouse.net...
>>
>> One thing that agencies always do is
>> to remove any contact information from a CV that you submit to them so
>> that putative employers can't get in touch with you other than through
>> the agency.
>
>They will also typically remove all the careful layout and formatting that
>you've done, and the really good ones will introduce spelling errors that
>weren't in your original.
Which is why is also put my CV (in PDF form) on my website, which is
readily accesible from sites mentioned in my portfolio.
Tim Ward
Yeah, that'll work for people who haven't binned your paper CV from the
agency unread after spotting the spelling errors. (Y'gotta have some way of
quickly filtering the 200 CVs you get down to the dozen or so you've got
time to skim read.)
Whatever
"Tim Ward" <t...@brettward.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7j8j1gF...@mid.individual.net...
Mark Goodge
typed:
>"Mark Goodge" <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:q3avc5th2rcv43qee...@news.markshouse.net...
>> On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 21:13:12 +0100, Tim Ward put finger to keyboard and
>> typed:
>>
>>>"Mark Goodge" <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
>>>news:pp5vc5legbjmj19tq...@news.markshouse.net...
>>>>
>>>> One thing that agencies always do is
>>>> to remove any contact information from a CV that you submit to them so
>>>> that putative employers can't get in touch with you other than through
>>>> the agency.
>>>
>>>They will also typically remove all the careful layout and formatting that
>>>you've done, and the really good ones will introduce spelling errors that
>>>weren't in your original.
>>
>> Which is why is also put my CV (in PDF form) on my website, which is
>> readily accesible from sites mentioned in my portfolio.
>
>Yeah, that'll work for people who haven't binned your paper CV from the
>agency unread after spotting the spelling errors. (Y'gotta have some way of
>quickly filtering the 200 CVs you get down to the dozen or so you've got
>time to skim read.)
Well, it worked for me. One of the things that sold my current
employer to me (which is just as important as the reverse process) was
that they had actually bothered to check me out on the web before
interviewing me.
Tim Ward
>
> Well, it worked for me. One of the things that sold my current
> employer to me (which is just as important as the reverse process) was
> that they had actually bothered to check me out on the web before
> interviewing me.
People do, people do. I've just about persuaded my kids to believe that
anything they put on the internet will stay there forever and be seen by
future employers ...
But it works both ways. Once Upon A Time I had an interview arranged for a
contract job and googled one of the interviewers, and discovered all sorts
of stuff about their strange weekend hobbies!
Ludwig
> "Mark Goodge" <use...@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:pp5vc5legbjmj19tq...@news.markshouse.net...
>> One thing that agencies always do is
>> to remove any contact information from a CV that you submit to them so
>> that putative employers can't get in touch with you other than through
>> the agency.
>
> They will also typically remove all the careful layout and formatting that
> you've done, and the really good ones will introduce spelling errors that
> weren't in your original.
>
I got my previous job despite the agency helpfully lowering my degree
class on their version of my CV! >:<
Ludwig
> It is completely unreasonable to regard yourself has having found a job
> until you've got a signed contract. (And even then some jobs have
> disappeared between contracts and starting date.)
>
Well, I'm human, OK? I had been unemployed for 6 months and this sounded
a lot closer to getting a job than anything else I'd experienced in that
time. So forgive me if I got just a tiny bit excited.
> There do seem to be some misconceptions about agents.
>
> The agent is *not* there to find you a job. In theory the agent is there to
> find the best staff for the employer - it's the employer they're working
> for, you can tell this by the fact that it's the employer that pays them,
> not the candidate.
>
> This theory rarely plays out in practice however. In practice the agent is
> working for himself. He does *not* try to find the best staff for the
> employer, he tries instead to make the most profit for himself, which is
> *not* always the same thing.
>
> Whatever, the concept of "finding you a job" never enters an agent's brain
> for a nanosecond, it's simply not what they do.
>
I realise that perfectly well, thank you. I have never been under any
misapprehensions about what agencies are there for. I know my whining on
cam.misc isn't going to make an iota of difference to how agencies
behave, but frankly I felt a lot better for doing it.
Ludwig
> On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:25:13 +0100
> Ludwig <gf...@fsdsf.com> wrote:
>
>> From observation I have seen how the distractions and strains
>> of family life sap people's mental energy and concentration.
>
> one's children and spending much of your time and energy on them rather
> than on things that don't benefit you as much.
>
Fair point!
Plum
A number of people said to me they needed someone just like me in their
company, but they used R>A>s who wouldn't touch me.
"Brian Morrison" <b...@fenrir.org.uk> wrote in message
news:20091009230...@peterson.fenrir.org.uk...
> On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:45:06 +0100
> John Burnham <jo...@jaka.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Whilst not excusing the agent's behaviour in any way, I've been burned
>> like this myself in the past and don't assume I have a job until I get a
>> written offer from the employer.
>> Without knowing the whole story, it's difficult to say what actually
>> happened but it does appear that the agent at the very least bent the
>> truth - although I guess there is a small chance that they were being
>> messed around by the company....
>
> Just saw this:
>
> http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Uo9yU71srAQ/When-Do-You-Fire-a-Headhunter
>
> interestingly similar....
>
> --
>
> Brian Morrison
>
> "I am not young enough to know everything"
> Oscar Wilde
>
Ben C
Gotta lower the degree class-- nobody likes to hire someone smarter than
them!
Tim Ward
news:jbq5q6-...@llondel.org...
>
> I always start off by sending a PDF of my CV. It's amazing how many of
> them
> come back and ask for a Word version because their system can't handle a
> PDF.
My CV is a web page. I haven't had a Word version for, oh, must be over a
decade now. (Mind you, the web page looks like it hasn't been worked on for
over a decade either.)
Tim Ward
>
> The one redeeming factor is the number of young candidates who seem not to
> have a clue at interview. Ask a challenging question and they sit there
> and
> look blank. Try to lead them towards the answer and they still look blank
> and refuse to try. In such an environment, the one who is prepared to have
> a
> go and work it out from scratch really stands out, even if he makes a
> wrong
> turn. Based on personal experience, older candidates are generally more
> prepared to dive in and work it out from scratch, possibly because they
> are
> more self-confident. Watching someone's thought processes under fire is
> very
> enlightening and often provides more better insight into their suitability
> for a position than having them answer a load of questions.
I sometimes start by tearing the question apart ... partly for thinking time
and partly to demonstrate that I do know that what customers of programmers
ask for is never actually what they really want.
Tim Ward
news:c_6dnRDDUvixok3X...@brightview.com...
>
> Recruitment agents do a good job of blocking access to work for many
> people.
Too right.
Like, the client who said "oh, can you write us such-and-such please Tim".
"Er, sorry, I don't know any Java, you'd be paying me to learn the
language." "No problem, it'll only take you a couple of days, won't it." And
it did too (to the point where I'd found my first bug in the RTE, at any
rate).
Try getting a Java job via an agent with no Java on your CV!!
Fevric J. Glandules
> I sometimes start by tearing the question apart ... partly for thinking time
> and partly to demonstrate that I do know that what customers of programmers
> ask for is never actually what they really want.
I have a little assessment exercise that tests for exactly this.
Ostensibly the question is "how would you go about this" but the
real test is whether they spot the flaw in the spec and query it.
If they don't first time round, I drop a heavy hint that they
should be examining the spec and making suggestions as to what "I"
really want rather than what the spec says.
magwitch
> Paul Bird wrote:
>> I replied largely out of fear that without some attributes deriving from
>> age those of us beyond 35 have little hope of ever being employed again!
>> There must be *some* advantages to anno domini shirley?
>>
> The one redeeming factor is the number of young candidates who seem not to
> have a clue at interview. Ask a challenging question and they sit there and
> look blank. Try to lead them towards the answer and they still look blank
> and refuse to try. In such an environment, the one who is prepared to have a
> go and work it out from scratch really stands out, even if he makes a wrong
> turn. Based on personal experience, older candidates are generally more
> prepared to dive in and work it out from scratch, possibly because they are
> more self-confident. Watching someone's thought processes under fire is very
> enlightening and often provides more better insight into their suitability
> can answer all your questions then either he's going to be bored in the job
> or you need to have some harder questions to ask, because you don't find out
> his full capabilities unless you can sit at the edge of his skill set and
> explore the boundaries.
>
That says an awful lot about their educational experiences... never had
any real challenges and can't cope with one in an interview let alone
during a real work situation.
What a disaster for them...
Ludwig
> That says an awful lot about their educational experiences... never had
> any real challenges and can't cope with one in an interview let alone
> during a real work situation.
>
> What a disaster for them...
I read a report that (I think it was in "Prospect" a few months ago)
that the cognitive abilities of average British students are better than
they used to be, because they are given more encouragement; however, the
most able students show less aptitude for genuinely difficult tasks -
the sort that average students couldn't begin to tackle - than they did
20 or so years ago, because they haven't been trained in thinking hard.
(Personally I am sceptical as to the first claim: I don't see any
evidence that average students are brighter than they used to be.)
Roland Perry
Oct 2009, Ludwig <gf...@fsdsf.com> remarked:
>As for getting rejected by interviewers: yes, it's damaging to the ego,
>but they have to reject somebody.
>
>That "not having the requisite skills" line is something I'm familiar
>with.
The standard excise that annoys me is "other candidates were a better
fit", and then they don't recruit anyone. Does that mean they really
can't find anyone, or is it a polite way of saying "we changed our mind
about wanting this role filled"?
--
Roland Perry
Ludwig
> The standard excise that annoys me is "other candidates were a better
> fit", and then they don't recruit anyone. Does that mean they really
> can't find anyone, or is it a polite way of saying "we changed our mind
> about wanting this role filled"?
What's so polite about it?! It's more like a way of saving face. I'd be
happier to know that the employer changed their mind than think it was
something I'd done.
I'm getting the impression that employers are currently preferring not
to hire, rather than take on somebody who is merely good (as opposed to
perfect). They figure that if they leave it another few weeks, the
economic crisis will have tipped a few more candidates into the market -
and they'll have saved a bit of money in the mean time.
Tim Ward
news:tD6r57XT...@perry.co.uk...
>
> The standard excise that annoys me is "other candidates were a better
> fit", and then they don't recruit anyone. Does that mean they really can't
> find anyone, or is it a polite way of saying "we changed our mind about
> wanting this role filled"?
How about they never wanted the role filled in the first place? And the only
way a weak manager could get the agent off the phone was to say "well, we
might need someone to do so-and-so, in a couple of months time"?
Lyn
My CV in Word had the name of my school on, Manchester High School for
Girls, in it's day a rather good direct grant school.
Agency de sexed me and truncated CV to Manchester High School, a
rather inferior school in the same county...
Now I use pdf to stop their editing.
Lyn
magwitch
Manchester High School for Girls was the tops. I remember reading about
their results in the '70s/'80s as I used to check up on how my old
school, the Queens School Chester was doing, they were both in the top 5
single-sex schools in the country.
Roland Perry
Oct 2009, Tim Ward <t...@brettward.co.uk> remarked:
>> The standard excise that annoys me is "other candidates were a better
>> fit", and then they don't recruit anyone. Does that mean they really can't
>> find anyone, or is it a polite way of saying "we changed our mind about
>> wanting this role filled"?
>
>How about they never wanted the role filled in the first place? And the only
>way a weak manager could get the agent off the phone was to say "well, we
>might need someone to do so-and-so, in a couple of months time"?
The posts I had in mind were all "no agents please" and advertised
either on their websites or in the paper.
--
Roland Perry
Roland Perry
>
>> The standard excise that annoys me is "other candidates were a better
>>fit", and then they don't recruit anyone. Does that mean they really
>>can't find anyone, or is it a polite way of saying "we changed our
>>mind about wanting this role filled"?
>
>What's so polite about it?! It's more like a way of saving face. I'd be
>happier to know that the employer changed their mind than think it was
>something I'd done.
That was my point, really. You get told other people were preferable,
then they fail to appoint anyone. If they just said "sorry, we are
un-advertising the post", there's be no need to tell candidates they had
some sort of unmentionable shortcoming.
>I'm getting the impression that employers are currently preferring not
>to hire, rather than take on somebody who is merely good (as opposed to
>perfect). They figure that if they leave it another few weeks, the
>economic crisis will have tipped a few more candidates into the market
>- and they'll have saved a bit of money in the mean time.
That may be the case, however I'm talking about several years ago.
--
Roland Perry
Jules
> I always start off by sending a PDF of my CV. It's amazing how many of them
> come back and ask for a Word version because their system can't handle a
> PDF.
And the really stupid thing there is that they'll strip all formatting and
rewrite it for passing on to prospective employers - so why don't they
just ask for it in plain-text in the first place?
Theo Markettos
> I always start off by sending a PDF of my CV. It's amazing how many of them
> come back and ask for a Word version because their system can't handle a
> PDF.
Is 'their system' that they haven't bought a PDF editor so can't mess about
with changing your CV?
Theo