IT Certification FAQ

A: Being in the position of hiring many technical people(at least once I was), and had to deal with a number of head-hunters, and hope I can provide a little insight into this. I think what might be the best lesson is to look at the people that you are dealing with. This is in no way meant to bash the head-hunter industry, but to help explain.

Firstly, the majority of head-hunters are looking for one thing; a quick and easy buck. So let's translate this into your question. EASY and QUICK. No you are not easy (as far as they are concerned), you took up their time, introducing yourself, chatting and asking questions. Some head-hunters only want your resume on file. That is it. They could care less about your concerns. Sure they will listen, but that is about it. Due to the technical nature, many of them do not understand your concerns, and most will only match A toA. Meaning that Company a is looking for a CCNP with five years. Your resume has 5 years and CCNP so it is a match. Just about the short of it.Remember, documenting your concerns is time consuming. Most will match A to A like I mentioned above, and send you off on an interview. It cost them nothing to send you on an interview, even if it is not what you are looking for. Now down to the buck part. I will bet that you mentioned either looking on your own, or mentioned other head-hunters. This lowers their chance of making a buck. Most want exclusive rights to you. Why, so they can take a chance on a sure thing. People who look on their own or are talking to other head-hunters are not a good gamble. Sounds like the answer is to dump the one that will not return a call. They are a dime a dozen, and if they do not want to return a call or even give the time of day than by all means look elsewhere. You are doing the right thing.

In regards to the blacklists. You answered the question yourself. You mentioned that you worked with this firm twice before. There you go. I will bet again, that you were not placed by them. So in their eyes you are a bad risk (read not a quick and easy buck). I have also heard of blacklists when an employer complains about an interviewer. I once had a guy come to an interview in sweats. Practically lied down in the chair, claimed to be God in the MS world, cursed all the people who had certs, yet had one of the worst written resumes I have seen to date (even misspellings). Called back to the head-hunter firm and told them if they sent me another like that we are done. Their reply "Well, he needs to go on the list". So yes their is a list, as far as I can tell. From this and other experiences, I would say that they let the interviewers do it.

Hope this helps,

Roger Linston
CriTech Systems Inc.
http://www.critechsystems.com

Headhunters are DESPARATE for placements these days. Given that,
there is no reason that they would deliberately blow you off for
anything you had said (most likely). It's not like they have a line
of sure fire placements to get to before taking on a low risk case.
If they are going to be making any money, a good recruiter is going to
be working with anybody that needs a job.

That leads me to the reason I think you are getting blown off. They
don't have a interview to send you on because they don't have any
companies that need your particular job skills. Even if they say they
have openings, it is most likely just a lie to get your resume on file
for future reference in case something does come up. So, no, they
probably don't want to talk to you if you say "I want a network
engineer position", yet they don't have any current "network engineer"
jobs to fill.

Now think about it. If companies can open positions and get hoards of
applicants, why would they outsource the job of finding the talent?
It isn't very cost effective anymore. In the past, you have to search
to find the talent, now you get the pick of the litter. So using a
headhunter to fill a position is like burning money, and companies
aren't so quick to burn money anymore. So recruiting is really
suffering from not having too many companies using them anymore. That
is why so many recruiters are in "resume collection" mode, and not in
"setting up interview" mode.

As for the presence of a list, they may have a list, but I really
doubt that the list comes into play when you are calling to talk to a
recruiter. Most likely they would refer to the list as a screen
before actually sending you to interview. I don't envision the
recruiter tapping into database on every call and having their screen
flash "blacklist" across your database entry, etc.

Bernie

source: alt.certification.mcse
added: June 2003

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