Reply to: WWYD? - Recruiter misbehaving

[nomadd]

I wonder if it's too late to go back and say I'll gladly stay away?

To the wife? Probably.

[fiisch]

The good news:

You've had some decent interview practice.
The agent knows you can pass interviews so you'll be on their good list.

The bad news:
You've wasted four hours of your life.
That's nothing compared to middle of the night baby feeds.

The baby has followed our eldest - slept through 7pm - 7am since 5 weeks old.

Not so good: Now baby is here, the eldest has decided to start waking up 3 or 4 times a night.

I wonder if it's too late to go back and say I'll gladly stay away?!

[NotAllThere]

The good news:

You've had some decent interview practice.
The agent knows you can pass interviews so you'll be on their good list.

The bad news:
You've wasted four hours of your life.
That's nothing compared to middle of the night baby feeds.

but at the end of that you've got this human who will take your money and be ungrateful about it .. or am I thinking of an agent?

[LondonManc]

The good news:

You've had some decent interview practice.
The agent knows you can pass interviews so you'll be on their good list.

The bad news:
You've wasted four hours of your life.
That's nothing compared to middle of the night baby feeds.

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

Cool story bro.

I've turned up for a contract interview to be told the interview was on another site 100+ miles away. I've turned up for a contract on a couple of occasions and the client has asked me why I was on site.

Misrepresenting a contract or job is not a cool story.

[northernladuk]

Cool story bro.

[psychocandy]

Standard recruitment lies I'm afraid....

Many years ago I went for an interview for permie job. About 10 times the recruiter assured me it was in the south west just the interview was in london. So off I went.

First question - so role is in london, I assume you plan to relocate? End of interview.

To be fair, the recruiter did end up paying my train fare but still. His excuse "I thought you'd be keen on the role, like the look of London and change you're mind". Tosser.

[Hairlocks]

+1 - consultancies make money from bums on seats at client sites - can't get to the client site time to find another contract.

Consultancies as a permie are the worse of both worlds. You don't even get a choice of which client site they send you too, you seem to be as expendable as a contractor, but with the lower pay of a permie and all the holiday restrictions and performance review bollocks that comes with it. Only just tolerable as a contractor.

[eek]

I used to work for a consultancy as a permie years ago and trust me, when they find a gig for you, option is to take it. People are told to leave if they have issues travelling to a client site.

+1 - consultancies make money from bums on seats at client sites - can't get to the client site time to find another contract.

[fullyautomatix]

This sounds bad, but I find with stuff like this it helps to err more on the side of flexibility in the interview, then state your 'conditions' when you get there and asked to do something specific

It's all about timing. e.g.

In interview:
You: Hmm, I'm not sure I can do a lot of travel
Interviewer: err

On the job:
Person: Can you go up to XYZCity on Tuesday to Friday of next week?
You: No, but I can do a day or perhaps we could make it a video call?
Person: not a problem moves on with their life

Basically, don't rule yourself out when you don't have to, as these things are a lot more rationally dealt with when you're on the inside.
You want to offer even more flexibility to the agent - "a bit of travel, no problem!" and again work out the details case by case when you get there.

I used to work for a consultancy as a permie years ago and trust me, when they find a gig for you, option is to take it. People are told to leave if they have issues travelling to a client site.

[PerfectStorm]

This sounds bad, but I find with stuff like this it helps to err more on the side of flexibility in the interview, then state your 'conditions' when you get there and asked to do something specific

It's all about timing. e.g.

In interview:
You: Hmm, I'm not sure I can do a lot of travel
Interviewer: err

On the job:
Person: Can you go up to XYZCity on Tuesday to Friday of next week?
You: No, but I can do a day or perhaps we could make it a video call?
Person: not a problem moves on with their life

Basically, don't rule yourself out when you don't have to, as these things are a lot more rationally dealt with when you're on the inside.
You want to offer even more flexibility to the agent - "a bit of travel, no problem!" and again work out the details case by case when you get there.

[edison]

For perm roles, whether contingent or retained search, it's always wise to remember who the agent is representing. It's really the client as they are paying the agent. Once a role is down to the interview shortlist stage, the agent doesn't particularly care which of their candidates gets the job so long as one of them does.

I've had dealings with one recruiter this year at a boutique search firm who place people all the way up to £1m plus packages and he's still a sneaky s**t.

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

Treading cautiously on this board, but thought I'd canvas opinion on what to do about a recruiter that I think may have misrepresented my application for a permie role.

I've recently been flirting with permie roles knowing that a). My contract is likely to expire at year end and b). A new baby has made me rethink work/life balance and longer term career goals and c). The market woes.

I was approached by a recruiter for a Business Consultancy role. All seemed well, until I was sent the job description, which referred: "Ordinarily you would be working on client site as a member of a delivery team and should be comfortable with living away from home, Monday to Friday, for engagements which are not commutable. When not assigned to a client site, you will normally be based from home."

I responded, saying thank you for opportunity, but due to current circumstances with new baby etc., this would not be suitable. Recruiter responded with updated job spec, deleting this paragraph and stating this was "pre-Covid" working, and now it would be max 1-2 days per week on site.

First interview went well, however when I asked the interviewer about working location, the response, albeit a bit woolly due to Covid, was that successful candidate had to be open to travel and staying away. I fed back to recruiter that this was not doable, and that job probably not for me. They told me to stick with it, and they'd pick up with the company and call me back. They didn't, and second interview arrived, and went pretty much the same way.

Feedback from second interview was very good and they were keen to progress to final stage, but asked what was my stance on travel. Gave the same response as I had before - some flexibility, happy for occasional overnight/longer stay, but regular week-in week-out 3 night stays away were not doable due to young family. Subsequently been told application not progressed due to wanting someone more flexible.

I am thoroughly ****ed off that I've gone through the rigmarole of two interviews only for something that I raised at the outset to be the reason for not getting the job. I said as much to the recruiter (a colleague as original guy was on leave), and he apologised but didn't offer up any reasoning.

So, what would you do? Would you shrug it off and put it down to experience, or would you stick it to the recruiter and forward the emails re.: working location to the original interviewer (HR) directly via LinkedIn?

Only because I speak from experience. I would have walked the minute the job description did not work, there would not have been a first interview. Recruiters are known liars and chancers. They will waste your time without a seconds thought.

[Lance]

This is standard behaviour of a recruitment agent. In fact I think they probably have some crash course when they join the agency which teaches them on all these sneaky techniques

Personally I'd put it more down to incompetence or greed than malevolence.

[fiisch]

Thanks all - I did send a message simply thanking the interviewer per some of the advice on here and received a connection request, so now time to move on.

I've been around a bit and played the game with recruiters, but I queried travel requirements immediately on seeing the job spec and what I received, as it turns out, was a blatant lie rather than the usual "sexing up" of a vacancy:

In regards to the travel that’s no longer the case that was their old way of working, things will be remote from now on and I just forgot to remove that from the JD.
As discussed it will only 1/2 days a week on client site (if even that) which is all expensed.

Seems to have resulted in a lot of wasted time all round. I'm not too butthurt now the dust has settled - everything happens for a reason, maybe I'm meant to stay as a contractor.