Liars

As you may know, I've been hitting the job trail. When I first came to Chicago I needed to find a job -- any job -- and I think I went to every recruiting firm in the city. I had no skills, and they had no interest. I got it, and didn't really blame them. I wound up working in a restaurant, settled into a routine and before I knew it ten years had gone by. I realized that things like health insurance might be necessary, so I hit the job trail again. I still had no skills, other than being able to bring a plate of eggs to a table, but I sat myself down at a computer at the Harold Washington Library and taught myself Microsoft Word and WordPerfect. And I managed to build a typing speed of thirty-four words per minute with sixteen or seventeen errors.

This time, when I went in to recruiters, they had minimal interest, and again I understood. Eventually I landed a job, but I got it for three reasons: 1) she liked the way I handled myself on the phone, 2) she felt guilty because she'd gone to lunch and forgotten the interview, leaving me to wait for nearly two hours, and 3) the computer broke while I was taking the typing test. When I offered to retake it, I told her that I would probably score thirty-four words per minute,(leaving out the number of errors part). She looked at me for nearly a minute and said, "No, I heard you typing. That's good enough." And from that humble moment a human resources star was born.

And over the years, as a human resources manager, I was contacted, and contacted, and pestered, and harassed and stalked by recruiters wanting to place the perfect candidates with me. It was at this time that I realized that recruiters were by and large scam artists. I would place an ad, looking for a secretary, and the next day there would be three or four recruiting firms with ads very similar to mine. I would get an avalanche of resumes, and the next day I'd have recruiters calling me trying to sell me the very same resumes.

On the very rare occasion that I did use a recruiter it was either because I needed someone very quickly, say a Microsoft guru who spoke English and Mandarin, in three days (not kidding) or because my company had a long-standing relationship with a recruiting firm and I was told that they were miracle workers. They never really were.

Now I'm back on the job market and because of the grad school thing I'm not really looking for an HR job. I'm focusing on executive-level administrative work. The pay is virtually the same and instead of having to be the best friend of one hundred and seventy-nine people, I only have to manage three or four. This time around, though, I'm a Microsoft guru knowing my way around Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Outlook, as well as the Adobe Creative Suite. And I type seventy-three words per minute with six errors. I hold a masters degree in writing. In a word, in terms of executive-level administrative candidates, I'm hot shit.

And this time around, I have recruiters drooling over me. There is one in particular, from an agency that I've applied to and interviewed with at least four times over the last fifteen years as well as used to fill a position on one occasion. We'll call that agency Gloss. Every single time I've gone to gloss they've promised they could find me a job. Two months ago they actually sent me on an interview. I landed a second round of interviews. I landed a third round of interviews. I've been called on a weekly basis to be assured that the hiring manager is still "very interested" but just meeting other candidates. The calls go something like this:

"Scott, this Gail from Gloss. I just talked to Julie at Stupid, Slow, and Shit-for-Brains. She's been really busy sharpening pencils and there's just no movement on this job yet. You've been there, you know how it is."

"Sure, I totally understand. Say, Gail, are you sure they just aren't going with another candidate?"

"No. I've asked them point blank. I've told them that you're really interested and that it's really not fair to you to string you along this way."

"Well, I understand. When you need to sharpen pencils, all else really has to be put on the back burner."

"And look, I've worked with Julie for years. She's a straight shooter. She'd tell me if they weren't interested."

"OK. I saw that you had some other jobs posted that I'd be right for."

"Oh, I'm working on those, but they're not ready to interview yet. I'll definitely submit you."

And then, of course, nothing.

And now, I have this same relationship going with four recruiters, and every week to ten days each one of them calls me with the same patter. And each week I smile and chuckle at the difficulty of their positions, telling them I totally understand. And I do, probably better than they do.