Job hunting WTF



  • Ok. So I'm looking for work.

    I arrange an interview with some consulting company that shall remain unnamed, I agreed with "Ted" (not real name) to do a phone interview at 8:00 Monday, but dumbly we didn't actually agree on who was calling who. Well no biggie, I figure he's not an asshole (bad assumption) and since most phone interviews involve the interviewer calling the interviewee, I'll just wait a few minutes for him to call and if he doesn't, I'll call him.

    So Monday comes, I wake up at 7:00 AM to get ready for this thing. (You know, get something on my butt, drink some coffee so I can speak without frogs in my throat, etc.) At 8:00, no call. At 8:05, still no call. Ok so I grab the number in his email and call it. I get the voicemail for "Phillip", not "Ted". Huh? So I pop off an email:

    @me, the handsome one said:

    "Ted", I dialed the number in your first email (XXX)XXX-XXXX Ext. XXX, and got someone else's voicemail box.

    Can you please call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX? Thanks.

    And he sent the following reply:

    @Someone who seems to be a bit unclear on how phones work said:

    Blakeyrat,

    I apologize. That is a desk we set aside for interviews. We are very busy these days. I appreciate your time, but we are looking for candidates who value punctuality. I wish you the best of luck in your search. Please feel free to re-apply in 60 days.

    "Ted"

    So this interview scheduling was, what, some kind of test? And I failed it by not calling the number at exactly 8:00? Even though we never arranged who would be calling who, and therefore if I had guessed wrong, I'd have also failed the "test"? (Because we'd both be talking to each other's voicemails.) And does he change the voicemail of that number literally 5 minutes after missing a call to another guy's name, or what the fuck is going on with that? It's a room they use for interviews, but it's also a phone number that belongs to some guy at the company?

    Re-apply in 60 days? I never applied in the first place! "Ted" contacted me, out of the blue.

    Fuck this noise, I'm going back to bed.



  • I'm not quite sure why anyone would bother to re-apply after 60 days. Either you are a fit to the company or you are not. I'm not quite seeing how waiting 2 months changes your qualifications or personality.



  • @Rhywden said:

    I'm not quite sure why anyone would bother to re-apply after 60 days. Either you are a fit to the company or you are not. I'm not quite seeing how waiting 2 months changes your qualifications or personality.

    It's another test - they want to see if he values punctuality.

    TRWTF is that Blakey put underpants on for a phone interview. Seriously, come on...



  • If you valued punctuality you wouldn't have sent a reasonable email after a five minute delay. You would have sent an angry email about them not calling. Since you were reasonable and not angry, and made no assumptions that laid the blame squarely on them, this shows you don't care about punctuality. The passive-aggressive response is only to be expected. I see no WTF here. :P


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Sounds about par for the course.

    I've pretty much given up on recruiters, especially if they contact me first. 99% of the interactions go like this:

    ME: Post my resume to a job site. Job site has my junk email. Resume has my professional email. Specify only looking for full time, permanent, ASP.Net, and absolutely no Downtown Toronto.

    Recruiter: "Dear Laura..." Sends an email to my junk email address asking for a copy of my resume.  Asking if I'll do a 3 month part time contract downtown Toronto doing php.

    Yes, they'll get my name wrong. Even though it's in print.

    Yes, they'll send to the wrong email address asking for a copy of my resume-- because they're janky fly-by-night recruiters who only pay for a list of names and email addresses, and are too fucking cheap to buy the resumes from Monster. I just treat it as an instant filter. If they're that slipshod and cheap to not even use the proper tools, I won't trust my career with them.

    MAYBE recruiters are slightly better in proximity to Silicon Valley, but from Blakey's post, I doubt it.



  •  Good to see you back Blakey!!!!

    Cold Call recruiters are the lowest rung on the food chain.  I've had phone calls at all hours of the day and night offering positions I am well beyond over qualified for at pay rates that would make a fast food employee cringe.  A six month contract three states away that requires an on-site presence and offers a $50.00 moving allowance for $15.00 an hour that requires Oracle certification?  Good luck filling that position buddy.



  • I got a recruiter email recently for a temporary job... inventorying boxes in a warehouse. For $15 an hour. I think the phrase "inventory control" in my resume caught a keyword search.

    I replied with a nice email that I'm a software developer with 20+ years of experience, that my minimum rate is $50/hour, that they clearly didn't read my resume and are retarded, and please don't ever contact me again.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    Re-apply in 60 days? I never applied in the first place! "Ted" contacted me, out of the blue.

    Fuck this noise, I'm going back to bed.

     

    I hope you responded to his "re-apply in 60 days" something like "Re-apply?  But you contacted me!"

    To be fair, if you had noticed that nobody nailed down who was supposed to call whom before 7:59, you should've emailed or called him.  Sounds like you might've dodged a bullet, though.

     

     



  • The other day, I got one of those LinkedIn mail messages from a recruiter, telling me how my LinkedIn profile had aroused her interest, and asking if I'd be interested in a job. I had to go, well gee that's funny because I updated my LinkedIn profile just last week, to say that as a matter of fact I am not seeking employment opportunities at this time, and will any recruiters please spare themselves and me the trouble of contacting me. I was friendly about it because you never know, but I thought it was either dumb or obnoxious, both of which qualities I dislike in anyone who is expected to use their brain and communicate for a living.



  • @toon said:

    The other day, I got one of those LinkedIn mail messages from a recruiter, telling me how my LinkedIn profile had aroused her interest, and asking if I'd be interested in a job. I had to go, well gee that's funny because I updated my LinkedIn profile just last week, to say that as a matter of fact I am not seeking employment opportunities at this time, and will any recruiters please spare themselves and me the trouble of contacting me. I was friendly about it because you never know, but I thought it was either dumb or obnoxious, both of which qualities I dislike in anyone who is expected to use their brain and communicate for a living.

    Not twenty minutes after posting that, I get a request on LinkedIn to connect to this dude I've never heard of. Turns out the company he works for is an IT recruitment firm. I mean for crying out loud...



  • @toon said:

    [...]but I thought it was either dumb or obnoxious, both of which qualities I dislike in anyone who is expected to use their brain and communicate for a living.

    You don't understand. Obnoxiousness is the main tool of anyone who does communication for a living.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Fuck this noise, I'm going back to bed.

    Correct. Ted is an idiot. You don't want to work for him.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Job site has my junk email. Resume has my professional email.

    They have to actually read the resume for you to hear about it. I like it.



  • @toon said:

    Not twenty minutes after posting that, I get a request on LinkedIn to connect to this dude I've never heard of. Turns out the company he works for is an IT recruitment firm. I mean for crying out loud...

     I'm pretty sure they do this because their company is too cheap to pay for the "InMails" or whatever they're called.  If you hit "I don't know this person" after you reject it LinkedIn will start requiring them to enter the person's email address before letting them send requests.

    I receive a few messages from recruiters on LinkedIn each week, they typically go along the lines of, "Hello, I read your profile and it seems like you would be a perfect fit for [job completely unrelated to all experience I have listed on my profile]."  I also enjoy when they make up their own technologies, for example I was just contacted recently for a job invloving C# and "ASP.VB".



  • @FrostCat said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Re-apply in 60 days? I never applied in the first place! "Ted" contacted me, out of the blue.

    Fuck this noise, I'm going back to bed.

     

    I hope you responded to his "re-apply in 60 days" something like "Re-apply?  But you contacted me!"

    "Since you contacted me originally, if you would still like me to re-apply in 60 days, please contact me again via this email address; provide a phone number and a time to call (and this time please confirm that you expect me to initiate the call, not you), and I will be happy to phone in and tell you where you can go."



  • @kilroo said:

    @FrostCat said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Re-apply in 60 days? I never applied in the first place! "Ted" contacted me, out of the blue.

    Fuck this noise, I'm going back to bed.

     

    I hope you responded to his "re-apply in 60 days" something like "Re-apply?  But you contacted me!"

    "Since you contacted me originally, if you would still like me to re-apply in 60 days, please contact me again via this email address; provide a phone number and a time to call (and this time please confirm that you expect me to initiate the call, not you), and I will be happy to phone in and tell you where you can go."

    "Thank you for your application to blakeyrant, inc. After doing a background check, we have determined that you are a recruiter for another company and lack the skills for this position. Don't call us."



  • @Ben L. said:

    "Thank you for your application to blakeyrant, inc. After doing a background check, we have determined that you are a recruiter for another company and lack the skills for this position. Don't call us."
    TRWTF, of course, being that if you or I had posted this exact same story, we'd have been ripped up one side and down the other, asses chewed, because we should've confirmed who was to call whom instead of presuming.  "Ted" would've been right because we obviously didn't care enough about the position at all to be punctual or check these details, so why are we wasting his time at all.  But since it's blakeyrat, then it's all okay.



  • @toon said:

    The other day, I got one of those LinkedIn mail messages from a recruiter, telling me how my LinkedIn profile had aroused her interest, ...

    How aroused was she? Like she's ready for you to take action or more like she's willing to try talking to you a bit more before deciding to consummate the deal?



  • Another one, this time a recruiter. Got an email about setting up a phone interview at 8:40 PM yesterday night. I didn't see it until about 8:30 this morning, you know, like you'd expect... so I send a reply about the interview time and got back an out-of-office.

    I think part of my problem is looking too close to the holidays. I might just slack until January.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Another one, this time a recruiter. Got an email about setting up a phone interview at 8:40 PM yesterday night. I didn't see it until about 8:30 this morning, you know, like you'd expect... so I send a reply about the interview time and got back an out-of-office.

    I think part of my problem is looking too close to the holidays. I might just slack until January.

    That's a really good point. A lot of our recruiting staff are going on vacation soon. But if you're interested in working in Boston/Rhode Island, I can put in a word.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    I might just slack until January.

    What's TRWTF that lead to looking for a new job?



  • Was printing off a few copies of a resume a contracting firm I'm considering taking a job with in preparation for an interview tomorrow-- notice that when they were "reformatting" they inserted a lie. That's the same resume they used to get me the upcoming interview. Edit: the HR person at the contracting firm just got back to me with an updated version of the resume and instructed me to just "blame it on them" if it comes up, and don't worry about it if it doesn't.

    So now I have a interview, tomorrow morning, under false pretenses.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Another one, this time a recruiter. Got an email about setting up a phone interview at 8:40 PM yesterday night. I didn't see it until about 8:30 this morning, you know, like you'd expect... so I send a reply about the interview time and got back an out-of-office.

    I think part of my problem is looking too close to the holidays. I might just slack until January.



    I dunno, when I was job hunting actively, I set my phone to buzz whenever I got an email on my "professional email" which I don't use for anything else. Unless the email came in between the hours of 12pm and 7am, I'd get it and respond pretty promptly.

    Nowadays, of course I haven't checked my non-work email in a month or so.

     


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