Greensboring.com | Greensboro, NC

I am fed up with IT recruiters. They are the scum of the Earth, I believe. From now on, ANY recruiter that I receive a note from offering me a chance at a REAL job, they will get the following letter:

Dear lazy techno-suit “recruiter” creep,

I know how you conduct your business. Won’t call it “work,” because I’m sure that’s beneath you. I know that you get wind of a contract opening, find the keywords that your target is hoping to find, and plug those words into the search engines for Monster or Linkedin, or Indeed… then you fire off a form letter to all the names those search engines pull up. Never even bother to look at a single resume, do you?

No doubt, you’re very successful, never even DREAMED that the “Great Recession” was real or anything. All you have to do is run a search, fire out a few hundred emails a day, and wait for the “candidates” to respond. THAT’S when you start to weed out the chaff, huh?

Well you know what, bastard? The recession IS real, and there are thousands of people like me out there, DESPERATELY looking for a real job, HOPING that someone – ANYONE -- will notice that a highly-experienced, dedicated, seasoned IT person is available, ready at a moment’s notice to go to work, get back in the game they were tossed aside from, or get away from the under-employed nightmare they had to take to avoid losing home and family. And you, without even bothering to look, rattle our cages of misery.

Instead, ON THE REBOUND, you look at our resumes finally, and say to yourself, “Nah, he’d never get any interest from this manager.” And you toss those losers aside, never bothering to contact those worthless people any more… until they’re swept up in your next keyword search.

One day, some “loser” might just get fed up with this game. Get tired of thinking, “Yeah, I WOULD be perfect for this job,” getting his hopes up, sending in his resume and getting nothing but SILENCE in response. He might decide that it’s no longer worth playing by the rules you creeps have created. If he decides to visit some revenge on you, I won’t feel any sympathy for your side of this. I’d cheer. And you’d deserve it, for being too damn lazy to bother to check through the resumes before deciding who to send invitations to.

I can't express the anger I feel these days. I see well-heeled executives, happy with their secure, easy lives of telling everyone else what to do, how may hours to work, ruining the lives of families that aren't a HIGH and MIGHTY as they are. Taking THEIR 6-8 weeks of vacation any time they damn well feel like it, and grudging any of their underlings if they should want to take even ONE week of so-called allotted time.

I'm powerless to do anything about it. But if I did have the power... I'd use it as surely as those bastards do.

What always bothered me about the I.T. sector is (and I never worked in it, just viewed it from afar) how little some of these Corporate IT people know, and then how big of douche bags they tend to be (present company excluded).

For some reason to get hired in IT in the companies I've worked for you must be able to be an a-hole, and capable of leaving huge security gaps, with your only actually job duty being re-installing a out-dated version of windows that's been copied and passed down form previous douche bag, and/or hang a sign on the terminal that says "out of service".

I'm sure there are qualified individuals who are nice running IT, I've just not met any of them (except SFI )!

Am I the designated 'corporate IT Type' defender?

As a Corporate IT Type, I have to say that there are masses of 'generic' IT types, looking for work, and a proportion of them are useless, lazy bums, who don't understand how to write an intelligible report or produce a plan. And there are some good ones.

The challenge facing a hiring manager is trying to differentiate them from the pile of applications. I've literally had to face a stack of resumes 18" tall. So my first task is to reduce that to a manageable number, say 50, that I can look at in more detail.

So I skim through the stack looking for any excuse to discard them. No cover letter? Gone. Poorly written? Gone. Sounds like a dork? Gone. Emphasises how he brings Jesus to work? Gone. Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Homeopath, etc.? Gone.

My prejudices are different than other recruiters. You have no idea what will turn them off. So you have to make sure there's nothing in your application that can let them appeal to their prejudices. You're getting old? Don't emphasise your 30 years of experience if it's not relevant. You've retrained? Don't include you past menial job, unless it's relevant. e.g. Prior Employment: Meat cutter. Responsibilities: cutting meat into desired pieces. . Vehement atheist? Don't mention that you're a founder member of the local Freethought association or on the board of Planned Parenthood (if you live in the USA). Don't put down hobbies - unless they are really going to help. e.g. "President of local robotics society"- cool. "President of local candle making society" - sounds weird.

My next step is to run through the rest of the applications looking for ones that stand out. So if you made your application too generic to pass the first stage then you may lose out now. But I'm looking for something that makes this person stand out in a good way. What that is varies with the person, but some sign of initiative and that they're going to be interested in the job.

Recruiters are like realtors and car salesmen. Some are good, most are not. Don't have anything to do with the bad ones, they are more likely to lose you jobs as they are to find one. If they're annoying you as an applicant, they're probably annoying the hiring manager too. A good one will spend time with you to find out what you're really looking for and where you'll fit well. He looks bad if it doesn't work out.

But it's tough.

Okay this is getting good.... so what "stands out" to you? University, degree, GPA, type of paper the resume is printed on?

Not to hijack, but since you two are my IT professionals, what's your take on client lease time?

The tables on a very busy router appear to keep filling up, unless I set the lease time to 3 hours?

Its not the same thing each time - but certainly not the paper since these days everything is emailed. Even in the days of paper I disliked the people who put their applications in fancy folders
Not usually the degree or qualifications either although those may be a prerequisite. Some of the best people I hired didn't have great qualifications but they had shown some initiative in going after their goals.

Two things can help enormously 1) read the advert and 2) research the company. A generic application won't compare to one where the person has customized it for the job

Make it clear you know what tbe job needs, that you're confident you can do it and that you'll be enthusiastic about it

A Person wrote:Recruiters are like realtors and car salesmen. Some are good, most are not. Don't have anything to do with the bad ones, they are more likely to lose you jobs as they are to find one. If they're annoying you as an applicant, they're probably annoying the hiring manager too. A good one will spend time with you to find out what you're really looking for and where you'll fit well. He looks bad if it doesn't work out.

But it's tough.

That's the point here. In the THREE YEARS that I've been searching for a new career, I have YET to find a single recruiter that has taken a single second to try and get to know me in any way. Think I'm justified in being pissed at bloody recruiters?

One other thought in response to A Person: I tend to doubt that there are many hiring managers in this area that view the hiring process this way. I know from experience that most openings advertised at my old company were filled with friends in advance and openings were only advertised as a "matter of form."

Expressing confidence or enthusiasm in my cover letters has so far been a waste of effort. I constantly, nearly daily, send off applications across this state and into Virginia and South Carolina, customizing each letter, each version of my resume to each opening... and my reward is silence. I have no idea how I can refine my approach if I never even come close to hitting the outermost ring of the target.

Might as well give the hell up, and admit that I'm worthless to all businesses that engage in Information bloody Technology.

What I can turn to in order to fill up my remaining decades of work before I die... I have no clue any more.

Did you put down your interests of part-time KKK, NRA member, and that you're for white male control of womens' bodies and slavery of the tanner races? If not try that next time... seems to be a hiring requirement around here.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote: I tend to doubt that there are many hiring managers in this area that view the hiring process this way.

Well it's certainly true that most jobs aren't filled by the advert - application - interview route - but don't dismiss it. I my career I've had two good jobs that way, I've had five from networking, one from cold calling and one from a recruiter.

There is no single answer, but don't write off any avenue

As I said long ago, I refuse to have hope, it hurts too much to have it tossed aside by these bastards every day. But I do make my best effort to get SOMEthing every day. I couldn't face myself if I stopped trying.

I keep noticing that there are a growing number of things about myself that I can't bear to contemplate. Depression is pretty odd that way, I reckon.