Gotta love these agency headhunters.

[unixronin]

"I recently reviewed a copy of your resume on the internet, and feel your experience is relevant to one of our openings with a direct client."

Well, let's look at your requirements here.

AntHil Pro?  Never heard of it.

Oracle?  Nope, I don't do Oracle.

Java?  Nope.

.Net?  Nope.

Perl?  Yeah, I do Perl.

Builds and deployments?  Well, yes, I've done builds and testing.  Deployment, not so much.

SubVerison [sic] VSS?  Not so you'd notice.  Used it just enough to know it has some really ugly (as in, corrupt the entire repository) failure modes.

AccuRev?  Nope.

CruiseControl?  Nope.

Agile environments?  Nope.

So, running maybe about 1.5 for 10 here.  Tell me again exactly why my experience is "relevant" to your client?

Oh, right.  Your blind search threw up a hit on the word "Perl".  But you never actually read the resumé, did you...?

No, I didn't think so.

Comments

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

My spam filter has grown enormously just for these folk.

[fatcook.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know just the feeling.
Earn your commission people, learn to read!!

[milktree.livejournal.com]

So... if you're looking for work, it's worth spending time to play along with these guys.

Worst case, it costs you some time and you discover they're losers.

Best case, it turns out their requirements aren't hard and fast and you can do what they actually want. You get work.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sent them back a response in any case, though I did take the step of pointing out that their enumerated requirements are an almost 100% mismatch with the skills listed on my resumé.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

well, we know firstly that they all use keywords.

the lamers only use keywords and don't even understand what you DO...

i've encountered agents though, that many of whom were technical managers/developers, and while they aren't doing THAT, they're current enough to ask you "perl? what version? did you know what'use strict' is? good..." you can't BS them as easily as the lamers...

BSing the lamers, and/or finding lamers that BS *FOR YOU* is one of the weaknesses in the process. clients don't like to find someone walking in for interview or worse, a hire, don't have the advertised skills.

that's why the GOOD agents will at least talk to you about your stuff. sometimes, they know enough to be dangerous, and WILL get stuck on "3-5 years required and all you have is 2-3"...

quick advise: if the agency doesn't sound like they are "local talent", don't bother, they're fishing bigtime.

keep at it.

#

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was another strike against'em, this outfit's out of Delaware. AND it's Indian. Which makes three strikes in my book. My experience is that the Indian headhunters are uniformly worthless.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

If they don't understand more than keywords, stay away from them. They will develop a reputation in the market that will poison anyone they represent. When I was a hiring manager, I would use any reasonable technique to reduce the 200 resumes that passed HR down to the 10 - 15 I wold interview. (I was generous with that much time.) Often, for me, a degree in CS was a disqualifier by itself. I was perverse. I had a great team.