Lies my recruiter told me: really, actually lies

Long ago I wrote that it was best not to indicate one had a long term career goal during an interview, because employers don't want to be your stepping stone. This is bullshit. Or rather, it may be true that they don't want to be a stepping stone, but they really don't want to hire an idiot with no ability to plan for their own future. I have heard this from multiple people with hiring influence at multiple companies. My new advice is as follows:

1. Indicate that you have a plan, if not a goal. It's okay if that plan is "learn more about industry X and discipline Y and reevaluate in 3 years."
2. Your plan should not be set in stone.
   
3. Goals are okay too, with the same caveat that they should not be set in stone.
4. The plan you give should have a space for the job you're applying for.
   

Job prospects in a bad economy

I have a long standing hypothesis that opportunities for contractors actually go up during recessions, because contractors are an inferior good in the economic sense of the word. For those who aren't up on econ theory: when times are bad, the price of a used car goes up and the price of a new car goes down, even though people prefer new cars to old, because fewer people are buying new cars and more people choose to buy used over new. Likewise, if the price is the same most businesses would rather have a permanent employee than a contractor, because of the benefits of continuity and the reduced cost, but in an uncertain financial environment prefer contractors because getting rid of them is free. Recently, my recruiter confirmed this.

What I did not anticipate was how this would affect recruiting companies. Last week I got eight calls and e-mails (three of which were the same company with the same offer. I sense some inter-department competition). Of those that actually gave positions, rather than instructing me to send them my resume or asking me to do their job for them, they were either for a stable company that has the reserves to ignore the recession, or a company that just got a second round of venture capital that (I assume) is run by idiots. So there are still jobs to be had, and the recruiters are hungry.

When it's okay to use work internet for personal issues

I'm getting an inordinate number of hits from financial institutions.

HR Newbie: More bad advice

It is possible to arrive too early to an interview. I have to cope with bad traffic and parking when I'm interviewing, so if things ever went well I might end up getting there more than half an hour before the stated time. I guess the thing to do at that point is hang out outside or in the building lobby, because I can see how arriving too early sends a bad signal.

Obviously, things have dropped off a bit. After I got a job, the daily who-called-me seemed less important (for the record, two e-mails and two phone calls, but that was anomalous).

But some things I are just too important. For example, there is no good time to use the phrase "skank ho" in a job interview. Although if your rejection letter uses the phrase "you scare us", you probably don't have much to lose.

I either need to hit something or take a shower

Putting up with bullshit is part of dealing with recruiters. Generally it doesn't bug me, because they're so bad at it that getting upset would be like getting mad at a toddler who insists he's allowed to stay up til 2AM. It's a lie, but it's not like he's put you in jeopardy. So I tolerate when they ask me what kind of day I'm having, even though they seem remarkably uninterested in the answer (Pet peeve: recruiters who take a long time to get around to telling me they're a recruiter, at which point I tell them I'm unavailable, and they say thanksforyourtimebye and hang up before I've even processed it. If you value your time that much, maybe you should get to the point faster).

This guy, on the other hand, is vile. Reading him feels like reading those articles where the writer goes undercover as a used car salesman. Just for an example:

You must never tell the person about the job, even the actual title, until you have conducted a quick work history review. Start the conversation by asking your prospect if she’d be open to discuss an opportunity if it were clearly superior to what she’s doing now. Most people will say yes, then immediately say “Great. Could you please give me a quick overview of your background, and I’ll then give you a quick overview of the job. If it seems mutually interesting we can schedule some time to talk in-depth.” You have applicant control when the person says yes. You lose it if your job is less appealing than the one the person has now. By having the candidate talk first, you can look for potential areas where your job is bigger. If not, you’ll have developed a relationship with the candidate that will allow you to ask for referrals.

Words cannot begin to describe much I want to kick him in the nuts. And the worst thing is that his techniques won't work substantially better than cold-calling, but take a lot longer; if you read carefully, he's focusing on meeting an in-house quota for contacts, not actually placing people in jobs, much less finding good candidates for his client companies. I can't imagine they'll be thrilled to know he's head-hunting using techniques guaranteed to select the stupid and weak-willed.

Bonus evil: You can see his bullshitting in action. Ask a Manger left a comment with some very good objections ("If you call me out of the blue and demand that I give you an overview of my current job before you tell me about the position you’re calling about, I’d be really annoyed"). And he responds by trying to redefine the word "demand" and then implying that the recruitee is somehow imposing on the recruiter (oops, I mean a "highly-regarded executive recruiter who handled multiple executive-level positions"). A tip: the person making cold calls is never the one with the power. That means it's up to you, Mr. highly regarded executive recruiter, to prove why I shouldn't hang up right now.

Resergence

Two phone calls, after days of low volume communication. When I tell them I already have a job, they always say "Oh, I thought you were on vacation.", which leads me to think I have inadvertently penalized those who actually read my instructions. *sigh*