Myths and out right lies recruiters say and applicants believe

Ok everyone has a recruiter horror story, I know I do! Everything from I spent my last $5 on train fare, braved a snow storm, lied to my present employer about being sick to get to the interview only to never hear from the recruiter again. Well for the record let me debunk a few myths and expose a few truths.

Recruiters post ads for jobs that don’t exist, no we don’t. The average posting cost $200-$500 per post, the company would be out of business if we did that. We leave that to our websites if all we want are names to populate a database, also some recruitment firms have a call quota; recruiters will call the most under qualified people just to have the dial credit.

Recruiters can get you the job, yeah and monkeys will fly out of my butt, we send your profile and hope and pray that the client likes what he or she sees, if not we try to overcome the client objections but we can only push so much, a good recruiter will call or email you and let you know and a bad one will leave you hanging. The truth is we don’t want to make that call, we do have hearts.

My recruiter likes me so I will get a call back. No we don’t, sure we develop relationships with some applicants and really want to see them placed but a seasoned recruiter is like a politician, they can make you believe that the sky is purple. The truth is we are nice to you so you wont come back and kill us, we hand you are card in the hopes that you wont call but send a email that we can ignore. Recruiters don’t like calls from applicants just to check if we have any news. If we had anything to tell you we will call you, this is not a case of no news is good news. It’s a case of the client passed and we are to chicken sh*t to call you.

Recruiters play bait and switch; no I’ve had clients change job descriptions on me after a interview, call to say oh by the way we need applicants to have xy and z that was never on the original job order. Change to status from full time to less than part time. Some clients are butt holes and recruiters can’t do anything other than smile and take it, it’s the clients that keep the lights on not the applicants.

A recruiter calls out of the blue on a resume you sent to them 10yrs ago, so that must mean they have a job for me. No baby doll, it means call quota time! Don’t waste your time or money to set up a interview, a neat trick is to ask for a copy of the job description. If you get one, you have a 90% chance there is a job, if not or they point you to their company website, laugh and have a drink, you just saved time and money by not making a appointment for a interview.

The interview went well, so I’ll get a call and you never hear from the recruiter again-WTF? Its not you, its all about fit. The client wants someone that say likes sports, I throw out a how about those Cubs and you look at me like I was speaking Latin, so I’m to do what? Continue the interview smile and laugh and never call you back, remember recruiters are like politicians! We have all had the job that was a snot sucking hellhole right? Be it the people, management, office décor, location whatever, that’s were fit is important we know you are qualified but will you want to go to lunch and never come back before you finish your first day or will you think this is so great its like not working? A good recruiter will get fit, personality info from the client so we don’t send Jay Leno to a job that Stephen Hawking would be a better fit. So you did not get the job or interview with the employer, you don’t fit and its not you or your qualifications. Be happy the recruiter is that good, otherwise you could waste more time on a face to face interview and not get the job.

More on the Kiss of Death

Well let’s see I gave you 6 so far and I could do this until 2222 but I won’t. Here are some more things you should never do on a resume

7. Award winning, why why why? I had 22 awards at previous company 7yrs ago and? That information is useless and unnecessary unless you are a creative and you have Clio’s, Emmy’s and or Oscars other than that it’s just one more thing for a recruiter to ignore.

8. Cute or Cleaver or just down right asinine resume titles. If I need an Application Support person, what key words do you think I will put in Monster or Career Builder or Dice? Duh Application Support, not team player, award-winning, I’m the one you should hire (I just saw this on the boards), etc. Please save cute and cleaver for your friends and family.

9. Salary, if client x is paying x amount and you want 5k more why waste my time and yours, put down when you post what kind of money you want. If you want more than the job is paying I won’t call you, why would I? If you want less sure I’ll call. We all want more money. Bottom line (no pun intended) Salary expectation should not be on your resume, but when you post put in on!! I don’t want to waste my time or yours, also unless you are a rock star most recruiters won’t call you to probe for this information.

10. Living out your graphic design fantasies on your resume! You’re not a designer and if you are you know better that to use 10pt type, reverse type, non standard fonts, coloured type. etc. Standard Times Roman, Garamond, Ariel and nothing else! At least 12pt type, left aligned, your contact info centered and that’s it! And please don’t forget to list what you did, what projects you used X software on if you are IT, Certifications that pertain to your profession, It’s true we don’t want to read War and Peace, but when you edit to save space you just may be leaving off something I am looking for (that happens all of the time, so I waste more time having you redo your resume)

While we are on the subject of résumé’s, please, please, please don’t bother posting résumé’s with no information or everything but the kitchen sink. As I stated in the beginning recruiters are like the mailperson with matching addresses to houses, we match skills to job orders, if we don’t see the skill we don’t call. Clients pay us to find an exact match not a close or almost match.

Next how to kill your chances of a face to face interview after the phone screen.

The kiss of death on any resume

1. Objective, we don’t read that! We know your objective, it’s a job!

2. Accomplishments
i.e. I saved the company x number of dollars, I saved the CEO’s life and washed his dog, rotated his tires all on my lunch hour. Who cares except you?
3. Your GPA, I’m sure your parents are proud of you but I really don’t give a tinkers what you did in school, and its really embarrassing when you still have that on your resume and you are past a entry level position.

4. Hobbies, community service and other interest, once again what does this have to do with your skill set? I’m not going to date you; I’m trying to place you in a job. Recruiters don’t need to know that at 50 you’re an avid baseball card collector, it’s actually a little creepy.

5. Putting your name and contact information in the header or footer, don’t do that! If we need to get your information into our CRM we have to take time to reformat your resume. If I’m really working on a hot order from a client I don’t have time to copy and paste your information.

6. PDF versions of your resume, we send profiles to clients without contact information, we write profiles by copying and pasting information from your resume, if it’s a PDF how in the Sam Hill are we supposed to do that?

More to come.

The truth about landing a job, from a recruiters point of view

Ok let’s start with what this is about. It’s not the usual show up on time, have 3 copies of your resume, make sure you had a shower and your clothes are clean BS. Everyone knows that and if you don’t well you don’t need a job you need to grow up, so what is this blog about? Well as a recruiter with more years than I care to think about in recruiting from really well known firms to hole in the wall if they call you run like hell firms, it really pi**es me off to see bogus and just down right useless information out there for job seekers. You have the local TV stations with the job clubs and idiots advising people to let the employer know your marketable skills, well BS your marketable skill is you match the job order, and its as simple as that. I’ve also seen these so called professional resume writers advising job seekers to put their accomplishments on the resume, well once again recruiters don’t care, its like putting that you passed freshman algebra on your resume, we just want to see what you do and were you did it. So the first thing I’ll write about will be the kiss of death on any resume you post or send.