Re: Recruiting—Fooled Again!

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

Don't beat yourself up. Stay above it.

The recruiting world has changed drastically, and it is full of players who 
years ago, would have been shot, or fired at the least.  Many know nothing 
but what is in front of them in a requirements sheet. The requirements are 
often written by someone with no concept of the job, so they pull an HR 
description if it is an old established company or grab the DOL description 
if new. Both of these rarely have much to do with what the open job actually 
will do.

Many will openly discriminate against age, because they can. Prove it! They 
know you can't. It gives them a warped sense of strength and power, to hold 
you in their hand, and to toy with you. They will drag you in for an 
interview, knowing full well they won't hire you, only to see if they can. 
Most of these interviews can easily be handled over a telephone. I've 
stopped the face to face interviews, because typically they are 50 or more 
miles away, and waste several hours of getting ready to go, the drive there, 
waiting to be seen, the time used to actually be interviewed, and then all 
the time to get back home and get back to normal. Then there is the money 
for the trip. Gas isn't cheap, and they aren't paying, so I don't waste it 
frivolously.  I can usually stop the need to drive to the face to face by 
asking if they are reimbursing the trip since it is for their convenience.

The next step is Skype. I guess they think everyone has it, and has a room 
set up for a video call. I have stopped that also with a simple question. 
"Why? Is that to see what color I am?" They rarely have any comeback to 
that.

Some would say I have just shot myself in the foot for the job, but frankly, 
my experience is that if you are going through these types of unethical 
behavior in the hiring process, you are really not going to like what you 
see as an employee. Better not to be hired, than to be hired and fired or 
forced to quit.

There are still good jobs out there. Don't jump to the bad ones just to 
jump.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Morton" <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 1:06 PM
Subject: OT: Recruiting—Fooled Again!


I'm left kicking myself for falling into this trap—again—whereby a
recruiter lures me in only to attempt to make broad gashes in my
self-esteem. Fortunately, with God's help I'm secure in who I am and am not
devastated by the end result; financially I'm thankful I'm not left
commiserating over an $8,000 salary increase and an equity stake that may
or may not line my coffers come an IPO or buyout at some future date. (The
recruiter knew I had 20+ years' experience, so did the company think they
were considering a 40-year-old?)

...

I was set up to fail.

The SE did most of the talking during my allotted half-hour interview, so
there is no way he could accurately assess my ability to write
documentation to his specs during our conversation. Rather, like Dick Nixon
I sense the camera did me an injustice and killed my chances within the
first two minutes—even though I had taken care to set the stage and had
been cognizant of my body language for the duration.
On account of glare I had decided to not wear my glasses; in the end I
believe that this only served to reveal the deep circles under my eyes,
making me appear much older than I am. And just how does someone get 20+
years experience across a broad spectrum of technical writing? Not by
wearing a hoodie to an interview!