Work Life: LinkedIn, More Recruiters than Professional Contacts?

I occasionally log into LinkedIn to read some of their articles. Although somewhat amateurish, they are rather insightful in getting me to think although no always in agreement (at least not 100%) with the article. Every so often, I get a new request from someone that wants to be added to my contacts list.

If this keeps up (although would take a rather long time), I may eventually end up with more recruiters than business professional contacts. This got me thinking that LinkedIn really needs a new feature to separate recruiters from my regular contacts.

First, recruiters really know nothing about me. Personally, I think they are just poaching my contacts list. I have added one or two that I have worked closely with in the past but have since removed them from my list. I may consider keeping recruiters that really are professional contacts. I may consider adding them if my contact list was not shared with them.

Second, they do not care about my work. They do not provide any value to my professional portfolio except maybe to make my contact list look larger. But, I know plenty of excellent people with very few contacts. Do they really look at my list for referrals? How would they know who I actually work with?

Third, I do not want to be adding recruiters while being employed. I do not this it looks good when your managers or coworkers (who are also on LinkedIn), suddenly see an influx of recruiters on your new contacts news. I do not wish to risk my boss to think that I am a liability to the team.

But, I am curious what they have to offer. Although I am not interested in leaving, I still need to do my due diligence as a professional. LinkedIn would provide an excellent portal for me to see what other opportunities are out there. Somehow I am meeting more people who are also looking for work, and reference would be a much better way to introduce someone to an opening. I think there are some good benefits LinkedIn should look into for these types of avenues. It will grow higher quality candidates, as opposed to candidates from the masses (i.e. Monster, Dice, etc.).

Work Life: Interviews, 2 Week Notice, pay rate, double standards

For me whenever I get a call from a headhunter, there are always a couple questions that always bother me. First is what is my rate and second is when I am available.

Sure I have a good idea approximately what my rate is. I've tried both delaying and providing exact rates. I do not get any follow-ups if a rate is not provided. This year, most have also given me the client's rate when I provided mine. Interestingly, they always provided me a number $5 / hour more than whatever number I choose. So this is kind of suspicious to me.

The main reason I do not want to give me rate is because I put a lot of weight on the interest of the work. If the industry is interesting, the project is interesting, and work environment is promising, I may want to provide a lower rate. I feel that part of the rate being higher is because I end up doing certain work that I do not enjoy doing (which I found that few other people would like to do).

But I think the sad reality is that employers no longer think that way about hiring. They say they want to be like a family, but they really just see a family of cogs and widgets. We're all replaceable and might as well just pay a higher rate because most employers think we enjoy job hopping.

Because they think we enjoy job hopping, they all think we can all just leave with a two week notice. I have definitely noticed that headhunters interest drops when they ask when I will be available. Providing any amount of time greater than a month, and I never hear from them again. Not one has ever returned a call (yet another headhunter from the same firm will still contact me).

I just do not understand why they always aim for 2 weeks (and some are obviously in need of immediate starts). Yes, there are some companies that need to hire quickly. But I really blame their poor management for being in that position. These are also the types of companies I want to avoid.

I have found the groups that I worked with that requires immediate hires to be poorly managed. The manager has trouble delegating work. The group has way more work and never have enough time to work on projects. This does not even address time for process improvement. They just keep doing the same thing until the entire department is revamped which typically means large layoff.

It may not be the direct manager's fault. They could be strapped by budget or upper management does not agree that they need a larger head count. Either way, there is something wrong somewhere in the management level.

Even then, they complain about the poor quality hires (which I also agree most of the time). But how is that unexpected? You give one phone interview and one in-person interview. The person is provided no time to consider if this is a good fit for them either.

Not only that, you provide a scenario that is primarily fits people who are out of work. Most of those people are not top of the crop which is why they are out of work. I know there are some due to mass layoffs, but the top (by definition) is not a lot. So the very nature of the interview process is nearly impossible for people who value a good fit who are currently employed.

I think headhunters (at least the cold-calling ones since I am rarely proactive searching for work) do a terrible job in selling this to their clients. They just target filling the position with the shortest amount of time. I hope that corporate recruiters work much differently.

Maybe I am wrong and I do not see the "whole" picture, but even just reading comments from recruiters or HR employees on sites like LinkedIn on interviewing or hiring articles give me even less hope. They primarily argue that there is another scenario which rarely is a win for either the client or recruit. They just see the opening as something to be filled... ASAP. They just do not see that the problem is that they need to fill the spot ASAP.

"It simply isn't feasible to allow the job to sit there waiting for a month, especially when there are 4 or 5 people that could fill it tomorrow. It would be lovely to get told by a client I have 6 months to find the right person to fill a job, but that simply isn't feasible, and frequently completely illogical."

One month is just not feasible? Most companies cannot even tell they need to fire someone after 3 months (typical probation period of time). That is with them in almost constant access and view of the employee.

At the same time, they are worried giving too much time allows candidates to hoard open positions? This is not a problem for the company, this is a problem for recruiters. Why do they want to rush the candidate? If he finds a better fit, why do want to keep them? To rush a hire, I believe recruiters, company, or hiring manager, are inexperienced and not worth the effort by people who have already been burned by this very process.

This is why getting jobs through people you know is still so successful. I think the problem with the recruiting industry is that they are trying to keep a self-sustaining industry by encouraging high turn-over rates. What is the incentives for them to find the perfect fit for their clients? They mask it with what seems like complex problems and social complexities.

Even with all this, recruiters/headhunters/hiring managers all stack the deck against the candidates. Why should they get more than 2 weeks? Tell us your rates. Give us more information. While they sit in a situation where they can shop multiple candidates. They know all the variables, yet deny candidates their due diligence to know what other companies can also offer.

Candidates only look for work about once a year at most on average. I think the average today is around 2-3 years. Yet, headhunters work with candidates every single day. Where is the fairness in that?

To the future me looking for new work... stand-up for your own values. Do not let headhunters threaten you. You should have the time to consider all variables. If they say the offer is only available for less than what you are comfortable with, then do not consider the offer. If this threat is caused by a sudden need, then their is something wrong with management. If not a sudden need, then they are trying to get you as cheep as possible before another company is willing to pay more.

Interview: Dear Interviewer, Would you Answer Your Own Questions Honestly?

Dear Interviewer, Would you Answer Your Own Questions Honestly?

If you are new to interviewing, these are good starting points (or see link below).

What I have thought interesting since I started interviewing is how "textbook" some of the answers are to the interview questions. All questions are structured to get some sort of information about the interviewee, but do interviewers ever think about what the interviewee thinks about the company on certain questions?

One of the questions, "Tell me about the worst boss you ever had," the interviewer is "trying" to see if you are going to talk smack about your older bosses. Almost everyone will recommend that you try to redirect the question to something positive, but why not say bad things about a bad boss (unless you've only had 1-2 bosses then I would also recommend you avoid answering this directly)?

Is the new boss expecting to be bad? If he is not bad, then why would he worry about what I say about bad bosses? Who has not had a bad boss? I mean this is like asking, "have you ever lied?" We all know the real answer, and we know that is not the answer the questioner wants to hear. Basically, you want us to lie. Is that how you want to start someone's career at your company?

If going the route of "yes, I do lie," I would also suggest that you add what you did about it. Like when my boss hired someone that was weak, I wrote a report trying to avoid any personal bias. I told her that this is my opinion and that I respect her choice because there are usually other factors that they have to consider that I am not privy to. Another example was a poor process. I recommended a better process with analytic on how it is a better business strategy. I want to show that I will go to my boss with my experience and my knowledge. I do not jump levels and report to his boss about my thoughts on him. If you cannot back up your actions, then maybe you should stick with the suggest response from CareerBuilder.

What if your boss was doing something illegal? I have not actually thought about this... and I am not sure exactly what I should do on that matter. I'd probably read the employee handbook and probably should be handled by HR. Anyways, this is probably a bit too personal to answer publicly because if you happen to be my boss... it is probably better that you don't know what I would choose. To all the not-worst bosses, what would you suggest?

Another question is "Where do you see yourself in five years?" Does anyone really know where they see themselves in five years that are relevant to work? Does the interviewer even know where they see themselves in five years with their current work? How can they expect that from someone who doesn't even know who is going to hire them?

I seem to dislike questions that really only have one correct answer. These types of questions only seem to serve one purpose and it is not to understand the interviewee. If you or your HR is not going to put effort into finding the right candidates, I have lower views of your company. Does that mean I will not choose you? Unfortunately for me, I probably would consider the option since most companies ask the same types of questions.

But like interviewers who are looking for that one ideal candidate, I am seeking for that one ideal employer and I hope to do so by being more straightforward about my profession abilities. If there was one recommendations for employers about their interview questions, that would be that you would be able to answer the same questions you ask: "tell me who was your worst manager that you've had," "where do you see me in five years?" If you do not like answering those questions, then do not ask those questions. Like interviewees, avoid lying because you will not get what you really want. It is a lose-lose for both parties.

On a different matter, these staple responses from recruiters and head-hunters are things that have always made me uncomfortable with them. Shouldn't they be people who should be making the hiring process easier by being more honest about the truths? Why has the whole interview process been mutated into something that favors people who know how to interview and not their real talent? Does a company really care if someone knew how to answer a certain question that is really irrelevant to them? Who cares if the person cannot see where they are in 5 years? Who cares if they had a bad boss or had all bad bosses? They only care that the employee adds value to the company.

I am not saying that the knowledge is important. It is important to know if we have ambition or have social issues. But you are expecting someone to know those with just one or two questions?

Sometimes I wonder about the use of recruiters. Their business model revolves around getting people hired. People don't get hired if the company already has perfect people. They love churn because that gets them the bonuses that they work out in the contracts.

I think there is a lot of room for improvements for HR, recruiters, and head-hunters to really make more long term solutions to the interviewing process. I think recruiters have the most to gain especially with the current technology in social networking. They can now keep in touch with people for several years without being very intrusive.

Why recruiters? Because companies do really not care much about employees or potential employees' life outside of their company. They want to focus on their product. Also on the political level, there are some managers that hire people they know over people people who are capable. It only takes one poor manager to make systems extremely inefficient.

And, people want to focus on their skills so that they can add value where they are talented at. Why should the person know who they work best with, especially when the employer does not even give them a say in the matter? People struggle to get themselves hired and you want them to know someone else?

This leaves the recruiters to find the best matches because that's their role in the process. They care that you did good work for Company A, showed loyalty in Company B, and demonstrated hard work at Company C. They should care that you had that one bad boss but you overcame it. They should have a better idea what your 5 year goal is better than the interviewee (isn't it kind of messed up that they call the company the client and not the other way or even both?) With their experience, they should know where you can be in 5 years and they should know what the company would expect in 5 years. They should know historically who you have worked best with. Not only that, that knowledge should be exactly the same except that you explain it in the perspective for that person. Too bad they only care about the person being at the right place and at the right time... if not, they move onto someone else.

Anyways, there's probably an infinite and one reasons to why the system is not that way. Unfortunately, I cannot help but think on these processes on a part-time basis as I would really wish to focus on processes on building new engineering technologies. I have been distracted by other industries because getting good coworkers is the biggest problem in process improvements. So here's my weakness... I am easily distracted by things that I consider the biggest problems on things that are preventing me from working on new engineering technologies.

Reference:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/03/04/cb.answering.tough.interview.questions/