Reply to: Pointless agents

[TheFaQQer]

I've just had an email asking

Please call me on the office number below ASAP as I have a role that suits your skills perfectly. The role is a 6 month Contract for a Portal Solution Architect.

Unfortunately, I'm in contract, know nothing about portal, and am not a solution architect. I've never worked with Portal, so no idea where that one came from!

[Cowboy Bob]

Yes. Because this is very rare.

To be fair here, my current agent (who is actually really good and doesn't do this) and I were having a laugh about this a while back. I was saying exactly what you were saying about agents not seemingly being able to read CVs, and she said that they often get 100s of CVs for a particular job placement on Jobserve that bear no relation to the job ad, so she finally countered with the fact that most contractors seem to be unable to read job adverts.

[Growernotashower]

that should be in light relief under "post more jokes here!"

[krankyd]

Is this any different to 150 contractors sending in irrelevant CV's in response to an job ad?

Yes. Because this is very rare.

[Growernotashower]

Is this any different to 150 contractors sending in irrelevant CV's in response to an job ad?

[Old Greg]

While I completely agree that it's not worth getting upset about - just add the agency to your spammer list - the idea that one day you'd need them made me laugh.

You can be as nasty to agents as you like. But if they think they can make money from you, they'll happily swallow their pride and take you one.

NotAllThere

Well, I suppose I work in a sector in which very few agencies operate, so I need to stay on reasonable terms with them.

[NotAllThere]

Why don't you just thank them politely but decline it as unsuitable. You may need them one day and they may remember you.

I just spent a few days on the bench and I had some odd calls for unsuitable jobs, but it's not worth getting worked up over - it's business, not personal.

While I completely agree that it's not worth getting upset about - just add the agency to your spammer list - the idea that one day you'd need them made me laugh.

You can be as nasty to agents as you like. But if they think they can make money from you, they'll happily swallow their pride and take you one.

NotAllThere

[krankyd]

I believe it's mentioned with 3.1 and windows 95 over 10 years ago.

[DBA_bloke]

sorry, I meant do you have "windows" on your CV?

So easily confused.

[DodgyAgent]

Yes.
Even under past roles as `unix consultant`.

sorry, I meant do you have "windows" on your CV?

[TheFaQQer]

I don't know, I got one for the following skill set:

Three years Minimum experience
ISEB Foundation Certificate
Experience of working on Large Systems
MS Office skills
An appreciation of the Testing lifecycle
SQL
UNIX
Oracle
Rational Robot
HTML, VBScript, Test Director, QTP, Loadrunner, Winrunner, Windows

and this was appended:

You have received this email after certain key word searches have identified you as a possible candidate. This was followed by a number of filter processes to ensure that you are not currently working for Modis International or that we have placed you in your current role. Due to the fact that on rare occasions some information is duplicated on our database, some people may receive information that is not applicable to them. Please accept my apologies if this is the case.

I don't have any of the above skills although 3 of the words probably appear in my CV (such as Windows which I think you need to put in nowadays just to show that you can use a PC!)

They obviously found "An" "of" and "the" in your CV and thought you'd be a match!

[krankyd]

Do you have Unix on your CV?

Yes.
Even under past roles as `unix consultant`.

[darmstadt]

I don't know, I got one for the following skill set:

Three years Minimum experience
ISEB Foundation Certificate
Experience of working on Large Systems
MS Office skills
An appreciation of the Testing lifecycle
SQL
UNIX
Oracle
Rational Robot
HTML, VBScript, Test Director, QTP, Loadrunner, Winrunner, Windows

and this was appended:

You have received this email after certain key word searches have identified you as a possible candidate. This was followed by a number of filter processes to ensure that you are not currently working for Modis International or that we have placed you in your current role. Due to the fact that on rare occasions some information is duplicated on our database, some people may receive information that is not applicable to them. Please accept my apologies if this is the case.

I don't have any of the above skills although 3 of the words probably appear in my CV (such as Windows which I think you need to put in nowadays just to show that you can use a PC!)

[DodgyAgent]

Is it that hard for someone to actually look at my CV instead of taking the shotgun method for mailing people about jobs?

You've gone to all the bother of signing up to monster/jobserver or whoever and get a list of people. Please spend no more than 5 minutes of your time checking that people are either interested in roles, or they have job experience that is relevant to the roles!

It's not that hard. really.

Well, apparently it is for about 85-90 % of agents.

Do you have Unix on your CV?

[krankyd]

It sounds like you also do not have the "good with customers or staff" bit either.

Is it that hard for someone to actually look at my CV instead of taking the shotgun method for mailing people about jobs?

You've gone to all the bother of signing up to monster/jobserver or whoever and get a list of people. Please spend no more than 5 minutes of your time checking that people are either interested in roles, or they have job experience that is relevant to the roles!

It's not that hard. really.

Well, apparently it is for about 85-90 % of agents.