We all have our roles in this world and while it’s not my place to tell someone else how to do their job, I’m gonna do that. Why? Hey, because it has a big impact on me.
I’ve been an IT consultant for quite a while now and recruiters and I are part of a very symbiotic network. We need each other and we all know that. As in any field, the quality of the players varies and I want to share this particularly irritating thing with you dear reader, to see via your feedback if I’m justified in my irritation.
I receive roughly a dozen emails every day just from recruiters and that doesn’t count phone calls. I really am glad you reach out, don’t get me wrong. We need to help each other.
Then there are those phone calls. If I don’t know you (meaning your name doesn’t come up when my phone rings), you’ll have to leave a message. I just changed my voice mail message this morning to state that if you don’t leave a message, I’ll be blocking your number. (Soooo done with robocalls too.)
But here’s the deal. If you’re going to email or call, please be sure that the job specs match my skill set just a tad more closely. There was a time when the skill set I had was only worth the $9-$16/hour that you’re offering, but those days disappeared years ago. There could be a time when the people you find for these positions will say the same thing some day, but I’m already there. And you won’t find them if you keep asking people like me.
It does, however, make my little heart go pitty-pat to know that I could be making $9/hour as a Customer Service Rep in Flagstaff, NM if only I would move from Sarasota.
My thought when I receive these emails or calls, is that this recruiter doesn’t know how to use the tools at their disposal correctly, so I went to one of common sources of emails that I get and that’s JobDiva.com.
JobDiva harvests resumes and profiles from various job boards and adds them to the JobDiva database, allowing clients (recruiters) to add their own profiles as well. I’m currently on 3 job boards, and the resumes are generally up to date so when my info is harvested, it should all be the same no matter where JobDiva gets it.
JobDiva’s email template always leaves me a link to unscribe, but I don’t want to do that unless I have to. There is usually a link at the bottom of the email also to “Lookup the candidate”, which then wants me to login as the recruiter, which of course, I can’t do.
I could upload my own resume, but their automatic text parser makes a ghoulish mess of the outcome. Over the years, I have developed my resume (with the paid assistance of a “professional resume writer” whose format I retained but threw out the one size fits all content) to accurately reflect the life of a consultant, with overlapping dates, repeating companies and a wide variety of skill sets, etc. that an automated text parser simply cannot cope with. By the way, if you want really good resume and job-hunting advice, follow Liz Ryan on LinkedIn.com. Just sayin’.
Watching their promotional tutorials to learn how a recruiter would go about a search was helpful. It seems not only pretty straightforward, but quite thorough and accurate. One possible drawback that I could see would be the fact that recruiters can add resumes/profiles that are proprietary to their company (generally a good thing) and not shared with other JobDiva clients. I’ve suspected that for awhile so I’ve taken to asking recruiters to update my profile in their database. While the answer is always, “Of course!”, I’ve never seen that happen.
The incorrect skill set is a big enough complaint, but the most common complaint is my work location. I clearly state in my profile and in my cover letter that I work either within a half hour of Sarasota, FL or remotely. As you can see from the image in this post, I have a roomy, well-equipped office and have great experience collaborating this way.
Following up on my theory, since JobDiva harvests my info, I imagine the fault lies with the recruiting office, especially since I was told that the issue would be fixed only to receive two more requests for the same job from two different recruiters at the same company the next day.
So boys and girls, your thoughts? Much ado about nothing or a problem in search of a solution?