Agencies need to get rid of the keyword based search

[yasockie]

So I just saw an ad that fits my profile and they mentioned some obscure products in the list - I think with the advent of the 'cloud' there will loads of products with tiny market share and whereas previously you could just say Java, nowdays you can either say HTML5 which means nothing really or you say require.js which covers a very small area of functionality and even though you might have never used it, you'll probably be fine if you've ever done Javascript, for example.

I know there's been many threads on this, by why can't the agencies understand it's not a box ticking exercise?

[malvolio]

it's not a box ticking exercise?

Becuase it is, as far as they're concerned.

Next time an agent calls you, look them up on LinkedIn. They'll have experience measured in months, following a successful career selling shoes in Streatham or something. Quite a few agencies use software instead to do the same thing. You are at least two steps away from the real recruiters, who don't have time for all that tedious research, and whose bean-couinting management consider to be too expensive to waste on initial sifting.

The market's been commodotised (or, to use another more appropriate word, f***ed) by the agencies. Live with it, unless we ever get an excess of requriement over skills...

[Murder1]

It is a box ticking exercise for the client though, and the agent in the end will simply list the skill-sets provided by the client as that is what they are paid to do.

Granted if the client says they want someone with "ORM" experience rather than specifying "LLBLGEN", "Entity" or "NHibernate" they may get a more matches but will they necessary be better? Invariably the client who's requesting the listing with the agent will have in front of them "must have Entity Framework experience", "node.js" etc and so this gets listed on the spec.

[northernladuk]

If the agents stop keyword search and box ticking they will cease to exist and we will all be scewed.

DO WE WANT BOX TICKING, YES!, WHEN DO WE WANT IT, NOW!

never thought I would hear myself saying that!

[MyUserName]

Not sure how else they could do it.

If the client says they want 5 years of C# a candidate has been doing Visual C++ for 3 years and C# for 2 and they C# required will all be WinForms. You would need to know a fair amount about the techs and spend a bit of time thinking about it to determine whether the candidate actually could do the job .... or you could simply conceed you will miss some candidates in the scores you are processing but you know you will get a few who could do it.

Although, we had an interview for a COM expert a few years ago who's cv did not seem to mention COM but the agent assured us he was very experienced. The interview went like this:

"Have you used COM?"
"No"
"Right, well we need a COM expert"
"I see, well it was nice talking to you"
"Let me walk you to the door"
"Thanks"

The agent heard COM as Coms and sent the guy in!

[Taita]

Not sure how else they could do it.

If the client says they want 5 years of C# a candidate has been doing Visual C++ for 3 years and C# for 2 and they C# required will all be WinForms. You would need to know a fair amount about the techs and spend a bit of time thinking about it to determine whether the candidate actually could do the job .... or you could simply conceed you will miss some candidates in the scores you are processing but you know you will get a few who could do it.

Although, we had an interview for a COM expert a few years ago who's cv did not seem to mention COM but the agent assured us he was very experienced. The interview went like this:

"Have you used COM?"
"No"
"Right, well we need a COM expert"
"I see, well it was nice talking to you"
"Let me walk you to the door"
"Thanks"

The agent heard COM as Coms and sent the guy in!

Granted the agent is a fool but surely you saw a cv before arranging the interview? If not, you wasted your own time and that of the candidate.

[SueEllen]

Granted the agent is a fool but surely you saw a cv before arranging the interview? If not, you wasted your own time and that of the candidate.

Unfortunately:
1. Not all clients have time to go through your CV properly before the interview as there are other people involved apart from the interviewer. This means the interviewer can get the CV on the day of the interview.
2. Some of the less scrupulous agents modify CVs in an attempt to highlight key words.

In the first case I've had to stop agents and consultancies sending over unsuitable people by putting in the effort to actually describe what the project entails verbally and by email to them, simply because I've had been sent for an interview where I didn't have the skills the project required.

[The Agents View]

In the first case I've had to stop agents and consultancies sending over unsuitable people by putting in the effort to actually describe what the project entails verbally and by email to them, simply because I've had been sent for an interview where I didn't have the skills the project required.

Any hirer who fails to do this, shouldn't be surprised when they get a sack of awful CV's - its their own doing at the end of the day.

You can be as experienced as you like as an agent - but you simply cannot know with enough granularity, the level of detail required to recruit someone, without an end client taking the time to explain it to you - it's literally that simple.

It's exactly the same as a database (in many many many ways alot of the time) - S*** In, S*** Out - is the technical term I believe.

[Sausage Surprise]

Any hirer who fails to do this, shouldn't be surprised when they get a sack of awful CV's - its their own doing at the end of the day.

You can be as experienced as you like as an agent - but you simply cannot know with enough granularity, the level of detail required to recruit someone, without an end client taking the time to explain it to you - it's literally that simple.

It's exactly the same as a database (in many many many ways alot of the time) - S*** In, S*** Out - is the technical term I believe.

When I was a lad in it was GIGO....garbage in garbage out

[MyUserName]

Granted the agent is a fool but surely you saw a cv before arranging the interview? If not, you wasted your own time and that of the candidate.

I was not personally involved in it tbh. Although I heard them discussing the lack of COM on the cv and they phoned the agent up to ask about it and the agent somehow convinced them that he was a COM expert despite not mentioning it in his cv.

I am not sure I hold the agent entirely to blame. He Probably did not know the difference between coms and COM.