using headhunters...

I cant seem to really find much for entry level jobs lately so i was thinking of using a head hunter to see if i cant get any experience out of it.

I'm not sure however which one to use I know a lot of people seem to have had bad experiences with RHT so I'm not going to use them. I did see some positive things about TEKsystems. There is also Spherion and Ranstad in my area(atlanta/NE Georgia).

Basically I just wanted some input on who you guys think I should use.

or maybe I shouldn't use one at all.... i don't know, I'm just frustrated

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networker050184

You might as well go for it if you can't find a job. Might as well go at the job hunt from all angles.

averyjas

Headhunters can be very frustrating to communicate with - in this environment, they may be a necessary evil for you. I used multiple recruiters back in February when hunting for a job and I was fortunate that the economy hadn't quite taken the hit that it has since then. Even at that time, I had 3 job offers pulled by prospective employers because of lack of funding/budget restructuring at the time. Be prepared for this kind of frustration, also, recruiters will try to fit you into any/all available positions at the time. These may not fit your goals or experience properly, so evaluate all interviews/offers carefully.

JDMurray

You don't work with just one or two headhunters. You fire your resume out to 50-100 recruitment agencies and see which ones can do what for you. You are basically doing this when you put your resume on job boards (dice, monster, hotjobs) and business networking sites (LinkedIn.com). Emailing your resume to "jobs@", "careers@", "hr@", etc. just gets the process started sooner. And the best thing about recruiters is that it costs you (the job seeker) nothing, except some of your time.

mikej412

Phliplip112 wrote:

which one to use

Um, use them all.

One headhunter (who is really just an employment agency or staffing agency) may be the preferred vendor for a large company in your area. Another one may be the preferred vendor for another large company in your area.

Or another company may list their jobs with multiple agencies and interview job candidates from multiple companies and select the best candidate for the lowest cost.

For every job an employment agency has, they have lots of people they can send out to interview. They have existing contractors (or employees "on the bench" who haven't been laid off yet). And there's all the new people sending in resumes. The agency will then send out the people they think can impress the customer enough to get hired -- but costs them the least -- and they'll usually start with the employees "on the bench" who could cost them unemployment benefits, contractors/consultants who've made them money in the past and satisfied the customers, and finally the "new guy" they've never used before but is the only one with that skill set available (and will work cheap).

If you have some rare or impressive qualifications, a headhunter may actually go out their existing customers and find you job..... but usually your resume just goes into a pile (or database) and hopefully is near the top when a job request comes in.

shednik

I personally have had good and bad experiences with head hunters so its really hit or miss...like others have said give it a shot and see how it goes.

Phliplip112

JDMurray wrote:

You don't work with just one or two headhunters. You fire your resume out to 50-100 recruitment agencies and see which ones can do what for you. You are basically doing this when you put your resume on job boards (dice, monster, hotjobs) and business networking sites (LinkedIn.com). Emailing your resume to "jobs@", "careers@", "hr@", etc. just gets the process started sooner. And the best thing about recruiters is that it costs you (the job seeker) nothing, except some of your time.

I have done all of the above I even saw a suggestion to send resumes off to cisco partners, which I did. also, I opened a phone book and sent resumes to various people and found out that not many people in my town can't afford Cisco devices and mostly use nortel. I need an Atlanta phone book, lol . The only thing i have not tried was using a recruiter and meeting them face to face which is the reason for this post.

i have also been struggling with what certification to do next, i was gonna do CCNA: Security.I have seen that most jobs on my level want some sort of server experience so I'm thinking I'm going need to do MCSE or something. even though i really want to focus on infrastructure more than systems.

JDMurray

Phliplip112 wrote:

I have seen that most jobs on my level want some sort of server experience so I'm thinking I'm going need to do MCSE or something.

Just realize that certs do not equal experience. Most employers aren't looking for just the paper, and you don't want to work for the ones that are.

Phliplip112

JDMurray wrote:

Phliplip112 wrote:

I have seen that most jobs on my level want some sort of server experience so I'm thinking I'm going need to do MCSE or something.

Just realize that certs do not equal experience. Most employers aren't looking for just the paper, and you don't want to work for the ones that are.

yea, i been thinking about this while trying to figure out what cert to do next but thats fir a whole diff thread.

so, i guess im gonna send my resume to some head hunters directly and see what happens, ill be sure to let you guys know.

MCPWannabe

I've always hated to stereotype, but in this case, it actually works. Just think of headhunters as complete 100% scum. Then, realize that you can't trust most of what they tell you. From there, you will be okay. Just don't trust them to find you a job. In my experience, if a headhunter contacts you with a job offer for an interview than you are going to get a response.

If you go in and talk with a headhunter, give them a day or two to get back with you. If they don't, you will quickly get some diminishing returns. Don't trust anything that they say during the supposed 'interview.'

Also, be careful: One time, I went to a headhunter and told him that I had turned down a couple of other jobs. He asked me for the companies names. Lo and behold, the jerk actually called the companies saying that he heard they were turned down by me and wanted to know if he could help them find a person with better credentials!

So, don't tell them about any jobs that you've turned down when they all ask that question about have you gone on any other interviews.

Turgon

Many are scum and are about to get laid off and be forced to find a real job. It has got better than the late nineties though. You have to get savvy with recruiters. I recall responding to a job advertised back then and was told I was a great match and must send my CV in for the gig. After that nothing. I kept ringing for some feedback and everyone was in a meeting. In the end the supervisor spoke to me to stop hassling his team. I told him I was promised a ring back once my CV came in and that over the phone I was told I was a great match. He conceeded that they run old advertisements to get responses i.e more CVs. In other words no job was on offer. I told him to get back to me when he had a real job on offer. Jerk. Another time I was sent for an interview that was completely wrong for my profile which cost me a day's holiday from work. Many other occasions I have been told about this great job and that great job by recruiters, all hot air. I think this was particularly bad in the late nineties because there were many jobs to fill and recruiters were all at one anothers throats to keep people on file.

But keep plugging away and getting experience even through recruiters. The better that builds up the more real jobs come your way. I have had some very good offers through agencies the last eight years.

undomiel

My take on recruiters are that I only go to an interview if it is with the interested party. If it is an interview with just the recruiter then I know it to be a complete waste of my time. I don't see a reason to help them meet quotas if they aren't helping me get paid.

blargoe

The one I used to find my current job called one of my customers that I work with on the side (whom I listed as a reference) trying to get them to work with him instead of me.

Phliplip112

i have talked too 2 last week but neither of them seemed to thrilled or promised me anything

im starting to think my resume is the reason for no call backs

MCPWannabe

Phillip,

Take matters into your own hands and ignore the headhunters. Of everything that I did in my job search, my only regret is waisting oogles of time on lying, cheating, headhunters. Seriously, as you've seen here, they will call you with an actual job and interview if they have something for you.

Otherwise, more times than not, you'll just end up waisting a lot of time.

My recommendation, look at other sources, particularly those not on Monster, Dice, Craigslist, or Careerbuilder for a intro job. I job searched for 11 years in pretty horrible ways. In the end, I finally figured out that getting a job is about being a little aggressive and innovative.

Something that I would recommend is that you pull your your local yellow pages. Then, start looking at categories for networking companies, medical companies (always good places to start for an intro job), education companies, and software companies. Look up each website or call the company for those in the phone book. Also, look at school districts. You'll find a job if you follow this approach.

Then, under experience, just list the projects that you have done and mention key networking concepts that the HR people probably won't know but will be impressed with. In my case, I just mentioned the microsoft exercises as projects and threw in some keywords. The HR and IT people were extremely impressed with the work as I found that many of them just didn't understand how much work goes into getting a certification.

MCPWannabe

By the way, I'm starting to see that the job market is really affecting head hunters. I recently had a head hunter contact me because she noticed that my wife works at a state agency (when I listed my wife's place of employment and phone number as an emergency contact with them quite awhile ago). She asked if I could have my wife help her get a contract with the state agency.

My wife's expression was priceless. She has now formed a very bad opinion of head hunters and doesn't trust them -- and she is not involved in IT at all.

Phliplip112

thanks for the advice MCPwannabe

You did mention one thing I haven't looked at which is the schools. I'll check some of the counties and see what they have.

The phone book thing i did but since the area is not all the big of and area (IT wise) most of them where small to medium businesses and most of them didn't do networking just PC repairs and stuff which is what I do now. I think there were 2 places i called that wanted me to have some nortel/MS server knowledge. One guy I spoke to mentioned that no one in the city i live in can really afford cisco equipment and hire people to work on it. I also found out that the places that do require a big IT staff contract out. Like the hospital here use McKesson for their IT. What I really need is a metro ATL phone book.

Besides having done all that I am on all the major job sites and craigslist is checked every day. I made a Linked in account last week, haven't figured out how to use it though. The recruiter angle seemed like it was the only angle i haven't tried.

I'm starting to also think that A. My resume is bad and/or B. The local economy here is worse than i thought

famosbrown

Headhunters are pretty good for finding jobs when you do not care about location. I've had a few headhunters job offers and these jobs were not advertised on a careerbuilder or monster, but specifically through the Headhunter agency. I've had one bad experience that I've given up on...I was flown to Arkansas for an interview with an employer and I was told that my car rental would be reimbursed. After the negotiations and me finally declining the offers, I was never reimbursed for the rental car. No callbacks from the company and the Headhunter kept saying that they would contact the company to get the money. I just gave up and ate the 90 dollars. The trip was pretty fun though

malcybood

Some recruiters I've dealt with have been a waste of space, never call you back after "submitting your cv".......but some of my dealings with recruiters have been very positive even if I was unsuccessful or turned the job down I have always received the feedback when asking for it.

Don't read too much into what they say though, at the end of the day their jobs are effectively in sales and are interested in making commission for their livelyhood I guess, along with having targets they have to meet as anyone who has worked in pre-sales would relate to - not that I agree with the way some of them act I must stress!!!

They must get a large portion of timewasters that are not up to the advertised job and lie on their CV etc hence why some just don't call back, remember they're not technical they just search job boards for buzz words and put you forward if your CV forward.....The good recruiters will be alot better at matching you up to the right role though so I'd say if you find a good one keep them as a contact.

Bokeh

As someone who used to work as a "headhunter" or "business consultants" as we were referred to, I have a bit of insight into how they work.

Most people who work there need to maintain a temp book - ie the folks on temporary assignments, so they get paid regularly. Otherwise, its draw against commission. You finally land that permanent position person and job, and you have to pay back the bank if you aren't regularly putting people to work. Its a very cut throat business.

Fees charged to employers range all over the place, but what was common for where I worked was double the hourly rate for temp people. So if the agency was paying you 15-20/hr as example, the employer was being charged double. For permanent positions, the fee was 1% per thousand in salary, for a max of 35%. So on a 100,000 salaried position a company would pay 35k. Most would negotiate that down and try not to pay more than 25%.

Since getting back into IT many years ago, I have yet to get a job via a recruiter. Id stick with word of mouth, Monster, Dice, Hotjobs, Careerbuilder, and Craigs List, which is where I have gotten my last two jobs.

Phliplip112

BTW... If anyone was wondering Tek, Randstad, Spherion never called me back

earweed

I recently interviewed with a Techsystems recruiter and he seemed to be upset that I didn't bring my list of references. I haven't heard back from him yet..lol

Nobylspoon

It can be hit or miss. I wasted my time with some in the past but just had an excellent experience with the staff at Technisource who is owned by Spherion. Just depends on the recruiter you get and the effort they put into investing in you.

Phliplip112

Nobylspoon wrote: »

It can be hit or miss. I wasted my time with some in the past but just had an excellent experience with the staff at Technisource who is owned by Spherion. Just depends on the recruiter you get and the effort they put into investing in you.

Yea, IT field is weird. It seems especially weird in ATL for some reason. I may look up Technisource since you had good luck with them.

earweed

Phliplip112 wrote: »

I may look up Technisource since you had good luck with them.

+1 Already did. They don't have an office nearby but have one located 1 hour drive away. Already sent in my resume.