Not many recruiters are worth talking to. Most recite buzzwords, as you’ve found. The odds they’re going to send you to an appropriate interview are about zero. It’s pretty easy to tell who knows the business and who doesn’t. Talking to the hand is a good test :-)

Why is it that when an IT recruiter contacts me after looking at my linked-in profile that says I am mid-level director for a hospital, still assumes that I must be really good at programming based on my Indian origin, and wants to talk about a “great IT programming opportunity” that would fit my skills … without even asking about my skills or interest. I used to get highly frustrated and spent time educating these “HR recruiters” on my interests but they just don’t get it. Instead, over time I have found another way to handle it since my time is too precious to spend on these dimwits. Now, I ask them to describe the opportunity in as much detail as possible, and when they do, I place the phone on the table and walk off. They can talk to my hand!

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER, PLEASE READ.

I am the only legal owner of my own resume. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects my rights in this matter. Any misuse of my resume or data contained in it, can and will be prosecuted in a Federal Court. The competent court will be the one closer to my physical residence. The fact that I publish my data on a public job board, DOES NOT give away my DMCA rights under any circumstance.

Unfortunately here in the US this would be perceived as “communism” which is not. I call this, social justice. I experienced on my skin that staffing agencies list not existent jobs with the sole purpose of meeting a quota on their “resume collections”. Add to this some racism and you get the recipe for a disaster; no wonder the American economy is so much troubled. I come from Italy, I am a 100% legal immigrant, I respect laws and I have a crappy job, I am paid $12/hour (when her majesty the staffing agency decides I can work), no benefits whatsoever, no rights, no nothing. And I am a highly qualified IT Manager. In Europe this game would be criminally prosecuted, here is called “freedom”. I am seriously thinking to go back to Europe.

When I went to the local ESC, I was referred to a few companies. I sent all the things they required and they did not even bother to answer. As you can see they use the system (for free I suppose), and the system does not care about unemployed people (but they are paid with our tax dollars).

By the way I really appreciated your comment.

Angelo.

Great article. I’m looking forward to the exposure of the shenanigans in the employment process.

I few years ago a read an article about an American engineer working in Japan who lost his job and his journey towards reemployment. I was struck by the author’s description of the operation of Japan’s Employment Bureau (as opposed to our Unemployment Offices). According to the article, all companies were supposed to least REAL openings with them and could not turn down a qualified applicant the office found for them!

Perhaps the recent down turn will cause use to rethink our ass-backwards approach to reemployment.

My disclaimer will be checked-out shortly by a specialized attorney and I will keep you posted about his findings. I recently started a battle against a recruiter who refuses to put in writing (via snail mail, not email) that she destroyed any trace of my resume and the same attorney I am talking about is designing a legal strategy to pursue her in a Federal Court.

My next battle is going to be against Temp. Agencies. They feed companies with so called temporaries (I am now of them right now) while these positions are clearly not on a temporary basis. I believe to have found the key to turn around the trick; it’s called IRS. Al Capone was not imprisoned because he ordered the killings of many people, but because he did not pay taxes. IRS already acted against the so called contractors and now I believe I have some meat for them.

Thanks again for your kindness,

Angelo (yes my name can be disclosed now).