We're never calling you again!
This story takes place beginning in 2004, but the lion's share happened in early 2005.
There's a recruiter regional to the area that appears to have (had?) some sweetheart contracts with local companies, and they're always calling you about them. The jobs themselves are usually nothing special, but the recruiter certainly is. They'll call you, talk up a job and collect a resume, perhaps tell you that they're talking to the employer - and you'll never hear from them again until next time when you get the same thing. I've had a number of collegues have similar experiences, so I'm fairly certain it's not just me.
(2023: The primary people in this story have moved on, and are no longer with this recruiting firm.)
In 2003, I had a run-in with them that set the stage for my future expectations. I'd already had some of the contacts as noted above, but this one was a little different. I had applied direct for a technician position at ManfactureCo, a company that served the HVAC industry. At the same time, a friend of mine had applied through the above mentioned recruiter for a project manager position at MCo. He, of course, was actually told that the company wanted to interview him, would such-and-such a time be good? Yes it would, they would confirm this with the client, and my friend began to prepare for the interview.
A few days later, my interview with MCo happened. First thing I noticed when with the HR person was my friend's resume on his desk. I ignore it, as we weren't here for that, but I will try and bring it up somehow. Interviews went well, everyone was friendly and we discussed many technical things. My last stop was with the HR person again, and we just chatted about things in general. One of the questions he asked me was if anyone else at my workplace was looking, and how did I know. I pointed to my friend's resume on the desk and said "This is a coworker, he is excited because he has an interview with you tomorrow."
The HR guy looked at it, then kind of just stared off into space saying to no one in particular that he wasn't taking recruiters for that position right now. Of course, I told my friend, he tried to contact recruiter, and they acted as if they and he didn't even exist. Neither of us was really surprised by this, as we'd both had this happen before with this particular recruiter. My friend was, understandably, pretty mad. He had caught the recruiter in a lie, and they just kind of flipped him off.
I didn't get the job, but the HR guy was a real wingman. He called me, apologized, and said that everyone voted for me but division president said that they had to hire a guy presented by this same recruiter (he was taking those for this position) because the presented guy was a lot cheaper. I was undercutting myself by a wide margin because I wanted out of my current job, but even I couldn't go as low as that other guy was taking. He didn't last, according to internal contacts. Nothing malicious, MCo chose cheap over the skills they needed, and they got the wrong person for the job. Recruiter did what recruiter does, put a butt in a seat without concern for it being the right butt.
It's now October 2004, the above-mentioned coworker had been terminated with prejudice (he had filed a pre-emptive statement with the unemployment service and got his unemployment payments because company did exactly what he said in his statement,) and it wasn't looking the best for me. Recruiter calls me with a position at a local company that's always looking for techs, ZapCo. ZapCo was a homegrown company that had been purchased by a larger conglomerate.
ZapCo was a bit of a drive, but the year between MCo and now had solidified the "I need out" mentality of the job I held. I decided to investigate and made contact with the recruiter. We traded a few conversations and then they quit replying to me. No surprise there at all.
Until January of the next year, that is. Recruiter couldn't be bothered to just drop me an email stating that ZapCo had put hiring on hold or...something. They hadn't called me at this point, I had decided to contact them via a "Hey, what's going on?" email. I'm not really sure why I did this, I think it has something to do with me being stupid. The old saying about don't poke the bear is wonderfully excellent advice, and both you and I should take it.
I remember it had been raining hard for the better part of the month, and the local watershed was talking about having to open floodgates to drain a resevoir. Potential road flooding was in the picture, and I was mindful of this because, if anything were to come of this, I would travelling through the area of effect. It was also big news in the local area, so it's just one of those events that sticks out.
We trade a few contacts, then recruiter calls me and tells me that ZapCo wants to interview me. I almost didn't take the call because I had been thinking about how they treated me and my contacts in the past, but why not? I actually get an interview out of this, which surprises me.
The interview went well, but I left my umbrella there. I remember seeing an electronics test (this was presented to a contact that also interviewed for the job) but I guess I talked a good enough line that it wasn't deemed necessary for me to take it. I get a second interview, retrieve my umbrella, and have a general good feeling about the whole thing.
Recruiter calls the next day to discuss pay and terms. It's contract-to-hire, and they want to know what pay rate I'm looking for. I say $SomeAmount, and I'm ok with the CTH - every other job I've had to date was of the same nature. They're good with that but they keep pressing me for a different pay rate. I mean, they're really hot and heavy on me giving them a different number. I stick to it and say I need that, it was a longer drive. They go "Well, what if you were just going down the street?" We went around with this a few times and finally I said that if I could walk out my door and be at work, I'd take something like $41288.00 a year. An oddly specific number... They want me to give notice immediately at my current job, which I tell them I am not going to do because I don't even know if this is going to go through. It's not even an offer at this point.
Recruiter calls a few days later, asks if I'd given notice yet. No, we discussed that. Ok, the company has made an offer and they (the recruiter) are sending the paperwork tomorrow via overnight FedEx, make sure to give your current employer notice. You did give them notice, right? We want to make sure you gave them notice. Do that as soon as you can.
Now, what I should have done right here is ask for those terms, knowing the recruiter's methods. I didn't, and that's on me.
Recruiter calls the next day and says paperwork has been sent and to expect FedEx delivery tomorrow. Did you give your employer notice? Another call, where can our guy meet you to collect the paperwork? We set a place and time, did you give notice? Recruiter calls back to confirm location and time, did you give notice?
I was getting a little tired of that.
The next evening, I get the paperwork. It's not contract to hire. It's 12 month contract with no hire-by date. And the pay is exactly $41288.00 a year, not the decently but not a whole lot more that I told the recruiter I was already making and wouldn't accept less to make a move.
It's already after 7 by this time, so I call and leave a voicemail saying that since the terms weren't what we discussed, I'm withdrawing my candidacy.
The next day happens, as days do, and recruiter is **MAD**.
I get a call from someone who claims they were driving down from the recruiter's location to collect my paperwork and make sure it's all filled out correctly and they were halfway there before getting a call to tell them the deal was off. Hey, I called you last night and said the deal was no-go.
I tell the caller that it wasn't contract to hire - their response is "well, ususally the company extends an offer after 9 months..." "Usually" wasn't mentioned in our discussion. They indicated that I misunderstood. No, I don't think I did. I also noted that the pay was lower than what I asked for, and much lower than what I currently made. Their response was "Well, that's what you said..." No, it wasn't. I said that's what I'd take if I could walk out my door, not have to drive over an hour each way.
"Well, you've told your employer you're leaving..." No, I didn't. I see now why they wanted me to do that, I would have been trapped into taking it. I did mention to my direct supervisor, whom I trusted. He couldn't do anything other than give me some small perks.
They were so mad. The person coming to collect the paperwork gave me an earful about how he wasted a day, the recruiter called later gave me an earful about how I should have contacted them first before doing this. Uh, excuse me? Maybe you should have thought about that before "adjusting" what you'd told me and what I asked for? I called you as soon as I could.
I heard nothing from them for about a week, and I figured we were done.
In that week, I spoke with the interviewing engineer at ZapCo. I told him what happened, he didn't really have much to say except that the job offers had to go through that particular recruiter. I made sure to let him know that his recruiter's attitude and stretching of the truth was the primary reason I wasn't going to take this job, and would never take a position with them if it had to go through said recruiter. I don't know for certain, but I kind of got the feeling that I wasn't the first person to do this to him. Sorry my friend, you have the hammer here - rattle some cages.
Recruiter calls back a few days later just uber-mega-mega-mad. Well, they heard I was given some extraordinarily extremely very very very nice benefits to stay and that I was just using them as a negotiating board. I reminded them how we discussed contract to hire, and the pay rates were completely different, and why would I take a pay cut for a longer drive, and a few other points of interest. They just repeated the thing about me using them, and finally told me that our business relationship was done, that I should NOT expect any more calls from them for any reason.
Lovely. I was looking forward to it.
I need to say that I'm not blameless here. Had I known what questions to ask, and how to ask them, we wouldn't have had this problem. I should have dropped the contact when they started to get pushy about me giving notice. I also could have countered, but past experiences with this recruiter suggested that would have been futile. I just firmly believe that the recruiter was taking advantage of my naivety to get a butt in a seat, even if that butt isn't the right one. (Remember that?) I simply didn't expect this recruiter to stretch the truth until it (almost) broke.
They didn't keep their promise.
About a month later, they're calling me asking about helping them fill a position, do I know anyone and this person I work(ed) with applied how about them...uh, I thought you weren't going to call me again? I received another call from them not long after asking about my current employer and trying to pick my brain for information on them. What the actual? I thought you were never calling me again. I was polite, and shooed them off the phone with no information.
About a year and a half later I got a call from recruiter asking if I wanted to interview for the position at MCo that I had been turned down for. At this point it was obvious that MCo was on the way out, so I said no - the company has no future and the pay is not what I need. They immediately started telling me that the company works a lot of overtime so there would be plenty of... I cut them off with "Remember, I interviewed there, I know how they work, everyone there told me they worked a 9-5 and if you were there at 5:15 you got asked why, and I know that some guy presented by a recruiter undercut me."
Uhhhhh....yeah. The recruiter told me he was the one that placed the person there. Internal contacts told me the guy was a fresh grad thrown into an experienced position, and just couldn't cut it, so the recruiter didn't even really understand the position, and MCo just wanted a cheap person. I wasn't interested even though the recruiter kept talking it up. No, not interested.
What was that about not calling me again?
They did call me AGAIN shortly after and tried to get me to interview for a mechanical engineer position at MCo. MCo was on extended life support at this time, and people were leaving in droves (it closed later that year) so they had to get replacements. I wasn't a mechanical engineer, told them they knew this, and the recruiter just went "Well, they understand you may not have all the skills they need." By all, you mean none?
So, I'm an idiot but you already know that. I took the interview because why not make a contact? As expected, it was over in 5 minutes because I have 0 mechanical experience. I assume the client was told that I was perfectly qualified. It was obvious client didn't read my resume beforehand, so they're the idiot for trusting recruiter. I just wanted some interview experience, but I didn't even get that because we didn't get past the first question.
I know, I was just setting myself up for abuse at this point, but now I really was using them as a springboard for my own purposes. I should have just refused the interview, but yeah, whatever. I didn't get anything out of the interview. It's all moot becuase MCo is now just concrete pads in an overgrown field.
Recruiter branched out, and local-to-the-area people representing them started calling me about ZapCo with positions worse than the one they tried to set me up with before. I politely reminded them to quit calling me.
Recruiter seems to have lost the contract for ZapCo for a while, because I received calls from other recruiters about the place. Each time, I turned them down telling them it was too far to drive, the pay wasn't worth the drive, and that I'd interviewed there before and had a very bad experience - I doubt they'd be interested in me and I certainly wasn't interested in them. Most just kind of went uh huh, a few asked for more details and I was happy to provide them.
Recruiter must have obtained the contract once more, because maybe about 2010 I started getting calls from them for tech and assembly positions at ZapCo. None of them paid enough to make it worth the time, so I just told them to take me off their call list. They did for a while.
I didn't hear anything from them for a number of years, but then I received a call from them, trying to confirm that I was still with the company on my public profiles, and was I interested in a new job? I told them no, please do not call me. They tried to pick my brain about the company and what I did and who was in charge and all kinds of other things. I just ended the call, but the next call that came in to the employer's phones was from them - I could hear the secretary in the next room talking to them. I made sure to tell her and the company owner that this recruiter wasn't someone they wanted to deal with. At this point, I had to block their number. They sent some paper mail to the company, it just got tossed.
ZapCo seems to be chewing through people these days, and internal contacts there aren't loving life. There's a lot of unsubstantiated BS that I hear about, and it just makes me happy that I didn't go there to start with. It's just not worth the time. The recruiter tries to contact me about the place, and I keep reminding them that they promised they would never deal with me again, please do that.
The troublemakers that caused me the grief back in 2005 have moved on to other recruiting companies, as per their LinkedIn profiles. I've taken the liberty to block these companies, as I don't want to deal with these people ever again.
I guess it's just one of those things, but maybe I'll tell them there's interest, that we're setting up a time, and then never talk to them again.
Until next time, we'll do it all over again.