Amazing

Even though this happened Weds. night, I took the day off from blogging yesterday to let the absurdity of the situation fully sink in before writing about it. As many of you know, I have been actively seeking new employment options. Many of you also know, that I’ve had my share of bad experiences with recruiters for consulting firms, but this one is really in a league by itself.

It all started with a phone call Weds. night from a consulting firm. This was a screening/phone interview type of discussion, where he was obviously trying to gauge my tech skills. I’ve had plenty of these types of phone conversations, but this one was special, on many levels. First off, he explained he was calling regarding my resume, but in the course of conversation had to ask me the address of this site, where I work now, and how long I had been there. All of that is easily available, had he actually had my resume. Since he called me, I would have assumed my resume was sitting in front of him, but, obviously, it was not. Then some of the questions were, bizarre, to say the least. Some were just way too vague, “Tell me what you know about security” while others were just irrelevant, like the type, amount and speed of the RAM in my home desktop? What does that have to do with anything?

Now, you’re probably thinking at this point, yeah it’s a little weird but not that big a deal. But I haven’t told you the best part. This phone call took place between 11:10 and 11:30 at night! Not only did this recruiter have no consideration of my personal life and personal time, he actually expected me to be able to meet with him Thursday morning after talking to me on the phone until 11:30 the night before. As if I don’t have a job, and a life of my own.

I agreed to meet with him today, but after spending some time trying to locate the company he worked for online, and finding nothing, and having discussed it some more with my wife and some friends, I called and cancelled that appointment. Do I really want to work for someone who has so little consideration for my personal life? Nope.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to the need for IT folks to work odd hours. I’ve been in the office until 2AM rebuilding a server and come back in at 8 to make sure people were getting logged in properly, I’ve logged 65 hours of work in just 4 days when we upgraded the network infrastructure. I’ve come rolling in to do some work on weekends, at 9PM after driving home from Virginia all day, and just about everything you can imagine. This, on the other hand, was just a regular telephone interview. This guy knew nothing about me. He didn’t know if I had kids he might be waking up, he didn’t know that I do have a wife who was gets up early to be at work, he obviously didn’t care that I have a job that I need to be at in the morning. He felt like it was entirely appropriate to call me that late at night because, well, I’m an IT guy, and we’re famous for being up late.

I can only imagine what he does to people who actually work for him!

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