Job-Seekers v Recruiters (Job-Seekers Gone Wild)

Recruiters and job-seekers are kind of like Tom and Jerry or Newman and Jerry Seinfeld or Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner – it is truly a love / hate relationship and one could not survive the other. Over the next couple of posts we will look at that relationship  (both positive and negative) from the eyes of people in the trenches.

To start things off I have asked several corporate, contingent, and retained recruiter friends (if you are not familiar with those terms read our previous post that explains them here) to share some of their experiences of job-seekers doing them dirty (I think this might be an eye-opener to some of you who only hear about job-seekers being done wrong).

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It always amazes me that recruiters get such a bad reputation for not calling back. If I had a penny for every time a candidate did not return my phone call Bill Gates would envy my bank account.

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I once recruited a Treasurer for the company I worked for. Our company relocation package was fairly comprehensive, but things such as boats weren’t covered. Our candidate had a fairly large (27-or 28-foot) boat on a trailer, but no truck to haul it to the new location. Being the good guy that I am, I took a Saturday and drove my own truck the 250 miles to where the boat was stored, hauled it back and put it in storage for him.  

The Friday afternoon before he was scheduled to start on the following Monday, the candidate called to inform me that he had accepted a very generous counter offer from his present employer, and that he would not be joining us after all. On top of that he had the b*lls to tell me that I needed to bring his boat back! I don’t know what ever happened to that boat, but our candidate’s resume was all over the job boards within a few months, no longer with the company that had countered him.    

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I once had a candidate whom I was checking a background on after we hired him.   When I went to verify his Bachelor’s degree I was unable too.  He told me that the records building of a very large university had burnt down so he had no record of graduation.  He created a fake note from the President of the university saying that this was fact.  I had to speak with the university and verify that No there in fact was never any fire, his offer was rescinded!    

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I recently had a candidate call and cuss me out because he missed his interview and it was somehow my fault. Needless to say he was then statused accordingly.

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Many years ago when I was still new to the healthcare recruiting arena, a very experienced RN approached me about a potential job.  After an interview and much research, I discovered that she was a candidate that had no business working for my company and probably no business being in patient care.  For the following six months, she persisted on applying for jobs and contacting me directly and I explained, rather honestly, why she was not a fit for my organization.     

One Monday morning shortly thereafter, my weekend charge nurse came to my office to inform me of a bizarre patient that was admitted to the Emergency Room over the weekend.  After going through triage and assigned a room, the patient specifically requested to see the Director of the Emergency Room.  Happily obliging and wondering what could be the problem, my ER Director visited the patient.  As he asked about her concerns and what he could do to help, she informed him that there was no condition that had actually warranted her visit to the ER day save this: she could find no other way to get an interview with the Director because the Director of Recruiting (me) refused to submit her resume to him for review.  He kindly discharged her.    

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I had a Design Engineer show up for his first day of employment in full Indian Chief gear because he was on call for Medicine Doctor duties at the tribe in northern Michigan.

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I always love it when we schedule an interview with a client and the candidate doesn’t show up or shows up dressed inappropriately and/or smelling like smoke

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A senior vice-president level candidate (200K level) accepted a job with my company, had the moving van in the front yard, and his wife pitches a fit because he won’t relocate the pool boy.    He declines the job on the day he is supposed to start and I got no plan b.       

 Yes, I said pool boy.       

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How many times have you told your candidates that the hiring company drug screens and then when the deal has been made and they show up for the day of the test the day before they should report to work and then they FAIL the drug test. I normally tell candidates that the company drug screens at least 4 -5 times during the process, and if there is any reason that they don’t want to proceed, to just tell me and that’s fine – no questions asked, no explanations needed.

It’s particularly annoying when it has been a long search, with multiple interview process by the hiring company. Aggghhh! When that happens we waste the applicants time, the client’s time (and it lessons your credibility with the client since they then think you are a moron for showing them a candidate and not fully screening them), and of course it’s a waste of my, the recruiter’s time. 

I once had a guy whose process took about 3 months of hiring process with about 4 company interviews, plus mine. They thought he walked on water, and then he failed a drug test for cocaine…    

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I’m always (tactfully) honest with candidates that we are not going pursue them after my initial phone conversation, however, I run into candidates who do not like this feedback.  So, they decide that their best bet is to go find someone in an exec role to “sell” themselves to.  I’ve never had a candidate get hired using this approach…I do know what my managers are looking for.  In a few rare instances the candidate has tried tell my execs that I don’t know what I’m doing because there’s no way I should have overlooked them.  This is totally classless and a poor reflection on them…not me.

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I recruit positions that typically fall in the 75-100k range and I have lost count of the number of candidates who no-show for both in-person and phone interviews even though I speak to them the morning of or the evening before with promises of them being ready and excited    

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One time I had an out-of-town candidate neglect to tell me that he preferred being a ‘she’ until the night before an in-person interview with the client. He had been through probably five phone interviews with my team and the client and failed to mention that on any of them.    

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I always love it when a candidate sends you his resume, says he is desperate for a job and then never returns your call.

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I always love it when a candidate sends you a resume saying they are desperate for a job and you call them back, leave a message for them and they never call back    

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A potential candidate for an executive search I was about to start, tried to go around our retained search firm and contact the client directly after confidentially finding out about the search right after we  landed it.  We were at the beginning of our search process, but he was nearing the end of his prolonged personal search for employment so he desired a quick decision.  

He was not fully honest with me, nor did he disclose that he’d received an offer or that he’d accepted it, and when the client found out he tried to throw me under the bus for not informing them since he claimed to have let me know.  He burned a bridge with both me and this client forever since I shared the truth with them, and they trusted me!  Not a good thing in this economy, and small town!    

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I once had a person I was interviewing with take a call from his wife in middle of my interview as she was out buying a car. He proceeded to talk in front of me for five minutes. I offered to step outside or asked if he would like to reschedule. Made for a very uncomfortable interview and waste of time interviewing that day .    

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We had a candidate accept a job, start, and then two weeks later quit unexpectedly. When we asked her about it she said that she never quit her first job (although she said she had), she just took two weeks vacation to ‘try’ this new one out and it wasn’t to her liking.

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If you are looking for a job right now I hope this gives some sort of perspective on why recruiters as a whole are a jaded bunch – I could have added 20-30 more snippets on here but decided to try to keep it short.

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I have had several instances where a candidate goes all the way through the interview process, gets an offer that is in or above  HIS RANGE, and then disappears and never calls back to accept or decline.

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I had a candidate go into the client’s break room to grab a drink of water between a break in interviews and came out with a piece of cake and was eating it. According to the interviewer he had cake all over his face.

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To get the most out of the relationship with any recruiter you come across please keep in mind some of the things he might be dealing with (like OTHER candidates that do him dirty). Next time we will hear from job-seekers on things recruiters have done to them.

 

 

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As we close, if you are reading this and outside of Nashville, TN and have not heard about the flooding that happened here over the weekend of May 1 – 2 please watch the following videos and read this article to find out more.

 

 

 

 

I could not be more proud of the way my city has responded. In most areas people sit around and wait for help to come after a disaster but all across the Nashville area neighbors were (and are) helping neighbors and strangers were (and are) helping strangers.

 

Until next time – please keep the Nashville area and those affected by the floods in your prayers.