Crap from afar

The moment a contract job gets posted on Monster, my phone rings. Isn't that great?

No. It SUCKS.

So, what's the problem? Here's what it's like for the job-seeker:

The phone rings. The caller ID says that it's someone in Virginia or some other place with a good job market. The caller is actually somebody in India who claims to have found me on Monster and thinks I'd be a great fit for this three-month contract in Missouri which requires an active security clearance and experience with ArborText.

Here are some things that you can find out by looking at my profile and resume on Monster: I don't live near MO, I have never had a security clearance, and I have never used ArborText.

Often they email and call at the same time, or just email.

Today, I replied to one of those emails, asking if he had seen on my resume where it says that I live in MA and not MO, and if the client was open to telecommuting (they're usually not). At this point, I was genuinely curious as to what was happening.

A few minutes later, he called. I asked him if this meant that the client was okay with telecommuting. He had no idea what I was talking about - he hadn't read my email yet. (sigh) He claimed that he had seen my resume on Monster, but then backpedalled and admitted that he hadn't. I advised him that he could have ruled me out in just a few seconds if he had looked at it.

Then he told me that he didn't have access to my resume.

WHAT?

That's when I realized that I wasn't talking to a real recruiter. I was talking to a telemarketer. It took only a few seconds of Googling to find out that many US staffing agencies have outsourced their recruiting functions to India. For what it costs them to pay one worker in the US to screen resumes and contact only the most likely candidates, they can now pay a whole squad of overseas workers to phone and email as many people as their technology can handle. No need to pre-screen!

Based on the calls/emails I've been getting, these are mostly agencies that I've never had a good experience with as a job-seeker and I've often wondered how they stay in business. Their recruiters (on either side of the ocean) are very polite and cordial until the moment they realize it's not going to work out. Then they won't even answer an email.

These agencies never seem to have exclusive relationships with any clients. Whenever I see a contract that's listed by multiple agencies, these are the agencies whose names I see repeatedly. I'm also seeing some new names, and I'm wondering if some of these new players are perhaps even based in India.

Well, it was annoying enough to see a long list of "new jobs posted today" and realize that they're all for the same contract. Now I'm getting contacted multiple times for the same contract as well.

But every time I've had a call about a contract, I've seen it on Monster, too. Sometimes I see that the contract is also listed with a staffing agency that I wouldn't mind doing business with.

So, these companies are really shooting themselves in the foot with this strategy. In addition to wasting my time, spamming me with totally nonsensical queries (a one-month contract in New Jersey that I'm not qualified for? three months part-time in Austin?), and generally pissing me off, they're also alerting me to the existence of contracts that I can apply to through another agency.

But at least these are real contracts. I'm still getting spam from "Michael Vincent" three times a week claiming that he's found me a job. What a guy! (I've never opened these emails; I have no idea what they are, but I think it's safe to assume they're garbage.)

PS: I realize that I label most of my blog posts with the "dumbness" tag.