Question about recruiters

  • I'm definitely in the job hunting market (not sure if that's the correct way to put it or not), but I've got a question/issue with recruiters. (I hope that on this forum I'm speaking more to my colleagues than to recruiters.)

    Whenever I deal with recruiters I always get the same line, "I've got several contract positions available." Maybe 3 months. Maybe 6. None better than that. Some offer contract to hire positions, but given my family situation I really need full-time, permanent. I need benefits from day 1 or at the very least within a month or so of starting. The other thing that really irritates me about recruiters is what I call a used car salesman approach. Most of the time it's "Make a decision now!", "Can you interview in NYC tomorrow?" (I live in the southwest.). Or the worst was, "If you vacillate on a position I send you're way, then you're only building a reputation as a difficult person to work with. No other recruiters will want to have anything to do with you." Personally, I hate these kind of treatments, especially the last one. I can't speak for all of you, but I'm the type of person who needs to weigh all of the options, learn as much as I can about a position (and company and the other co-workers), think about it (and yes, even pray about it), until I reach a reasoned conclusion. No, I won't take months, but yes I will take longer than 1 day. Probably a few days, maybe even a week.

    Those of you who are also in the job market, can you tell me, is this the way it is with recruiters?

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Rod,

    I'm a Technical Recruiter and those recruiters that you run into that speak to you this way are not professional. I'm sorry you are having issues with recruiters. We are all not the same and some of us do offer permanent opportunities.

    Thanks,

    Ben

  • Rod at work (5/2/2014)


    Some offer contract to hire positions, but given my family situation I really need full-time, permanent. I need benefits from day 1 or at the very least within a month or so of starting.

    You should be able to do cobra for the short term after leaving your current position so you don't have to have any uncovered time. Any reasonable employer understands this. If they don't, they aren't worth working for anyway.

    Or the worst was, "If you vacillate on a position I send you're way, then you're only building a reputation as a difficult person to work with. No other recruiters will want to have anything to do with you."

    I once had a recruiter tell me much the same thing. I responded that by being an asshat and applying pressure that is totally unreasonable demonstrates that he cares more about his placement bonus. This will brand them as a recruiter that doesn't care much about working with people which will only damage his reputation as somebody who is difficult to work with and not other developers will want to work with you. Then reminded them that relationship between a recruiter and a potential employee should be one of mutual respect and if they aren't capable of that I will look to the next recruiter (who btw has the same list of jobs you do).

    In general it seems that many of the jobs around get listed with multiple recruiting companies. I have a good relationship with a few of the recruiters (who tend to change jobs more frequently than most people change their underwear). This makes it easy for me to turn away the bad ones and get some really focused help from the recruiters when I need them.

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  • Recruiters are like every other type of people. There's good ones and bad ones.

    Keep shopping until you find someone that's ready to work with what you want instead of just trying to fit you an existing position they're trying to fill.



    Alvin Ramard
    Memphis PASS Chapter[/url]

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  • Agree. There are some good ones, and some bad ones.

    In my area (Pennsylvania), there seems to be lot of recruiters that really did not look at your resume. I get calls for everything under the sun. They are doing the shotgun approach.

    There are about 2 or 4 agencies here that are professional and are looking to do the right thing for both the client and the candidate.

    The other thing to look out for are the different offices of the nation recruiters. The office in one city may be wonderful, and in another they are terrible.

    Keep trying, you will find a good one eventually.

    True story.

    A recruiter contacted me through LinkedIn.

    She attempted to recruit me for a DBA position for a different division of THE SAME COMPANY I ALREADY WORK FOR.

    The best part about it is that after I told her this, she kept pestering me about the position.

    I reported her to HR. She stopped bothering me!

    Michael L John
    If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
    To properly post on a forum:
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/

  • Alvin Ramard (12/18/2014)


    Recruiters are like every other type of people. There's good ones and bad ones.

    Keep shopping until you find someone that's ready to work with what you want instead of just trying to fit you an existing position they're trying to fill.

    Yes, I think I'm going to have to start doing that. Thanks, Alvin.

    Rod

  • Michael L John (12/18/2014)


    Agree. There are some good ones, and some bad ones.

    In my area (Pennsylvania), there seems to be lot of recruiters that really did not look at your resume. I get calls for everything under the sun. They are doing the shotgun approach.

    There are about 2 or 4 agencies here that are professional and are looking to do the right thing for both the client and the candidate.

    The other thing to look out for are the different offices of the nation recruiters. The office in one city may be wonderful, and in another they are terrible.

    Keep trying, you will find a good one eventually.

    True story.

    A recruiter contacted me through LinkedIn.

    She attempted to recruit me for a DBA position for a different division of THE SAME COMPANY I ALREADY WORK FOR.

    The best part about it is that after I told her this, she kept pestering me about the position.

    I reported her to HR. She stopped bothering me!

    Michael, what you said here is interesting. It never occurred to me that there might be a difference between one office for a recruiting agency vs. another office for the same recruiting agency! I thought they might be all the same, for the same agency. I'll have to remember that, as it could be quite important!

    Rod

  • There are significant differences sometimes. Again, I could tell you stories!!!

    The other thing to consider is that there seems to be a lot of employee turnover at placement firms, especially the national ones. So, one week there are some pretty good folks there, and the next week they are gone.

    Michael L John
    If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
    To properly post on a forum:
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/

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