Agencies need to get rid of the keyword based search

[psychocandy]

Gotta blame the clients themselves sometimes. Its the 'Van Driver wanted - must have experience of driving red vans' syndrome that gets me.

You see an advert on jobserve with a long list of skills that are absolutely essential. Urgent as well. There is going to be no-one in this world or the next who has all of these skills, let alone do it for the average rate you are offering. Good luck client.

Then you see the same contract appearing time and time again for months when they cant find someone. Makes me laugh....

[Murder1]

My favourites are the one's where the technical skills required and the length of experience clearly have no association - an agent with a little bit of nous would stop the following from being shown on a contract spec.

Must have 3 years experience in the following:
.Net 4.0
NServiceBus
ASP.Net MVC 3
etc...

[northernladuk]

I applied to for a contract role to assist with one of the first Service Manager 7 roll outs on a trial client. Spec asked for experience in SM7 implementations. WTF?!? I rang the agent and asked him how can anyone have SM7 experience when they piece of work was to roll out to one of the first clients. He said he couldn't help and that is what the client wanted. Tosser.

[The Agents View]

I applied to for a contract role to assist with one of the first Service Manager 7 roll outs on a trial client. Spec asked for experience in SM7 implementations. WTF?!? I rang the agent and asked him how can anyone have SM7 experience when they piece of work was to roll out to one of the first clients. He said he couldn't help and that is what the client wanted. Tosser.

In that case, you've gotta blame the agent....

I had something similar. I worked IT when Vista first came out. My major client was one of the first to plan a full scale Vista roll out (to their ultimate regret!) The client called me up, and said "I want someone who has been doing Vista Roll Outs" - A very brief "are you sure?" was all it took, for him to realise he was being an idiot, and to re-phrase to desktop refreshes.

I really hated that job!

[Gentile]

I applied to for a contract role to assist with one of the first Service Manager 7 roll outs on a trial client. Spec asked for experience in SM7 implementations. WTF?!? I rang the agent and asked him how can anyone have SM7 experience when they piece of work was to roll out to one of the first clients. He said he couldn't help and that is what the client wanted. Tosser.

I've no idea what SM7, and doubtless neither did he. That's bad enough when you're recruiting for a discrete technology, but it's even worse when you're recruiting for a technology where the clue as to its recency is in the title, such as SQL Server 2008, etc. Back in 1998, I interviewed for a job developing Access databases. The interviewer (not even the agent) asked me if I had three years' experience of Access '97, because it was really essential that they had someone with that number of years in. I didn't realise that Tardis Pilot was one of the technical skills they were after, or I wouldn't have wasted my time.

[Gentile]

Gotta blame the clients themselves sometimes. Its the 'Van Driver wanted - must have experience of driving red vans' syndrome that gets me.

LOL! - so true.

[domcobb180]

Just copy and paste the job ad into the black spaces on your CV and switch the font to white.

[petergriffin]

Just copy and paste the job ad into the black spaces on your CV and switch the font to white.

Don't forget to add this disclaimer:
YOU'RE A LAZY AND STUPID PIMP!!!!!

[DodgyAgent]

Let us not forget who developed the technology that brought on this state of affairs

bloody IT people

[tractor]

..

Let us not forget who developed the technology that brought on this state of affairs

bloody IT people

And let's not forget it's the agents with their tier based service management business model that accepts a client producing fairy tale specs and facilitates the 'interview to death' syndrome we often see now. Typically it costs the client nothing to make several tiers jump through stupid hoops knowing that they will only pay a fraction of the costs.

I too remember the Access 97 requirement of 3 yrs experience in '98. Nothing changes nor will it ever. Managed Services will see to that.

I am tempted daily to change my cv read 'Tier 1 agents ONLY need apply, please only contact if you are an account manager'