Today I am going to address the issue of employment recruiters from my perspective.  This is based on my experience in working with them in the past and present along with information that I obtained from the workshops at the unemployment office.

One would think that the recruiter will work their tails off in finding you the prospective employee a new position.  Well that is the furthest from the truth that you can imagine.  They work for the commission only and do not care who they place.  You are nothing more than a name in a pile of names.  And the commission can run as high as 1/3 of your first year’s salary.

Now you would think that they would work hard on getting someone who makes $150,000 a year a job.  But the chances are that they wouldn’t for there are not that many jobs in that salary level at their disposal.  Instead it is easier to place 3 candidates who make $50,000 and still get the same amount of commission.

Recruiters get hundreds of resumes a day.  More than what they have jobs for and with the outsourcing of jobs to places like India their client base has shrunk dramatically.  Their simply are not enough jobs for them to fill.

A recruiter gets a job in, they take only the newest resumes that they have and try to place them with the current openings.  If yours is not a fit then it goes into the black hole and is never looked at again. 

I have heard claims that even though that there is no fit today, they will enter you into a database that they can run when jobs come in that are a potential fit.  Of course that for the most part is a crock.  The recruiters simply do not have enough time to scour the database to look for a potential candidate for a client.  The client wants to fill the job now and the recruiter wants their commission so the newest prospects have the best shot.

Recruiters also are in the position in practicing age discrimination which is epidemic on Long Island and in many areas of the country as well.  They do so without ever meeting the prospect.  But how?

Let's say they are looking at a resume.  They see that you got your BS in computer science in 2010.  Two years ago.  They also notice the dates of your past jobs and the level of employment that you had.  Say sales clerk, or fast foods, gas attendant, etc. and you are applying for a position of a JAVA programmer.

By doing some simple math we can very easily figure that this person is around 22 to 28 years old.  Naturally there are people over 45 who are getting their bachelors for the first time but looking at the percentages it is generally the younger crowd that takes the lead.  Plus with the work history in the resume can also give a clue as to a person’s age.  Of course there really is no way to determine that without a face to face meeting.

When you send a resume to a recruiter I was told not to expect a response unless they have something right in front of them when they review the resume.  I was told this at one of the workshops that was run by a former recruiter.  Seems to be so since I have contacted numerous recruiters and not one of them has responded.

I worked with several recruiters in the past and was told by most of them to call them once a week to keep my name fresh so they would work in finding me a new job.  I did that.  After the third time calling I was told I would be better off looking for a new recruiter.  How is that for service?  I have never had any luck with any of them.  Not even one.

One recruiter told me to get a job flipping hamburgers.  Here it is a person with my enormous experience and training in information technology that would be a major asset to a company being told to get a $7 an hour job flipping burgers.  Obviously I would never consider using them again.

A dirty trick that they like to use is if and when you meet them, they will ask you “where have you looked?”  As if they were going to work in getting you a job at one of those locations.  In reality what they are doing is gathering information for other possible candidates and not you.  They really do not give a hoot about you and they never work to get you into any of those places.

According to the workshop at the unemployment office, you have a slim chance in getting work through any of them and they should count for less than 15% of your job search.  This tells me and reaffirms what I have experienced with them is that they are not very reliable at all and should not be counted on as a resource in finding work.  But should they should still be considered in contacting for what if your resume is the one they open at the time the perfect match is on their desk.  You really would not want to pass up any opportunity at all.

There might be a good recruiter that will work and get candidates jobs, but I have yet to meet any.

Right now looking at the webcam at the Hog’s Breath Saloon it is a wonderful 81 degrees and looking at the webcam at Mallory Square the sky is picture perfect.  Here in East Egg we have a break from all the rain today with the sky being very overcast.  More rain is expected for the rest of the week.  The temperature right now is a chilly 62 degrees.

Yesterday was May 5^th, the 75^th anniversary for Sloppy Joe’s!  Congratulations to the owners and staff of Sloppy Joe's!  I saw that they had a street fair with a stage setup in the intersection of Duval Street and Greene.  Looked like that there was a great crowd.  Too bad I was not there.

I was on my Facebook page and one of my FB friends started a chat session with me.  Gail reached out to me and gave me a great site to add to my research in finding work in Key West, conchtv.com.  I am using Mile Zero at milezerokeywest.com which was also given to me by a FB friend.  Conch TV will be added to that as another source for information.  Who knows, I still might land that ideal network engineering job there.

Anyway time to send out more resumes.

‘till next time.