So I posted my resume on Monster today - you'd think it would be obvious

[Moirae]

I have been contacted by two head hunters within an hour of posting my resume. Ok, that's great. Except that I specifically stated that I did not want a job that involved needing to travel and BOTH of them require traveling all over the country and not for all that much money.

Reading comprehension is something that I thought was rather required for job applications. Apparently these head hunters need to learn it as well.

If I were younger and not married, it would be great, but the simple reality is that I'm not a kid anymore, married, and don't want to travel.

Wow, just wow.

[mjr]

Reading comprehension is something that I thought was rather required for job applications. Apparently these head hunters need to learn it as well.

It's funny you bring this up...

Check this out when you get a chance. The recruiters at Matrix in California did an experiment where they created a fake resume. The results were interesting, but not surprising. Over one quarter of them were for jobs completely unrelated to the skills on the resume (sales, financial marketing, things like that), and a number of them were also for positions "out of the area" (the "candidate" wanted a San Francisco job, but was getting calls/emails for jobs in Arizona, Atlanta, etc.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCRFhb7yUNg

[mhkohne]

I have been contacted by two head hunters within an hour of posting my resume. Ok, that's great. Except that I specifically stated that I did not want a job that involved needing to travel and BOTH of them require traveling all over the country and not for all that much money.

Reading comprehension is something that I thought was rather required for job applications. Apparently these head hunters need to learn it as well.

If I were younger and not married, it would be great, but the simple reality is that I'm not a kid anymore, married, and don't want to travel.

Wow, just wow.

There are some 'recruiting' firms that are pretty clearly running in boiler-room mode. I keep my resume up on the web and linked in (so that if I want to look for a job, I don't attract my superior's attention). I regularly get calls from a certain firm (I can't remember the name) and it's ALWAYS a different voice. Once time I got like 6 calls in one day.

As near as I can tell, they suck in every resume they can find and throw the contact lists at some poor schlub to cold call.

I used to get a contact once a year from a guy who was recruiting for a company on the other coast. Don't know why the 'not willing to relocate' didn't work, he otherwise seemed to be sensible enough, and the job was at least a reasonable fit, if it wasn't thousands of miles away.

[notalwaysright]

I just had a conversation about how nobody is really perfect for a job listing, (and it's almost suspicious if they are) so I can only assume that these employers are just hoping somebody will change their mind? I commonly waffle on the idea of moving for a job, so I'd be an example of that. Though it would only be for decent money, which you say they aren't offering, so that's just dumb.

It's like how it's pretty normal now for job listings to say "no experience necessary!" then turn around and require a whole bunch. On the flip side, when hiring new roofers at my old job, the boss preferred NO experience. Why? You guessed it, most people were trained wrong, and it's super hard to break habits. Funny how things go.

[Dreamstalker]

I have my resume on Indeed. Despite all my skills being targeted to IT-type positions, all the emails I've gotten thus far are for retail sales.

I have a 'functional' resume and the only thing I can think of is some of the wording/skills are being parsed as 'wants to work with the public'.

[Moirae]

Yeah, these are jobs that would mean I'd be away from home three weeks out of four. I have a family. Absolutely not. And 45k a year isn't even remotely enough for me to consider something where my husband could come with me and would mean we would make significantly less per year since he wouldn't be able to work.

I'm willing to move to another city if it were 45k, but not travel. And I said no to both moving and traveling. It's just amazing that they don't read.

I've even gotten offers for retail sales myself. Which I don't get. I'm not willing to do sales for anything other than hotels.

[Trixie]

I have my resume may up on Monster and the only jobs I get are for sales, mostly insurance sales. I don't want any kind of sales job. I mean most of my experience is in retail but I figure most of these things are automated and even the couple of phone calls I got they probably never really looked at my resume. I probably should clean it up a bit since I seriously need to kick the job search into high gear.

[Raveni]

On the flip side, when hiring new roofers at my old job, the boss preferred NO experience. Why? You guessed it, most people were trained wrong, and it's super hard to break habits.

Yup. That's how I hire at my company too. Much easier to train good habits and workflow than to un-do bad training.

[scruff]

It's like how it's pretty normal now for job listings to say "no experience necessary!" then turn around and require a whole bunch.

I've got several jobs from speculative letters, or contacts/recruiters saying "Go for this job, I think you'll be a match."

Means I'm in the middle of an interview before I see the advert.

My favourite was the one where they said computer programming would be needed. I looked blank, and then mentioned I have a basic knowledge of BASIC (from programming ZX81 and BBC computers as a school kid). turned out they meant Visual Basic. I worked there 11 years, never needed to programme anything.

[fireheart]

I once posted my resume on SEEK (Australian job-searching website). The emails I got were from scammers.

[BPFH]

The recruiters at Matrix in California did an experiment where they created a fake resume. The results were interesting, but not surprising. Over one quarter of them were for jobs completely unrelated to the skills on the resume (sales, financial marketing, things like that), and a number of them were also for positions "out of the area" (the "candidate" wanted a San Francisco job, but was getting calls/emails for jobs in Arizona, Atlanta, etc.).

I just watched the video, and that does not surprise me. Not one bit. I've had my resumé on both Dice and Monster, and gotten pretty much the same result--though in my case the #1 thing they tend to get wrong is to offer me a short-term contract job. The #2 thing is to contact me about a permanent or contract-to-hire position outside my commuting area. Usually this means Lansing (1 hour), Kalamazoo (1.5 hours), or downtown Detroit (45 minutes - 1 hour), occasionally Grand Rapids (2 hours) or Columbus, OH (3 hours).

Now, if only I could get them to restrict their attempts to contact me to email...

[downforit2008]

I keep getting calls from people trying to schedule me for an interview for jobs that sell life insurance.

I never have any experience selling life insurance, and I never had an INTEREST in selling life insurance or any other kind of insurance! So why are they riding up my ass with this stuff when they looked at my resume online and it is NOWHERE near a sales background?

[Moirae]

I even added "no insurance calls please" next to my name. They are still contacting me about them. I'm really starting to think these people are slow in the head.

[Geek King]

I even added "no insurance calls please" next to my name. They are still contacting me about them. I'm really starting to think these people are slow in the head.

Its not that they're slow, it is that the real job they get paid for is recruiting more people. I've been to one of those interviews (almost always a group interview of 30-50 people), and the selling of insurance makes a piddly commission. However, if you recruit someone, you get a bonus for the recruiting, a slice of their commissions, plus a slice of anyone they recruit! Its basically a just-this-side-of-legal pyramid scheme.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

I think the weirdest thing I've ever seen happen with an employment agency was with a friend of mine. He's the assistant IT director at his company but has no prospects of advancement; family company, he's the highest non-family member and nobody above is anywhere close to retirement. As such, he's got his resume posted. He does enjoy his current job, has decent benefits, and doesn't want to relocate out of the Madison area, so his resume and job search criteria reflect that. He's got the prerogative to be picky, so why not wait for the right one?

One of the things that's currently on his plate is managing their support team, including hiring decisions. Guess what open position he got contacted by a recruiter for? We were both pretty sure that the recruiter hadn't even read his resume at all. More than a few things that should have stood out, if the recruiter had done any reading and paid any attention.