I've worked with legal recruiters, one nice but not that great, another very able in his area. One out of town guy who was not responsive or helpful. All honest. I think you know want someone reasonably local who has a good rep among the employers who are looking at. I don't know if "local" matters in tech. Different recruiters know different markets. Don't work with people who encourage you top be sleazy, they probably are. Good chemistry is right, if the recruiter doesn't care a bit about you, or at least seem to, it will show. As an older nontraditional candidate like me you need someone who will go to bat for you.
--- bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
> At 11:44 PM 1/29/2007, Chuck wrote:
>
> >Have to interview for the job you already have?
> Check.
>
> huh? wuh?
>
> >Have two *in-person* interviews with a national
> organization, say, the
> >ACLU, only to never hear back from them, not even a
> rejection letter? Check.
>
> not surprised about that.
>
> >I just started dealing with recruiters last year.
> Once I put my resume up
> >on some job boards, I started getting calls. I
> didn't get my hopes up, but
> >I figured, why not let these people help me out.
> I'm actually doing
> >research right now for a small recruiter, so I have
> employer access to
> >Monster.com. Seeing other people's resumes is an
> eye opener.
>
> Does anyone have the (or a) scoop on recruiters? I
> didn't get even one
> phone call the other two times I've done the job
> search. Not a one. The
> first time, I chalked it up to having just lost my
> job. The other time, to
> appearing to have only recently started a job. Now,
> it just looks like I've
> been working at IWPS for two years, so I'm a safer
> bet. The other issue was
> age. I left off some of my earlier career history
> this time around since
> I've been told that to appear to be over 35 and a
> woman in this business is
> not cool, not in this area. TG I still get carded.
> Though, wouldn't you
> know it, yesterday I woke up to a lovely gray hair
> sticking straight out of
> the top of me skull.
>
> As for recruiters, I realize they aren't working for
> me, but they are so
> scatterbrained. I would love to know how they make
> livings, being so
> disorganized. Aquent has been THE worst -- and their
> online software is Teh
> Crappage (tm).
>
> Dwayne Monroe has typified recruiters into the good
> and the ugly and, so
> far, I've only dealt with the good ones, but the
> thing that gets me is that
> they sometimes appear to be trying to get you to
> lie. E.g., for a tech
> writer gig they wanted someone who writes
> specifications (biz, tech,
> design.) No problem. Work with COBOL? Nope. Still
> this guy kept angling,
> isn't there any time you've worked with COBOL at
> all? (DEWD! COBOL's
> ancient and very industry-specific, I hear. Does
> reading the books on COBOL
> my dad brought home from night school when I was 16
> count? I developed
> online learning software, why would i have used
> COBOL? I'd totally have to
> lie and then insist on a couple weeks' leeway before
> starting the job to
> bone up on COBOL. I have no doubt I could do it, but
> don't you at some
> point get shown up for being the liar you are? I do
> NOT have a poker face.)
>
>
> >I was dealing with this one recruiter last
> September who was absolutely
> >certain that he had hooked me up with a job at
> Sprint. The job paid
> >$29/hour and involved interface design. A bit out
> of my league, but I can
> >sketch interace designs on cocktail napkins. The
> recruiter was a bit
> >puzzled when Sprint went for somebody else. He
> seemed genuinely shocked
> >that Sprint was talking to other recruiters.
>
> heh. I hope this guy is not unaware. When I did my
> homework on VIP comp
> nay, all I had to do was type "Blah Proprietary
> Content Mgmt System Blah
> Blah" into search engine to find that three other
> recruiters were
> advertising the gig.
>
> So, is this common? To recruit ppl who aren't
> qualified for the job? I
> mean, if everyone's lying and you're aren't even
> qualified in terms of the
> lies... WTF? Why do they bother? If you want to make
> a client happy, then
> you should send 'em candidates who aren't going to
> make 'em happy. I should
> think that sending them candidates that don't make
> them happy would quickly
> brand them as a useless recruiter. (Or are some of
> them operating on the
> shotgun principle of just sent along an assload and
> cross your fingers? Coz
> yeah, I know that 99% of getting hired is things
> like having the right
> socks on or being form the same part of the country
> as the person in charge
> of d-making and crap like that.)
>
> >You are showing them a web design portfolio? What
> exactly would a
> >portfolio look like? I don't bring a
> portfolio--maybe this is one thing
> >I'm doing wrong.
>
>
> I wouldn't call it "doing something wrong" if you
> don't bring one. It's
> an extra you present as the case warrants. In the
> case of VIP corp where it
> wasn't such a good idea, I passed it out in bad
> judgement call due to
> nerves. Since the interviewers didn't know what they
> were doing, I kind of
> felt bad at their awkwardness early on and said, "Oh
> hey, brought a
> portfolio...." But this was prob. wrong thing to do
> since, with the VIP
> corp posish is totally boring work. Pay's good
> though. The portfolio could
> have been a detriment since they might have
> interpreted me as someone who
> needs to be creative on the job.
>
> But I knew that going into it and made it very clear
> that I like my code
> clean and up to standards whenever possible. Also
> said some blah blah about
> how I love to do a job well and nothing is too
> boring if it means getting
> the job done right and quickly. (What I didn't say
> was: dewds, running your
> own biz means doing some of the most tedious shit,
> especially when you're
> working with people who don't even know how to use a
> computer. I'll deal!)
>
> Anyway, we all know the basics of what to do right.
> The portfolio was
> something I saw in one of the dozens of how to get a
> job books I read two
> years ago -- and never found a job. :( I'll send
> you a PDF of what I put
> together. Invested in a portfolio binder at one of
> the big box office
> stores. They run about $4-6.
>
> Basically, the idea is to stand out a little, go the
> extra mile. They'd
> recommended a portfolio for any job, even ones
> outside the ken of
> 'designer' (and designer really isn't my ken anyway,
> it's just what I've
> ended up doing as part of everything else I've
> done).
>
> I put my resume in there -- the 'pretty design' that
> is worthless in the
> world of online apps. The next section was the
> blurbs from clients and
> former employers.
> Depending on the job, next is web dev. I write a
> design brief at the top --
> just an overview and one that emphasizes anything
> special or anything
> important for the particular gig. E.g., this one I
> emphasized QA on
> platform/browser combos and working with
> standards-based design, especially
> XHTML which is big these days. Why I have no clue.
> It's not like it's hard.
> What is something that not anyone can do is the DTD
> -- organizing massive
> amounts of information. But that's what gets me:
> it's not knowing the code;
> it's knowing information design that would count on
> any important XML project.
>
> Next section, publication design. Then, writing
> samples.
>
>
=== message truncated ===
____________________________________________________________________________________ Bored stiff? Loosen up... Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games. http://games.yahoo.com/games/front