I'm gonna need a photo.
In 2001 I had recently left a large manufacturer (closed, they moved to China) and had take a job with a small defense contractor-like company. They weren't a prime, but did subcontract work or provided testing platforms for primes. It was a terrible place to work - very politically toxic, hidebound, and quick to point fingers if something didn't work. It was obvious that I didn't want to be here and had to leave, or probably would be made to leave in a few years. (It took 4 before I got caught in a layoff. Other than the top few, there was 100% turnover at this company.)
In early 2002, I had just re-placed my resume on the pretty much the only job board that mattered at the time, and started doing my own contacts. One of the first warm calls I received was a recruiter in Florida calling about a local company that I'll call ZapCo. This wouldn't be my last interaction with Zap, but it wasn't my first - I had applied with them some years before but never heard anything back. They had since changed names, and recently did that again.
ZapCo was a local manufacturer that had a world-wide presence. In this case, however, they were looking for a field service tech to handle accounts in the local area, so it was mostly just coincidental that recruiter was calling about a field tech for this company.
The first contact with the recruiter was just a contact, he was representing himself as his own company. He had apparently come from Cuba, was a naturalized citizen, and had retired after 25+ years in the US Military. The company's website was just a landing page, but as this was the last gasp of the old wild-west Internet, that wasn't surprising. The name, however, was a cheesy play on words, something along the lines of "Get to work! Inc." Uh huh, sure thing.
The call was just a call, he introduced himself, told me a little bit about the job (I already knew what ZapCo did, and had a good idea of what they wanted here,) and asked if I was interested moving forward. He'd send me a complete job posting and all the related materials he had. I said yes, and he closed with a "I'll do that right away. By the way, I like to know whom I'm dealing with, is there any chance you could send me a picture of yourself?"
That's kind of odd today, but this was a world that was changing from local to remote contacts, and a world without the same amount of digital image penetration. I say yes, however I don't have a digital camera yet. (This was just as digitals were getting cheap enough for casual consumers to afford something that wasn't a potato.) I say my folk have a camera for their business, when I visit them in two weeks I'll take that for you - but it's not going to be for two weeks. He's good with that, and we say goodbye.
I get the email, it shows enough promise that I'm going to call the guy tomorrow and say I'd like to move forward. I do so, and this gets weird.
He says he will go ahead and submit my information, and that he'd like to send me some other information and then would like to speak with me on the phone about it. Ok, I guess. He then asked me for a picture again. Ok....I say that I promised that to you in a couple of weeks, I simply don't have access to a camera yet. Oh, ok.
He sends me some stuff, I can't remember what the first round was. But the email also asks for a picture, as in "Remember to send me a picture." That's starting to get weird. But I look at the material, it's just generic resume stuff. Thanks dude, I think we have this covered. He calls the next day and asks if I've read it, do I have any questions, no, do I have that picture, ha ha? No dude, I told you already when you'll get it. Oh, ok, just send me a picture!
Next email was the offer to interview, which I took. It was at the beginnning of the next week, and would start with a phone screen by the hiring tech. Did you get that picture yet?
Next phone call was the recruiter wanting to discuss interview items with me. He sent me a big long word document that reminded me of a monologue you'd hear on a radio station that no one is listening to, just someone talking to himself. The document was the recruiter's story, his immigration, time with the military, some sales work he'd done - absolutely no relationship to what was going to be a technical interview. At least, I assume it was his story, the document metadata suggested it was a Pfizer salesperson prep.
He once again asked for a picture because he really liked to know who he was dealing with. That was getting really old and it was starting to turn me off.
You can read that document here: Pastebin Link to Interview Doc
Recruiter had asked me to read the document and we'd use it in a practice interview. (I know now to decline these, they're worthless for the most part.) Ok, that's...not going to work as-is. So I read it and sure enough when he calls again (do you have that picture?) I start trying to work my story into the format that he's using, it works about as well as trying to lift and elephant out of a septic tank with nothing but a smile. He gets kind of but not really pissy with me, asking me if I'd even read the paper. I say yes, but your salesman story doesn't fit my technical story. I'm trying to shoehorn my experience into your document, and it doesn't work. He kind of but not really changes his tune but doesn't have an answer for my what did you expect me to do with this. Just a no problem, make sure you get that picture. This guy is really starting to both annoy me and make me think he's a bit of a creeper, but I the job is interesting enough to me that I continue. (do you have that photo?)
A couple days later is the actual interview with the tech. It's pretty much what I expected, just a quick technical screen to make sure I'm actually who I say I am. It goes well, we trade phone numbers, and the tech says he'll schedule a physical interview through the recruiter.
Recruiter calls me a few times while waiting for the tech to schedule. This guy is starting to act like a needy girlfriend, and his incessant demands for a picture are making me think that I should drop this whole process. Maybe he thinks he's just being communicative, but there's a point when you have nothing more to say until the action happens. A simple email: "I haven't heard anything from the tech yet." would have sufficed. The tech eventually does schedule an interview...
At 6AM. At a coffee shop in a not bad but not really good part of town. (Do you have that photo yet?)
That was a big turnoff at the time for me, but looking back it's probably not what I thought it was at the time. The tech's "office" was his work van, and was doing this before his shift. It wasn't anything malicious, but at the time I was somewhat inexperienced with this kind of process and it just didn't set well with me. The recruiter's continual whining about a photo of myself certainly didn't add anything to the process.
I called the tech the day before the interview (it was maybe 6PM) and said that I just didn't think this was right for me, and I was going to withdraw my candidacy. Tech was all cool, and thanked me for letting him know, most just don't show up. No problem, I don't leave people hanging like that. Since it was late, the recruiter didn't answer and I decided I'd call him tomorrow at 9AM or so.
The next day, about 8ish, recruiter calls me and has that grade-school teacher voice where they say "Exactly what are we doing?" He goes "I heard you didn't go to the interview because you slept in." I'm kind of speechless, but I find my voice and say "No, I told the tech last night I was withdrawing because I didn't feel right about this, and I assumed you weren't in the office at the time I called." Recruiter insists that I slept in, I said "I was at work before that was even supposed to happen, and I don't appreciate your tone." Recruiter was very condescending, and I pretty much just cut him off and said thank you for your time and hung up. I was going to explain exactly why I withdrew, the crap with him, the location, etc. But I didn't get that chance, and his tone made me not care about the guy anymore.
I immediately called the tech. He answered, I introduced myself and said "Hey, I just got a call from the recruiter. He says you told him that I overslept, and that's why I didn't come in to the interview." Tech is apologetic and says that no, he just told the recruiter exactly what I said. He didn't really seem unhappy or even questioning, so I wonder if the recruiter has done this before. I still, to this day, don't get why the recruiter would lie to me in this fashion. He had to know I was going to call and verify this - or did that occur to him? I have to believe it didn't, or that he just didn't care.
I'm kind of happy that I didn't take the job. ZapCo wasn't bad at that time, but subsequent dealings with them and other "on your own schedule" field service jobs has taught me this isn't something I want to do. ZapCo itself, however, has become a company that chews through people, has a hard time finding replacements, and isn't someplace I want to be. I'm always getting calls from this place, but my contacts on the inside (as long as they last) always say do not go there.
I would never hear from this recruiter again, and that website was gone by the time I looked several years later. I wonder if he retired due to age - he'd already had two careers. Perhaps he had a very poor level of return on his investment, I doubt many would stick around as long as I did. Perhaps he was just driven out by the large numbers of Indians that started taking over the recruiting biz around 2007-8 or so.
To this day I wonder: Did he ever get his photo? Certainly not from me.