During my career I registered myself on tons of job portals. Untill today some persons contact me and I have no idea where they got my data. Nevertheless, after more than a decade experience I decided to write down my personal resume. Reasons why I want to share my stories are different. The most valuable point for me is the common bad habit of recruiters and how the situation got year by year more worst. I hope other employees can reconsolidate their own current situation and will not feel alone anymore. As long no realistic public discussion about this topic is in process, nothing will change. Let me give you as employee, freelancer or company one short preview in advanced, before I continue to explain my arguments, don’t waste your time talking with recruiters. This brings you nowhere.
Since I started my professional life I had a huge amount contact with persons, they called themselves as talent searchers. But don’t get confused. Those persons aren’t searching seriously for talents. The only interest they have is to find with less work a person fit somehow with a profile description. Of course the most important question this folks have is: how cheap you will work for them. Just cheating you with an unfair payment. Mostly they keep around 50% of the regular market price in their own favor. I often asked myself which real service they deliver to me and the company I should work for.
Don’t be afraid, it is not that difficult to detect that black sheep’s when they try to contact you. A very strong indicator is the recruitment company has an office in London and a heavy background to India. Normally they call you with a British number from a call center in India. So if you got a call from a person, is not the one contact you, on the job web pages, hang up and save your time and nerves.
Another point you should aware, when they need first your CV or profile to tell you how much they plan to pay to you. As first those persons don’t read your CV. They scan automatic for buzzwords and check the result how it match. Secondly in general they don’t know anything about the technical background of the role they try to stuff. Close to 99% after you accept such positions, you will realize that you are the last element in a long contractor chain. All those persons take some of the money away,the final client pays for your work. Ask your self, which real value those persons have, to allow them taking high amounts away from the income, you deserve. It is an unfair game they play with contractors and enterprises. It’s obvious, save your energy and ignore all tryouts to contact you.
Another thing I observed are a mass of websites who offer different kinds of positions. As I found out, it doesn’t matter how detailed you throw your personal information into this applications, the result is always equal. They not looking for high motivated experts. All they want is the most cheapest person for the profile they have to stuff. Save your time and don’ t register. Often those pages hold not longer than 6 months and shortly they disappear. Be sure, as long you not willing to sell your self in conditions as a slave, for almost a payment close to the amount of the social help from the government, no one contact you.
A very important survivor rule, never tell in any web page or to a interview how much you winning in previous jobs. Refuse any request to declare your personal financial situation. With this information they easily calculate when you are empty and then you will accept more worst conditions.
Once a company contacted me and ask if I would be willing to tell them the names of my previous bosses. They argue with this information they can verify the satisfaction of my services I gave. The promise he mention was, like this I could catch much faster new projects et cetera. The truth is, he wanted to get to collect new business contacts to make easilier new deals. Because the persons you had worked for are the ones who take decisions to hire others. Those information have a high capital value in the market. As long they didn’t pay you in advanced 1000€ for each contact, refuse this kind of requests.
Of course this is just the half of the story. If you think, well I will sell myself directly, very fast you realize it is not that easy. If you try to contact companies directly who are in search for employees, often they just want a permanent contract. No chance for freelancer to join. But often those companies complain there no experts available. Real experts searching always for challenges to grow their skills. If you want to win them as part of your team, to got profit from their experience, you need to be flexible. Flexibility is not just a one way for employees. For companies searching success, is also a mandatory skill.
But now I don’t want waste to much of your time reading this resume, fulfilled of weird stories how those black sheep’s cheat the whole marked. Let’s take a look on things we can manage to get a better situation in future.
As first, I have to say there exist trustful recruiters you can have a long and good business relation. May you ask, what makes them different and how you can detect them? Don’t worry with a bit of common sens you catch very easy if the one in front to you is a serious person. So let me first explain how such relations in general have to work.
Recruitment is like an agent for a music or movie star. He help you to promote yourself and looking for clients to bring you in good positions. A relation of trust starts with helpful feedback. If your recruiter don’t give you a feedback about the services you had delivered, then don’t expect a long term business relation. He should be able to explain you why sometimes you got not selected for a position. Even he can tell you how you could increase your CV. He should understand the market and basic technical knowledge, to guide you secure into the future. As contractor you always need to learn new things. But what is the right decision? A good recruiter can see trends and he will talk whit you about that. In those cases you both will be a very powerful and success team. Because your business relation is based on a win win.
And yes I also have to show the opposite of the medal. Some employees are also terrible. Be responsible and deliver what you promised. If you give your word to somebody treats you fair and you cheat him just to win a few coins more, think twice. It’s ok to take the chance to raise your income. being fair means give your partners the chance to fill the space you left. Communicate honest and early. If your services are that excellent, they will understand it. Maybe they willing to increase you rate to convince you to stay. But never use this as a strategy game for pushing up the price. They will find out and you will lose more than you win. The market is small. Most key players know each other.
As lesson learned we have to admit every party have thier own devils in the game. But it is not just worst. A lot of nice and loyal persons acting in the market. Our challenge for the future should be a creation of a trustful network. Closeing doors for all who just try to cheat. As result we got exciting projects, finished in time and budged whit high motivated teams. Everyone will be satified.
