The neat thing about hearing from recruiters and headhunters is that occasionally you’ll come in contact with one that makes you bust up laughing – in a good way. Here are a few recruiters that got a chuckle out of me this week:
I’m a recruiter with (removed to protect the hilariously innocent), and found your resume on dice. Since you may have had bad recruiter experiences, if it helps my cause, I’m an ex-technology person. I started at SomeConsultingFirm (now RenamedSomethingElse), and then spent 10 years at a large ad agency, leaving as VP-IS, and then was at DirecTV before coming to The Dark Side of Recruiting. And I am about the least sleazy recruiter you’ll find.
Well it’s nice to know this ex-VP-now-recruiter is not sleazy, though it sounds funny coming from the person herself. Made me think of the stereotypical greasy used car salesman who calls himself “Honest Ed” or something. Still, I had to question why she gave up a 10-year position as VP of IS of an ad agency to get into recruiting… made me curious how to fill in this blank:
Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.
Those who ________, become recruiters.
Jorge and I had fun thinking up things to fill in the blanks, like “get fired”, “get arrested for embezzlement”, etc. but I’m sure that’s not what happened in her case. I almost want to apply just out of curiosity. Still, I’ve got my resume in with enough recruiters who just want my resume, so I don’t think I’ll reply to her. Except maybe to tell her I thought her message was funny.
A second recruiter, who was a very nice chap to chat with, was originally from England, now in the US on a green card, and shared my pain about having to go through the green card process (despite the fact that it was really no big deal at all). He asked about my skill set, I told him PHP and MySQL were the two biggest things in my arsenal these days, and he kept saying “Okay, PHP and SQL”. Finally at the end of the call, I corrected him.
Me: “For my skills, it’s PHP and MySQL.”
Him: “Well, nobody really cares about Mya SQL.”
Me: “What? No, the technology name is called MySQL – em-why-ess-cue-el.” (spelling it out for him)
Him: “Ooooh, okay, I thought you were saying ‘Mya SQL' … and well, I’m not very technical…”
If you’re not very technical, what are you doing in a technical recruiting position? Seriously, maybe you need to be on CareerBuilder worse than I do…
Still another sent this brief Email:
Macromedia/Flash Programmer, 6 months+++ … Hollywood … any interest??
What’s with the +++ ? Are you sending me old AT-style modem commands, or are you leaving me eBay feedback? I wrote him back, said I’m pretty much burned out on Flash programming, thanks anyways.
Overall, I find that it’s interesting that some recruiters are very up front about the clients they are recruiting for, naming them in their introductory messages to me asking if I’m interested. Generally I find that recruiters willing to disclose the name of the client up front get a much more positive reaction from me than recruiters who demand a copy of my resume and assurances that I will apply for a position before telling me who their client is.