Recruiters 25

My latest close encounter of the recruiting kind has been straight out of a Dalí painting.

My first contact with this agency was a few months ago when I was contacted by one of their reps after a conference call at work. My sole contribution to the call (and I’m not making this up) was, “Hi, I’m [Bas Bleu]. I work in XXX, and I’m wondering why I’m on this call.”

IM, the recruiter contacted me a day later. He’d looked me up in the company directory, saw I was a contractor and wanted to know if I was looking for other contract “opportunities”. I wasn’t.

But when my contract ended (with less than two full weeks’ notice) last month, I got in touch with him, saying I was now looking for product manager positions.

Next thing I know I’m called by PS, “I work with IM”, announcing that a hiring manager with a program management opening wants to talk with me. IM had sent my CV to this person without consulting me.

Leaving aside the unprofessionalism of sending out my résumé for any position without inquiring whether I was interested, I pointed out that I’m a product manager, not a program manager, but didn’t matter.

That position went nowhere (despite PS demanding to know when I could start about every 37 minutes), but then PS called me to announce that IM had sent my CV to another hiring manager, for program management. Again, I told her I’m a product manager, not program. Oh—it’s project management. Hello? ProDUCT, not proJECT.

Oh, but this is change management.

Well, I’m kind of interested in CM, & the rate is $10/hour more than I was getting. So I agreed to talk with the hiring manager. That was a couple of weeks ago.

I went through six scheduled different times for the call (including being notified 25 minutes before a couple of the assigned times) before I spoke with MC. Who thought I was interviewing for a different position. Additionally, I knew it wasn’t a good sign that MC could not explain to me exactly what this job encompasses. It’s hard to implement change when you’re completely clueless.

Then I spoke with someone else, who’s allegedly a “stakeholder” in the change management process. He didn’t really know what the person would be doing either, but I needed his imprimatur somehow. (Again, it took several scheduled and cancelled call times before we actually connected last Tuesday.)

Friday PS called to congratulate me that they’re moving ahead with bringing me on, and I will start on the 9^th.

Well, more flags started going up when I got the “offer letter”—illiterate, and with a non-compete clause that basically says that if I ever go to work for any of this agency’s (unnamed) clients for a period of two years after I work for them, I’ll have to pay some sort of penalty. I called PS and told her I wouldn’t sign the contract. So they backed down to a clause (illiterate) saying I can’t go to work for the hiring manager.

I can live with that, especially for an at-will contract.

But as I was engaged in this back-and-forth on Monday (discovering that the agency is pretty amateur hour in every respect, including on-boarding; folks: I can’t fax you the I-9 form; someone  representing the employer has to verify the original documents that confirm my legal right to work in this country), PS called to say that, well, actually, MC doesn’t have responsibility for change management, so I need to talk with someone else, HP. Uh—so, is HP the hiring manager and I’ve not actually been hired? PS didn’t know.

So we set it up that I’d speak with HP at 1500 yesterday, for some unspecified purpose. and then, at 1237 PS called to say that HP didn’t think I have enough change management experience, so I don’t have the job & she’s not going to call me.

Well, okay, then.

But wait—there’s more. At 1435 PS called back to say that HP would talk with me after all, so could I please take the call at 1500.

And we’re not done yet, because HP told me that she “only found out yesterday” that this position would report to her, and she doesn’t know what the remit is, either. So I couldn’t even find out from the hiring manager of record what they want this person to do.

Seriously, between the incompetence of the agency (they’ve actually accomplished what I thought was impossible: they make my last agency look reasonably professional) and the utter cluelessness of the client company, I’m wondering if this gig is worth it. The only plus at this point is that it would be an income stream.

Stay tuned. HP told me that she’s interviewing more people and has to make a decision by the end of the week or she’ll lose funding. For a position she didn’t know until yesterday that she’d have open.

Seriously—you can’t make this stuff up.