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merlin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 582
Location: Somewhere between Camelot and NeverNeverLand
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 Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:31 am Post subject: Bloody recruiters! |
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The job search. A farcical situation where the limited capacity of recruiters limits the success of the whole organization.
Every few years I do the job search and every few years I fell like throttling the nosepicker who managed to worm his way into a job as a recruiter for his organization.
Today it was a tidbit on the McTeach job board:
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| Send your cover letter, resume and photograph (passport copy is acceptable) to this office. Due to the risk of viruses, any attachments will NOT be opened. |
First of all, no physical address is provided. Only an e-mail.
Second of all I wonder about an organization that doesn't use anti-virus software.
Then there's the UAE and their damnable online applications. You spend 45 minutes filling one out only to realize on page 6 they want some weird information that you can't possibly have at your fingertips. You have to close and start again. Then, despite the automated nature of the system they can't seem to be able to automate a rejection letter! Except HTC. They were kind enough to send me not just one, but 3 rejection letters.
Those are just two examples of an acceptable level of annoyance.
Then there are the 90% of job ads that I just don't even bother with because they don't include significant information such as, say SALARY! Do they think we can't do the math ourselves? State the salary for crying out loud and let us decide if it's competitive or not. What may be competitive for you may not be competitive for us.
To all recruiters lurking around this forum:
Listen up nitwits!
We aren't going to send you our original documents and fly halfway across the world to arrive in a county under a quasi-illegal visa and take your word for it that the pay is "competitive".
Thank you for your indulgence. I feel much better now.  |
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joe-joe
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 100
Location: Baku, Azerbaijan
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:41 am Post subject: |
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Yes recruiters truly suck. I love the term 'competitive local salary', which equates to 'how long is a piece of string', or to put it another way 'let me shaft you from behind whilst expecting you to work split shifts and totally unreasonable hours whilst I get rich'
So I'm with you all the way on your post. |
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ChinaEFLteacher
Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 104
Location: China
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:27 am Post subject: |
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| i'm currently looking for a job but won't even consider going with a recruiter as it seems too risky as well as a waste of time! i'll only talk directly with the school. |
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merlin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 582
Location: Somewhere between Camelot and NeverNeverLand
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| By "recruiter" I also mean in-house people as well who sometimes get reduced teaching hours and/or a bonus for finding a warm body desparate enough to jump through their hoops. |
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badtyndale
Joined: 23 Jun 2004
Posts: 181
Location: In the tool shed
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:24 am Post subject: |
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I agree with all of you.
Whatever happened to a resume/CV and a cover letter? Is it too difficult for them to read? I do understand for some universities that might get 100 resumes/day, but most places do not fall under that category.
Yes, the lack of info on salary and teaching hours is a pain in the @ss. I want to know the salary or at least a decent range before I go through all the effort of interviews. Perhaps if it is a big institution we could post the name of the school here and people who work there or were past employees could tell us what they offer? |
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The Great Wall of Whiner
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 4946
Location: Blabbing
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 7:28 am Post subject: |
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Yes, Merlin!
You are now on my Christmas good wishes list!
All recruiters reading this, read:
You want to get money. You want to get new teachers to "sell" to schools.
How can you expect teachers to be bothered wasting time on unprofessional recruiters?
Don't ask us to give you the moon and the sky until you can show you can be trusted! |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 8:32 am Post subject: |
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How about this approach? I post an ad for my scientific proofreading services, and I get an email from someone who simply says he is an author...
(ok, ok, maybe this means he wants my services)
... who doesn't say anything about what he wants me to do, yet his subject line says "job offer"...
(huh?)
...and who merely directs me to his web site which distributes a health drink...
(shades of Amway and Popeil! No, wait. I'll see if he had a job posted on that site...hmmm, nope. Does it need proofreading...? Hmmm, nope. What the heck?)
So, I write back and ask what he wants me to do with this "job offer"? He replies quickly and proceeds to expound on how much money you can make, and you don't really have to sell this stuff, and how he makes more money on this line of work than as an author, and that he distributes in many countries (as his web site showed), but that he really doesn't need a distributor...
(Again, HUH? What does he WANT? I ask in no uncertain terms.)
He apologizes that I don't have to take the offer...
(WHAT OFFER?)
...and simply repeats that he thought I'd be a good potential person for his little operation, and that he makes more money on this than on his writing, blah blah blah...
(GEEZ! What was the point!???)
At least, with a recruiter, you know what they're calling you for. |
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Magoo
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
Posts: 651
Location: Wuhan, China
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:20 am Post subject: |
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| In a similar vein: Many moons ago, when I lived in HK, an English guy requested my services as a translator from English to Chinese (his Chinese staff weren't confident enough with their Mandarin). Sounded okay, so I travelled all the way from Lantau Island to 'Mad Dogs' bar on HK Island (about 2 hours, then) to meet him. When I asked him what he was willing to pay for the service, he looked astonished;"But you already know Chinese! Why should I pay you?". I asked him if he used a similar line with his plumber/mechanic/secretary. Didn't even buy me a drink. C#@t. He missed out on a pretty good translator (I'm crap, now, BTW). |
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laodeng
Joined: 07 Feb 2004
Posts: 481
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| Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:00 am Post subject: |
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| Magoo, I know it wasn't so amusing to you at the same, but this is still the best laugh I've had all week. Thanks! |
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Magoo
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
Posts: 651
Location: Wuhan, China
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| Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 6:06 am Post subject: |
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[/b]laodeng guffawed:[b]
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| Magoo, I know it wasn't so amusing to you at the same[time?] |
Understatement of the bloody year.  |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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Despite being one of those
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| in-house people as well who sometimes get reduced teaching hours and/or a bonus for finding a warm body desparate enough to jump through their hoops |
(though I get neither reduced teaching hours nor a bonus  )
I sympathize with Merlin. After all we had to go through the same hoops before we got where we are. and may well have to go through the same hoops again.
With regard to the online application forms for the UAE, they are I believe only for the two or three best employers, UGRU, HCT and MLI. They offer good Saudi salaries in the Emirates, and so can get away with it. When our college was producing its web site they wanted to do the same thing but I persuaded them it wouldn't work - the average good candidate was going to be applying for about forty separate jobs and if he couldn't send in his standard CV with a short cover letter he was going to miss us out, as good Saudi salaries in Saudi are not the same as good Saudi salaries in the Emirates. Now you fill in the official application form on your first day of work
There is a good reason for the online application forms though. People have radically different ideas of what to put on the CV, and also different employers have radically different requirements. An application form means that you do not have to write half-a-dozen separate emails to elicit all the relevant information. Nevertheless it is counter-productive to insist on one since those candidates who can get another job that's less hassle to apply for will forget about your insititution, and you will be stuck with those who can't get in anywhere else.
The "competitive local salary" is a joke. It means, we are going to cheat you blind. Even better are those that give a list of prices at the local supermarket (they never bother to list the prices that are double those in your home country). There is a school in Tenerife that pays less than the legal minimum salary that does that.
Then there are the ads that puff the location; this means "the job is absolute crap so we telling how great the place is in the hope you won't twig". The tendency on Dave's is to put the plug in the headline so you get things like "Cone to the cradle of a 2,500 year old civilization" which translates as "come to some horrible newly industrialized city to work for a pittance and live in accomodation where neither the plumbing nor the sewage works, the electricity is off six hours a day, and don't expect to breathe the air". "Work in Sunny Dubai" is another of my favourites. Right on- that's why the locals only go to the beach at nightime. |
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