Ironic? I Think Not

For the most part, I was out of work in CT for about eight months, before I landed a full time job in WA [state – grr]. While I was unemployed, I landed a couple of contracts that helped pay the bills, but for the most part, I wasn’t having much luck with recruiters. Now that I’ve moved to the Left Coast, I’m amused by the onslaught of recruiter emails that I’ve been collecting over time.

First off, I’ve known and used the same recruiter out east for about seven years now. He’s a great guy and when he couldn’t find me a full time position that I was qualified for and/or interested in, that’s when I knew I was pretty screwed. Frozen hiring or bad economy be damned – it was becoming clear that I was not in a tech-friendly part of the country and that was a problem, given my tech-friendly career path.

Beyond that, 90% of the other recruiters simply made me laugh, before and after I moved. “We’ve got a perfect job for you! It’s a perfect fit – you’re exactly what they want there! By the way, can you email me your resume so I can get a feel for your skill set?” OK, they’ve got the perfect job for me, but they don’t know my experience? Do they even know my coding ability or technology background? I’m betting no. Hell, I went to one firm, filled out the Skill-o-matrix sheet and found out that my contact there left the company two weeks later – they didn’t know who I was, when I called them for an update! And then I had the recruiters that tried to talk me into shifting to Unix. Or databases/DBA work. Or outright straight IT: setting up XP boxes for companies. I was a coder/tester/designer by degrees and experience – it’s not what I wanted to do. I would tell them I wasn’t that keen on it – they would try to sell me the job anyway.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails and even few cell phone calls for new openings I had pulled off my resume from Monster, HotJobs, and Dice once I got some definate feedback from the Microsoft interviewing process – that was a no brainer. I guess one of them didn’t pull it right away because some guy called me about a job and when I told him I was Spoken For, he yelled at me for leaving the resume active. Riiiiight. Then I had another guy call, that wanted to talk to me about a position in WA. “I’ve already got a job, thanks.” ‘It says here that you want to relocate.’ “Um, yeah?” ‘So this is in WA! You will want this job!’ “I’m already relocating to WA, for a company.” ‘Oh. Well this will be a better job than the one you have. Trust me, it is perfect. Who are you working for?’ “Microsoft.” ‘Um… Hm. Well, is it contract or full time?’ “FTE. [Full-Time Employee]” ‘. .. … Good luck and seeya!’ *click*

Today, I got a couple of recruiters with job listings… they still somehow don’t even come close to what I was looking for job wise [We hope to upgrade to VB 6 this year!] and yet they keep telling me I’m a perfect fit. Ah, to be so naive and clueless…

I swear, real estate brokers are re-incarnated as headhunters… I mean, that would explain a good deal, don’t you think?


2 thoughts on “Ironic? I Think Not”

  1. You should have told that guy you’re working for DARPA in their Cheyenne installation… That would have been good for a laugh at his expense. :)


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