Anyone have a problem with recruiters not listening?

Just a wee rant. A recruiter called shortly after emailing me about what was essentially my prior position in DC. I told him repeatedly that this was actually my former position and that I needed to stay in Texas. He just kept repeating that he had an opportunity in Washington DC for me. When I finally convinced him that I wasn't interested, he asked if I had friends who might be. I told him everyone I knew with that skill set (a pretty specific one) already worked at that company.

It's just frustrating. I am pretty clear online where I am willing to move to and people disregard it all the time.

Anyone else?

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Turgon

miller811 wrote: »

read this yesterday and laughed my ass off...

Not sure what happened to this guy, but read his rant on recruiters starts about half way down.

I am writing this month to share with you all my recent experiences as a CCIE by Joe Astorino

here are some highlights

•If a recruiter calls me and I can’t understand a word coming out of their mouth, I hang up immediately. Plain and simple. I don’t have time for that. If you can’t speak my language adequately, how in the world are you going to land me a job interview?

•If a recruiter leaves me a voice mail and after the first 3 seconds I am having a hard time understanding them, I delete it immediately without finishing the message.

•The vast majority (90% I would say) of these people are blood sucking maggots that are exactly like that car salesman I talked about......

Some interesting insights in that article by Joe. Seems to me he became disillusioned with how the training space operates. Better off in industry Joe keeping a production network up at midnight. If he's been fulltime training he will have some adjusting to do, some of those real networks out there are very complicated and hang together in less than perfect ways. He's upto the challenge. His thoughts on CCIE number defining you are illuminating, it's not the be all and end all.

From what I have heard he was a popular instructor but to go from a regular candidate in 2008 to superhero status must be a problem, and deflating, particularly when it ends abruptly and you are fighting for jobs like the rest of us. He's right about the starry eyed side of instructing, there is a lot of kudos from the community for instructors particularly those who work for the large vendors, but its kind of self perpetuating as the people buying the products have bought into the love in and regard instructors as having magical powers. Out in the field, the CCIE while respected hasn't got as much glory attached to it, in fact the number itself can expose you to a lot of seriously uncomfortable pressure you wouldn't necessarily experience when teaching a bunch a Cisco groupies hanging on your every word. It's the converse, you have to lead a skilled team through a very difficult service affecting incident that nobody understands very much, with updates in realtime from management who constantly drop into the VC to 'see how things are going'. Without good dynamics with your peers the CCIE will find himself isolated pretty quickly in such situations and a gun pointing at his or her head, and if you are new into a company you dont know your way around so the soft skills he talks about are so important to build up good working relationships with people you need to get to know and to some extent depend upon to get the job done well.

Like being able to encourage the guys to work with you late on an incident on a Friday when they have family plans that evening and are already shattered after a very difficult week. Some humility helps there because if you have this 'uber' glow about you or you simply buy into it so hard it starts to grate with colleagues you may just find yourself ditching into the ocean on your own.

His experiences with recruiters is fairly typical. Im sure he will do fine though as he's a clever guy.

TheShadow

Turgon wrote: »

Some interesting insights in that article by Joe. Seems to me he became disillusioned with how the training space operates. Better off in industry Joe keeping a production network up at midnight. If he's been fulltime training he will have some adjusting to do, some of those real networks out there are very complicated and hang together in less than perfect ways. He's upto the challenge. His thoughts on CCIE number defining you are illuminating, it's not the be all and end all.

From what I have heard he was a popular instructor but to go from a regular candidate in 2008 to superhero status must be a problem, and deflating, particularly when it ends abruptly and you are fighting for jobs like the rest of us. He's right about the starry eyed side of instructing, there is a lot of kudos from the community for instructors particularly those who work for the large vendors, but its kind of self perpetuating as the people buying the products have bought into the love in and regard instructors as having magical powers. Out in the field, the CCIE while respected hasn't got as much glory attached to it, in fact the number itself can expose you to a lot of seriously uncomfortble pressure you wouldn't necessarily experience when teaching a bunch a Cisco groupies hanging on your every word. It's the converse, you have to lead a skilled team through a very difficult service affecting incident that nobody understands very much, with updates in realtime from management who constantly drop into the VC to 'see how things are going'. Without good dynamics with your peers the CCIE will find himself isolated pretty quickly in such situations and a gun pointing at your head.

His experiences with recruiters is fairly typical.

To bad he had to have such a hard punch in the gut; many of us have been there and done that. Unfortunately very few heed the advice of others because it sneaks up on you. It is like being under and electric blanket, or having a laptop in your lap, the beach in July, or a steam room that someone moves the thermostat after you are in there. Your body does not know it is being cooked until it is too late and you have 1st or 2nd degree burns.

If you live to work then work just may take your life. Fortunately the great maker of us all sometimes gives us wake up calls if you pay attention.

TheShadow

Ryan82 wrote: »

How about this line from a job posting I just saw:

Working knowledge of UNIX SOLARIS and Windows operating systems - Generator and air conditioning maintenance is a plus

I mean, I understand that with the economy in shambles companies are trying to find individuals who are cross-trained, but Solaris and generator maintenance? Awesome..

I guess you have never seen the inside workings of a 50 story+ office building or a public attraction (Disney Land, Six Flags etc). You need some understanding just to know what the network is doing so that you can spot the do's and don'ts. Oil refinerys are another with strange qualifications like PLC programming a plus, when they have networked PC's doing the work. Industrial applications of networks are strange things.

It is a case of you being able to understand the other people on the team even if you never pick up a wrench. Medicine, accounting, banking, law, chemical plants also like some supporting knowledge as a plus. If you don't have it maybe they will train you but it doesn't hurt to ask and see what shakes out.

puppy001

recruiters sux they mostly waste my time, they do not know jack **** about i.t and oh yeah they are idiots, wannabes

i stated all of my quals and then they say since i was self paced and didnt go to school for my certs i am not schooled enough, they dont even know what my quals are cause they dont know **** and they havent worked in i.t

i am talented and unemployed none wants me

phantasm

puppy001 wrote: »

recruiters sux they mostly waste my time, they do not know jack **** about i.t and oh yeah they are idiots, wannabes

i stated all of my quals and then they say since i was self paced and didnt go to school for my certs i am not schooled enough, they dont even know what my quals are cause they dont know **** and they havent worked in i.t

i am talented and unemployed none wants me

Wow. So much wrong with this post, but I'll just address the first sentence. Recruiters for tech houses like TEKSystems and Robert Half are generally not "wannabe's", they're sales people, they don't want you job or anything to do with it aside from shopping you to a corporation so they can get a commission.

erpadmin

ssampier wrote: »

I haven't too bad of experience with recruiters, most of them are friendly and polite. I just don't trust them worth a sharpened stick.

I did have an Indian or Pakistani fellow call me today. I had a difficult time understanding him. I have zero problems normally (with their people or accent), but this guy's accent was very thick.

He indicated the salary was $28 an hour on a 1099. I told him I wasn't interested in a 1099 position, but I could do a W2 position. He said he could do a W2 and he was going to round it up to $30 an hour. I honestly don't think he knows what a W2 is. Nice guy, otherwise.

I really doubt anything will come of it, but it does, that's good, too.

Edit: There was another recruiter advertising a senior security position in Vegas. Really nice guy, but I don't remotely qualify. It's on CareerBuilder if you're curious.

I've had a couple of those fellows call me within the last couple of years. The interesting thing about them was that they wanted my SSN for some AT&T positions. I told them that was never going to happen but then he got persistent, believing that would really get me to give up the goods. I told him to *blank* off and hung up after that. As with any recruiter, regardless of where they're from, if they insist on a social security number, run, don't walk to the nearest adult. (Or, in our case...just hang up.

erpadmin

earweed wrote: »

Quite frankly I don't care if the recruiter listens or not or if he's a snake or the nicest guy around. If he/she will find me a job in IT I'll be happy.

That's exactly what they're banking on. The sad reality is that they prey on that kind of attitude. This is evident when you just want to call them to follow up with them on some leads.

I would much rather deal with an in-house recruiter than with one whose company gets 5K per head.

Bl8ckr0uter

puppy001 wrote: »

recruiters sux they mostly waste my time, they do not know jack **** about i.t and oh yeah they are idiots, wannabes

i stated all of my quals and then they say since i was self paced and didnt go to school for my certs i am not schooled enough, they dont even know what my quals are cause they dont know **** and they havent worked in i.t

i am talented and unemployed none wants me

What are your qualifications and what jobs are you looking for? Where are you located? There are a lot of talented people looking for work right now.

I think another issue I have with recruiters is that many of them only look at your past. I'll give you an example. I am working in as an Admin right now in a small company. I also had a part time job up until a few weeks ago working in a NOC. Before that my last full time job was a NOC job. All in all it has been almost 2 years since I have worked on a helpdesk. I have 4+ years of experience but since 2 of those years were on helpdesks, recruiters call me stating they have helpdesk jobs for me. I list on my linkedin page as well as on my profiles on various job sites that I am not interested in helpdesk work at this time and they call me anyway with helpdesk jobs. I asked them did they read my profile or did they read my linked in page and I usually get responses like "We say that you use to work on a helpdesk". If you have less than 5 years experience I have found that many recruiters simply won't call you about "specialized" (admin, engineer, analyst) positions. Just something to think about for our less experienced TEers. Hopefully when I finish my degrees, get a few more certs and a few more months of experience (to hit the 5 year mark) I can demand more $ lol.

azjag

docrice wrote: »

I posted my resume on Dice a while back just to see what the market feels like right now. On occasion, I get notices for positions which have practically nothing to do with my focus, except perhaps it keyword-matched something on my resume. A keyword like "process."

Without quoting the whole darn thing it appears to be 100% buzz word compliant. I gave up half way through.

I usually hang up on recruiters that talk a mile a minute. I figure after they call back wondering about dropping the call, I have their attention and can ask the questions I want. Or repeat the process till they give up or I'm tired of answering. Usually by that time I'm no longer interested in the job no matter how wonderful it is and will only be a matter of time before the next recruiter calls with the same job. I've gotten 11 calls about one job before. Has that ever happened to anybody else.

earweed

erpadmin wrote: »

That's exactly what they're banking on. The sad reality is that they prey on that kind of attitude. This is evident when you just want to call them to follow up with them on some leads.

I would much rather deal with an in-house recruiter than with one whose company gets 5K per head.

The sad fact is that since I'm basically just getting into the "actual" IT field I'll take any path necessary to secure a job in IT. Is the job going to be ideal or get me to where I want to be? Probably not but the big hurdle that needs to be overcome by everyone just getting their feet wet is to be able to fill in that EXPERIENCE REQUIRED section on an application. I've worked enough non-IT jobs that I hated and/or just viewed as a paycheck that I would just like to get the experience needed to advance my career.
As others have said before there are good and bad recruiters so why group them all together.
After I get that experience that all jobs seem to require and then build additional skills then I'l probably be just like a lot of people here who view recruiters as lowlife scum.

erpadmin

earweed wrote: »

The sad fact is that since I'm basically just getting into the "actual" IT field I'll take any path necessary to secure a job in IT. Is the job going to be ideal or get me to where I want to be? Probably not but the big hurdle that needs to be overcome by everyone just getting their feet wet is to be able to fill in that EXPERIENCE REQUIRED section on an application. I've worked enough non-IT jobs that I hated and/or just viewed as a paycheck that I would just like to get the experience needed to advance my career.
As others have said before there are good and bad recruiters so why group them all together.
After I get that experience that all jobs seem to require and then build additional skills then I'l probably be just like a lot of people here who view recruiters as lowlife scum.

In that sense, yes, you should use all avenues available to you, including recruiters. However, I'm just saying they shouldn't be depended and relied upon. They (the good and bad ones) feed on desperation and no matter what you tell them, they'll call you anyway for a job that you don't want to leave your current one for, just because they feel it fits their specs. The reason they get lumped together is because they have X amount of people to call in a week. (X could equaly 50-100-200 or even more people) Out of X amount, Y amount has to get placed from X so that they meet goal/quota. When enough Y is placed and stays for the contracted length, that recruiter gets paid (and sometimes very well). Because you're trying to be part of Y, along with everyone else (experienced or not), they have to see if you and others will fit into whatever specs they have, and many times will try to do this quickly. If there is someone with more experience than you (but the resume is otherwise the exact same thing), they're gonna bump you from Y and put you back to X for that spec. Then the cycle begins again. Meanwhile you never really see where you are in the equation until you start figuring out that you're not getting any calls for even a phone interview.

There are a bunch of people who got their first jobs with recruiters (or even their current one). There are also a bunch who never bothered with them, aside from the "do you have a few minutes" call that I'll get right before a meeting. LOL. Nothing wrong with hearing them out, but man, my personal experiences with them do not allow me to paint a rosy picture of them.

earweed

I'm not depending on a recruiter to find me a job. If one does find me a job then that's good, am I dependingon a recruiter to find me a job? NO.
I've currently got recruiters from 6 or 7 agencies who have contacted me and none, so far, have gotten me a job. I'll probably be contacted by many others and I'm not going to depend upon them either.
The sad fact is that in the employment climate there is now in my region I may have to take one of these contract to hire jobs through a recruiter and make someone else money through my hard work. I'd rather not have someone else benefit but since a lot of companies don't even post jobs and use recruiters to find employees it is an avenue that I am going to use if necesary.

earweed

Just this morning I talked to 2 different recruiters and both want me to skip the helpdesk step and one wants to try me for a Junior admin (which I would probably bomb an interview for due to lack of experience) and the other wants to put me in for a Field engineer Server tech which I think I could do and would actually like (plus the pay would be better).
The one wanting to put me in for a Junior admin didn't want to listen to what I had to say. I'd like more experience as more than just a PC tech and setting up SOHOs before I went up to a Junior Admin position. I would actually prefer to start as desktop support.

Bl8ckr0uter

earweed wrote: »

I'd like more experience as more than just a PC tech and setting up SOHOs before I went up to a Junior Admin position. I would actually prefer to start as desktop support.

I think if someone if offering you a Jr admin position you should go for it (don't be afraid man!). As a JR admin you will still get to touch on helpdesk things (depending on the size of the company) as well as actually putting your MCITP to good use. I wouldn't take that lightly.

earweed

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I think if someone if offering you a Jr admin position you should go for it (don't be afraid man!). As a JR admin you will still get to touch on helpdesk things (depending on the size of the company) as well as actually putting your MCITP to good use. I wouldn't take that lightly.

I'm not turning it down or anything (I'll intervew and all for practice if nothing else) but if a helpdesk or desktop support job comes up first I'm taking it.

Bl8ckr0uter

earweed wrote: »

I'm not turning it down or anything (I'll intervew and all for practice if nothing else) but if a helpdesk or desktop support job comes up first I'm taking it.

I guess I don't see the point in that (I mean putting a helpdesk job in priority over a JR admin job). If someone said to me that they were looking for a JR Security Analyst right now I would take it (assuming the money is right and everything else is good). You are going for a MCITP:EA not MCITP:EST7 or something. You already have server support in mind. Why not go after than than a Helpdesk position? I can tell you this, working a helpdesk position may leave you feeling a disconnect between what you want and where you are, which can be depressing (I am actually going through this right now).

earweed

Hey I did apply for the Jr. Sys Admin so that tells you right there that I would like to jump into that. Right now I'm in a position where I just need to get into a regular IT job. Right now I'm a field engineer not even doing IT at that (HDTV repair). All the IT I do now is freelance and it isn't substantial, well paying, or steady. I mostly have PC upgrades, virus cleans, and have set up a couple small offices (actually set up and configured a switch and router in one of them which took a lot of research via Google) which I got from my other freelance work connections.
I wouldn't put a helpdesk job as priority but I also wont turn down a helpdesk or desktop support job right now while "hoping" that I can get the Junior System Admin position. I would like for my full time job to be in IT which it isn't right now.
My goal right now is to have a "real" IT job before I graduate from WGU which will be sometime between December 2010 and the end of February 2011. I am applying for some jobs which I am quite frankly not yet qualified for and would like to get but I may have to settle for now.

Devilsbane

Bl8ckr0uter wrote: »

I can tell you this, working a helpdesk position may leave you feeling a disconnect between what you want and where you are, which can be depressing (I am actually going through this right now).

I love the company I work for, and I am very grateful to have a job here, even if it is helpdesk. This job trumps my last one by a number too big to type. With that being said, my goal isn't to sit on the desk forever. I've been here for about 6 months now meanwhile I am going to school and working on my MCSE.

What is frustrating is that problems come up, which I know that I could solve, but there is only so much that can be done in 10 minutes via the phone. The hardest part of my job is passing off a problem that I know I can fix when the scope falls out of my responsibilities. I don't know long that I can sit back and do that. A year? It would be awesome if a spot would open higher up that I could transfer into, because it is very rare to find a corporation that cares about their employees as much as the place I'm at does.

Sorry for the tangent, but the moral of the story is that help desk gets old, at least for me. (Some of my coworkers have been here for 10 years and love the customer service aspect of it and don't want to leave). I want to get up there and take on more responsibility and get hands on experience with supporting a network infrastructure.

Bl8ckr0uter

Devilsbane wrote: »

Sorry for the tangent, but the moral of the story is that help desk gets old, at least for me. (Some of my coworkers have been here for 10 years and love the customer service aspect of it and don't want to leave). I want to get up there and take on more responsibility and get hands on experience with supporting a network infrastructure.

+1 and +Rep.

For almost 2 years this was my life story. Then I got tired of passing stuff off and I just started fixing things. The customers were happy but management, not so much lol.

Edit: I can't rep you

MentholMoose

earweed wrote: »

The one wanting to put me in for a Junior admin didn't want to listen to what I had to say. I'd like more experience as more than just a PC tech and setting up SOHOs before I went up to a Junior Admin position. I would actually prefer to start as desktop support.

A junior systems admin position may very well be desktop support. It will vary by company.

earweed

MentholMoose wrote: »

A junior systems admin position may very well be desktop support. It will vary by company.

It sounded like it from the posting. Hopefully I make it to and through the interview. That would be my ideal position to get. I'm not going to turn down something in the meantime waiting for it to materialize though.

erpadmin

Devilsbane wrote: »

I love the company I work for, and I am very grateful to have a job here, even if it is helpdesk. This job trumps my last one by a number too big to type. With that being said, my goal isn't to sit on the desk forever. I've been here for about 6 months now meanwhile I am going to school and working on my MCSE.

What is frustrating is that problems come up, which I know that I could solve, but there is only so much that can be done in 10 minutes via the phone. The hardest part of my job is passing off a problem that I know I can fix when the scope falls out of my responsibilities. I don't know long that I can sit back and do that. A year? It would be awesome if a spot would open higher up that I could transfer into, because it is very rare to find a corporation that cares about their employees as much as the place I'm at does.

Sorry for the tangent, but the moral of the story is that help desk gets old, at least for me. (Some of my coworkers have been here for 10 years and love the customer service aspect of it and don't want to leave). I want to get up there and take on more responsibility and get hands on experience with supporting a network infrastructure.

I did give rep for this and can also personally relate. I did not want to be a jack-of-all-trades for the rest of my life. I also did not want to be a "Desktop Support Analyst" for the rest of my life. I wanted to go to systems/server administration....but what shocked me was that even from that I could specialize in something like ERPs and that those were always in demand! The last 7 years I've been involved with PeopleSoft I have always seen admin jobs all over the country and in many verticals.

You are young enough to get the heck out...you do not need to stay in help desk if you don't want to. You just need to figure out what it is you really want to do when you "grow up."

wolverene13

earweed wrote: »

I'm not depending on a recruiter to find me a job. If one does find me a job then that's good, am I dependingon a recruiter to find me a job? NO.
I've currently got recruiters from 6 or 7 agencies who have contacted me and none, so far, have gotten me a job. I'll probably be contacted by many others and I'm not going to depend upon them either.
The sad fact is that in the employment climate there is now in my region I may have to take one of these contract to hire jobs through a recruiter and make someone else money through my hard work. I'd rather not have someone else benefit but since a lot of companies don't even post jobs and use recruiters to find employees it is an avenue that I am going to use if necesary.

Dude, nowadays NOBODY does direct-hire anymore. Almost all of the IT jobs out there are done through recruiters. It makes it so you are easy to get rid of if you suck. It's hard to get rid of someone who sucks if they are an actual employee. Also, it give the company some time to determine if you're the right fit for the job. If you are, they hire you. If not, you go bye-bye. But even that has a silver lining. Even though you didn't go permanent, you now have experience.

earweed

wolverene13 wrote: »

Dude, nowadays NOBODY does direct-hire anymore. Almost all of the IT jobs out there are done through recruiters. It makes it so you are easy to get rid of if you suck. It's hard to get rid of someone who sucks if they are an actual employee. Also, it give the company some time to determine if you're the right fit for the job. If you are, they hire you. If not, you go bye-bye. But even that has a silver lining. Even though you didn't go permanent, you now have experience.

I agree with you. I've had more luck since actually using recruiters than when I was just wading through independent companies websites.
I've sent out close to 1000 resumes to independent companies with not a single bite. I've got a listing of all of them and I'm, at present, sending my new improved resume through to all of them again.
All the job search sites have gotten me so far is in contact with recruiters which is a good thing. There are several headhunting agencies who I have been trying to get someone from them to represent me but so far no luck. Those agencies handle mostly higher ups (developers, specialized admins, Managers) but occasionally do handle a heldesk/sesktop support/ Jr. system Admin position.
I'm presently at the very least registered with every temp agency and recruiting service not only in my area but in several other market areas in my state as I'm even willing to relocate but not as far as to another state. If nothing comes up soon the no other state limitation will soon be changing.

erpadmin

wolverene13 wrote: »

Dude, nowadays NOBODY does direct-hire anymore. Almost all of the IT jobs out there are done through recruiters. It makes it so you are easy to get rid of if you suck. It's hard to get rid of someone who sucks if they are an actual employee. Also, it give the company some time to determine if you're the right fit for the job. If you are, they hire you. If not, you go bye-bye. But even that has a silver lining. Even though you didn't go permanent, you now have experience.

This seems to be dictated by geography....I still see folks doing direct hiring (at least for what I'm looking for).

Also, the fact that a company (even in the public sector) directly hires doesn't prevent them from canning someone after the probie (probationary) period. At my current job, which is public sector, there was one guy that did not make his cut after 4 months. (And he was not a consultant....all he had to do was "play ball" for 4 months and his probie period would have ended normally). Unfortunately, he rubbed both his direct boss AND her boss the wrong way and he was told he would not be made permanent.

Every job I ever had had a probie period, and that's the time you show up early, not on time and throw "yes sirs/ma'ams" out like crazy (and I don't mean verbally...I mean when something important needs to get done, you just drop what what you're doing and do it and then go back to what you're doing....I have never had an unsatisfactory rating during my probie review.....ever!).

After you earn your stripes (and that's not immediately after the probie period.....you still get "watched" for sometime after that's done), then you can fall into a routine. But the stripes have to be earned first....

wolverene13

erpadmin wrote: »

This seems to be dictated by geography....I still see folks doing direct hiring (at least for what I'm looking for).

You have experience, though. I was referring more to IT newbies.

erpadmin wrote: »

Also, the fact that a company (even in the public sector) directly hires doesn't prevent them from canning someone after the probie (probationary) period. At my current job, which is public sector, there was one guy that did not make his cut after 4 months. (And he was not a consultant....all he had to do was "play ball" for 4 months and his probie period would have ended normally). Unfortunately, he rubbed both his direct boss AND her boss the wrong way and he was told he would not be made permanent.

Every job I ever had had a probie period, and that's the time you show up early, not on time and throw "yes sirs/ma'ams" out like crazy (and I don't mean verbally...I mean when something important needs to get done, you just drop what what you're doing and do it and then go back to what you're doing....I have never had an unsatisfactory rating during my probie review.....ever!).

After you earn your stripes (and that's not immediately after the probie period.....you still get "watched" for sometime after that's done), then you can fall into a routine. But the stripes have to be earned first....

Most probationary periods are 90 days, but you're right, they can still easily can you during that time. After that it pretty much takes an act of Congress to get rid of someone. There's a guy at work who they've been trying to get rid of for over a year and they have documentation of his screw ups to back it up, but HR is a pain and basically has to have an edict from the Pope, signed in triplicate, to get rid of him.

erpadmin

wolverene13 wrote: »

Most probationary periods are 90 days, but you're right, they can still easily can you during that time. After that it pretty much takes an act of Congress to get rid of someone. There's a guy at work who they've been trying to get rid of for over a year and they have documentation of his screw ups to back it up, but HR is a pain and basically has to have an edict from the Pope, signed in triplicate, to get rid of him.

A lot of HR departments (especially those with no legal experience and that's dangerous) are like that, because they don't want to be a party to a potential lawsuit. Documentation is good, but you also have to do progressive discipline. (e.g. verbal warnings and when that was, write ups, meetings, etc.) The idea is to give the offending employee a chance to improve.....

We had a guy at my department who got canned in the first year I was there. This genius was a real piece of work though....real arrogant POS who thought he'd do whatever he wanted and he could still keep his job. My boss fought him and the union and she won.

Many people are of the mistaken belief that unions will protect you if you're a POS screwup. It can't and won't, not where I'm at anyway....I'm in a union shop, but I'm not a "I take my lunch at noon everyday no matter what" guy....most of us in my dept are the same way...except of course for a few. The nature of our job requires us to be flexible...but because we show that we're flexible, my management allows for certain flexibility as well and it is rewarded. The only thing I can't and won't be flexible on is vacation. I will not let my days go to waste (you can't rollover a year's worth of vacation days (e.g. 12 paid days, 15 paid, etc) twice. I told my boss if he never wanted that to be an issue, promote me to his position....

. Then I'd be ok with losing days here and there. I just won't do it as a union employee (not because I don't want to, but the union will make a case on my behalf, whether I want them to or not).

katierose

I get phone calls from recruiters all day everyday during the week since I am looking for work. Sometimes they have what I'm looking for, other times not. I've gotten interviews with a couple companies because of them..so I can't hate. I definitely do NOT depend on them though.