Recruiters 6

My latest bizarre recruiting experience: early last month I was contacted by yet another job-shop recruiter for a contract product marketing manager gig.

We had a go-around about the rate—it’s low & I said I’d consider it. She wanted me to guarantee that if the job were offered at that rate I’d take it. (& keep in mind that it’s not the client paying the rate, it’s the job-shop. They always tell you the client won’t pay the going rate, but it’s all down to what they want to fork out.)

Then she wanted me to sign a blanket authorization form saying her company could represent me exclusively to any position with the client, in this case, Symantec. I refused. I told her the form had to be specific to this requisition only. After a bunch of blather, she finally reworded it & I signed it.

Then nothing until this past Tuesday when she called me to congratulate me on being chosen (her words) for a phone screening by the hiring manager. By way of “prep” for this exciting event she sent me the same JD I already had, a link to the Symantec corporate site (in case I’m too dull-witted to find it on my own) & the name of the hiring manager. No information on the particular group, which of Symantec’s 12,843 products they support, into which industries; what their needs are, etc.

Now, when I looked him up on LinkedIn, imagine my surprise to find that his title is product marketing specialist, & he has 18 whole months of corporate experience, having graduated from Northwestern last year.

I queried her about this; took her a full day to get back to me all flustered to know what my concerns were. Uh, how about, how can someone with no experience manage someone who’s required to have a minimum of eight years of tech marketing? This woman was completely clueless. She’s not spoken with this guy, but she insisted he is the HM.

Well, then I asked her questions about the group, products, etc. & she knew nothing beyond the JD, kept assuring me that if I just address those requirements I’ll be in.

So when I finally took the call from Skippy on Thursday it was clear he is just out of school. He didn’t know enough about product marketing to ask me any questions about what I’ve done. He had me run through my résumé (& is so innocent of marketing expertise I could have told him I was training monkeys to form a string quartet & then spent a few years as an orthopedic surgeon & he wouldn’t have blinked), asked a canned “interview” question (tell about a time something failed & what you did about it) & wanted to know what I do outside of work. & he was done—at 20 minutes.

So I started asking him some questions about the group, the products, the challenges, etc. Skippy has a worker bee’s view of all of this, not a manager’s. He asked me to send him some clips of collateral (obviously on instructions from someone). & that was it.

When I contacted recruiter basically all she wanted to know was, is he going to have me in for an interview. (She didn’t even know what their timeframe is; I had to tell her.) Well—she’d have to ask him that. I’ve given up trying to read interviews.

I’ve heard nothing since Thursday. Skippy said they wanted to have this person in place by 3 January, but that’s not going to happen, given the holidays.

I saw the same gig posted on Saturday by another job shop—I don’t know whether that means the client has nixed all the current candidates, or whether that JS is still trying to source some.

Something did occur to me—Skippy told me that he’s a native to this area & only left to go to college. It’s possible that his father is a VP somewhere in Symantec & that he is indeed managing a group. But if so, that’s not going to end well.

At any rate—either the recruiting chick will call about an on-site interview or I’ll never hear from her again. Not sure which is the better option.