I heard something new about the problems of getting IT jobs.

I started a short term project job recently. Just replacing PCs at a company and reimaging them, $24 an hour for 6 weeks, then out. Better than nothing.

One of the people I met there claimed to be an ex temp agency worker. We spoke about the frustrations I've had this year with finding an IT job. I've had tons of phone calls and applications, few interviews, and no actual jobs in 3+ months.

He claims that for some reason or regulation, agencies and companies are required to make a certain number of phone calls to candidates, and interview a certain number of people, even if they already know who they are going to hire, likely someone internal to the company already.

Ever hear of this? If it is true, I don't like it. But with the aggravations of finding work this year, I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

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Comments

Queue

Yes, that is very common. My understanding is even if a company is hiring internally they still have to post the job externally. Therefore everyone coming in for that interview, is just helping the company be compliant.

However, in the private sector anything goes. Management makes the decisions.

tmtex

I think if an agency/recruiter has an opening of "IT admin", they call/talk to everyone. I think the boss say's "Jane, you need to get 20 resumes a day for a week for this position for you to meet your quota."

volfkhat

TekSystems seems to be notorious for this (in my experience).
The recruiter wastes your time by getting you in for a face-to-face; but there is No specific job.
Turns out; the recruiter has some face-to-face quota coming from above.

Ridiculous.

If a recruiter ever contacts you for a face-to-face interview... Request that they send you the job description FIRST; so that you can better decide if you are qualified for the position.

If the recruiter balks... then you know its probably a waste of time.

UncleB

To be fair to some agents, they will want to screen you first to see if you are presentable, articulate and don't give off bad body language.

This is more common for management level roles where presentation is much more of a factor, but if you are a socks-and-sandals wearing network geek who never is let out the basement in daylight hours then it is not going to be a factor.

Having said that, some idiot management can insist that "due diligence" should be followed and a pre-defined number of candidates approached so the company and agency can be seen to follow an appropriately wide ranging search, even if there is an "usher-in" candidate who will get the role anyway. It is an example of HR departments covering themselves from potential law suits.

I agree about the job spec being required if you are going for a tech or low level role - politely tell them no job spec, no time from you.

thanks
Iain

Trucido

volfkhat wrote: »

TekSystems seems to be notorious for this (in my experience).
The recruiter wastes your time by getting you in for a face-to-face; but there is No specific job.
Turns out; the recruiter has some face-to-face quota coming from above.

Yeah I had the same thing happen twice. Went in for an interview only to find out at the end they didn't really have anything at that moment.... Can't they read my resume and/or just schedule a 5-15 minute phone call?

EnderWiggin

That's not an IT thing, it happens in all fields.

culpano

There seems to be no middle ground with rates any more. It's either £15 an hour or £45 an hour. Nothing in the middle. Where are all the £25 an hour jobs these days ? For example £15 an hour for desktop deployment and then £45 an hour for build guru. I spent most of my contracting career around the £28 an hour mark doing builds for NT4, XP, scripting apps on Windows 2000 - middle of the road stuff but there doesn't seem to be anything around these days.

beads

US labor law requires companies post for 10 business days outside the organization before considering internal candidates. Your probably not competing with internal candidates for entry to low level IT positions.

No, IT has always been a notoriously difficult field to break into because of two thing things: First, high turn over at the entry level; Second, the real lack of any usable skills at the entry level. Think the snake eating its own tale. Many people see IT as an easy way to make a living enter the field and wash out or dislike the constant daily grind of retraining themselves for tomorrow's tasks. Hiring managers have seen this before and become a bit jaded to hiring "freshers" or newbies as they know the wash out rate is going to be high.

You can also take IT in general but not always a field unlike few others that is also known to "eat its own young". Depending on the culture I have seen more backbiting and underhanded moves by either jealous IT people or threatened IT people. Why? Its about skill level. Some people are threatened by superior skills others will sabotage the person with the greater skill level. Its weird but much more pronounced in downturns that it will be currently.

The rest of us are all saintly creatures worthy of end user worship and better financial remuneration.

Hopefully, that helps.

- b/eads

Russell77

If I were taking time off of work to interview going to a pointless one would be bothersome but if I were unemployed I would look at it as a networking opportunity. You never know if something is going to happen to candidate number so go in swinging.

Lexluethar

While i agree with the above posts and that some of that may be quota driven - i personally believe it has more to do with you being pulled into jobs that you are not qualified for, whether over or under qualified.

I've found a lot of recruiters reach out to me and present a job that is either outside of my skill set or below it. Both of which are lose-lose situations because i'm either under qualified or i'm going to cost them too much if i were to take that position.

So more than likely you are getting all of these calls and interviews, but the reality is that those jobs are not good fits for you. That at least seems to happen in my area. Recruiters don't care about the fit, they care about the 'sale' and getting you in the position. So they will flood everyone with job postings hoping as many people apply as possible so they have the highest chance of placing someone - regardless of if it's a good fit.

Do yourself a favor and get a detailed job description, pay and location so that you can make an informed decision before even picking up the phone to speak with someone. I've burned a lot of hours early in my IT career by not doing this.

No joke, out of 10 jobs that recruiters send my way - i will only actually discuss 1 of those jobs because the other 9 are not a good fit. I'm employed full time so i'm in no rush to move, but you need to do yourself a favor and weed out bad fits before even speaking to a recruiter other than an email.

DatabaseHead

Honestly never heard of it, but I can believe it. I know HR departments "HAVE" to do this even if they know who they want...... So I guess it makes sense that an 3rd party agency would do the same thing.

Thanks for sharing these types of informative post are always the best ones on here. Rep.

fmitawaps

The big mistake that companies are making by having someone in mind who will get the job before they go through the formality of collecting resumes and doing interviews is that they will not give me their full attention and consideration, because in all likelihood, I am better at IT than whoever they have in mind for it.

Despite my unorthodox attitude and sense of priorities and ethics, I really am good at the kind of IT jobs I apply for, believe it or not. And more often than not, a company is shortchanging themselves by hiring someone else for any job I am willing to deign to apply for.

Priston

volfkhat wrote: »

TekSystems seems to be notorious for this (in my experience).
The recruiter wastes your time by getting you in for a face-to-face; but there is No specific job.
Turns out; the recruiter has some face-to-face quota coming from above.

I had no issues with Tek Systems buying me lunch...

volfkhat

Priston wrote: »

I had no issues with Tek Systems buying me lunch...

lol
Well, when you put it that way.... i did get a Free Cookie (we were at Starbucks).

Basic85

Agree with some many of the comments here. I've gone in with Teksystems to interview when no positions were available so the recruiter can meet their weekly quota but I was fine with it because I was unemployed. I've loss some faith in recruiters because some of them only want to see a body in a seat for less money as possible so they can pocket the change. With this comes greed and some bad behavior. Some recruiters/hr people are so low that they harass/stalk candidates to get them to accept offer to the point where the candidate should report them to their management and call the police. I've been a victim of this horrible behavior from recruiters/hr and will never ever tolerate it again.

Agree that there is a lot of backstabbing when it comes to IT. Where IT employees will put others down because they have certs/educations and skills that they don't have. They feel threaten of losing their job to a more skillful IT worker, pretty pathetic and some day it will bite them in the know what, karma is coming.

Yeah what they are saying is true about the hiring process. It's not much you can do besides keep applying to other jobs.

Bluehoo

I had lunch with a Tek Systems recruiter in May. A few days later he called and wanted me to ask my references to call him.

cshkuru

"US labor law requires companies post for 10 business days outside the organization before considering internal candidates. Your probably not competing with internal candidates for entry to low level IT positions."

That is not a blanket truth -

According to[FONT=&quot] the [/FONT]Society for Human Resources Management[FONT=&quot], "Only federal contractors obligated under the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), as amended by the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA), are required by regulation to post open positions.

Only federal contractors obligated under the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), as amended by the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA), are required by regulation to post open positions. To implement the affirmative action requirement, check VEVRAA and its implementation regulations found at 41 CFR Part 60-300.5, which requires contractors and subcontractors to list most employment openings with an appropriate employment service delivery system.

https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/Pages/openpositionregulationsforinandexternalpositions.aspx

[/FONT]

gespenstern

I think it is Illinois state law where I'm at that requires a job to be advertised outside of the company. Not sure about calls, but they post on job boards (I've seen this on Taleo) for sure, even if they don't intend to hire anyone applying even if it is Bill Gates begging them to employ him for minimal wage.

Stupid law if you ask me that requires businesses to do mandatory steps that lead nowhere and waste time of outside candidates in cases that happen more than often when they already have a person in mind to fill the position.

cshkuru

Could be - but I have worked a few places where people were moved into new positions without it being externally advertised. I am one, position didn't exist they created it for me and I was reclassified and hired into it. This was Washington state. I know they didn't advertise externally because the process only took about a day and a half.