Look Mom Kittens

This blog is a warning to the recruits and the companies alike. Once you recognize that recruiting is a schmoozing process on all sides with the recruiters in the middle, it may not be so acceptable. Companies choose recruiters they like, recruiters choose candidates in the same way, and sometimes job shoppers choose recruiters for the same reason, but usually it is just a job and not an adventure they are seeking.

This was the case for me. Last week an email snuck through my spam defenses with a HOT C# /.NET / MS Access Developer Positions. Normally, I disregard these emails; but, this one had a new twist. There was a quote from a recent recruit. Maybe you saw it.

"Thank you for checking with me...you are one of the few recruiters out there with integrity and professionalism. Most recruiters are just interested in making the quick placement no matter if it is a good fit or not. I really appreciate that."

I should have known that this statement was a load of bull crap. They do not list the candidate's name, and as you will see they do not know the first thing about integrity; and, as recruiters go, they are the professional turd in the punch bowl, and the skunk in the works.

My mistake. I looked over the job offerings and the company's web site, AdvantageComputerAge.com. Thought I'd give them a try on this CONTRACT ONLY position, even after swearing off using middlemen to find me jobs, when I recanted during the last big economic downturn in 2002. Now never again.

Everything went smoothly at first. Submitted my resume. Went through the phone interview. They forwarded my resume to the client. The client liked what they saw. When I called back, indications were that the client was waiting on bundles from the other recruiters that were invited. I figured this was a shoe in. I have great attitude, excellent references and I know the material backwards and forwards.

Then I get this call from OUT OF THE BLUE. This guy says his name is Patrick, as I awake from my siesta and say hello this is David. He claims to work with Gail, but says he does not work for Advantage Computer Age. Tells me the name of the client CH2M HILL (previously unknown to me), and CH2M HILL's client, Warner Robbins. I try to change phones. We get disconnected. I use my Caller ID to call him back. Then he starts right into asking me questions about my resume, which contains 30 years of consulting experience and happens to be all over the Internet. Says he having trouble following the project details on my resume.

I haven't gotten his identifying information yet. As a computer security expert, I am reluctant to answer his questions, until I get some of my questions answered to identifying him, and a clearance from my prospective client, Gail, the recruiter at Advance Computer Age. I talked to Gail earlier that morning, and there was no indication from her that I would be going through the inquisition in the afternoon. So I tell him, "I am not sure I should be talking to you", where in he abruptly barks back, I think we will pass on this one, and hangs up. What a turd?

So I try to call Gail on land line and cell phone, twice over a period of 15 minutes. I also try Patrick back. No answer. Send her an email, telling her that this was really irregular, I ask to know what is going on, and demanding an apology for this guy's rude behavior. I also copy it as a text message to her cellphone. According to the acknowledgment she gets it two hours later, and replies with a blank message. No apology. Nothing else the next morning.

What does this say about their integrity? Maybe this new recruit, who made the recommendation, has no integrity either. Here is Wiki's definition: Integrity as a concept has to do with consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes.

Do you think they measured up? Was it professional?

If it were me, I would have made it a conference call. I would have at least the introduced the guy, or let the candidate know that it was coming. To cold cock someone like this and run off is tactic used by cowards and riff raff.

These recruiters are nothing but skunks in the works as far as I am concerned. You do not need them to find qualified candidates or a good job. Small business rarely uses them. They are the inhumane part of HR. Even the good ones rarely do the job you hired them to do, which was to check on their job history, education, and background.

Your job will cost your employer twice as much as your salary in the first year, if you use a recruiter. On the average, IT job seekers change jobs every two years, with some encouragement from the recruiters, who typically cannot deal with someone who has more than a few years experience. The deal is structured according to how long you stay in that first year. FYI, it cost $1500 to advertise a couple jobs on Monster. You will save your employer money, if you can avoid using them. Same is true with a contract job.

If you go through a head hunter for a contract job like I did here, it could most likely cost the client 1.5 to 5 times your hourly rate depending upon the number of middle men, which is pretty much the same for solution providers; but, a solution providers will train you and keep you on salary while on the beach. Something almost unheard of for recruiters. The recruiters markup on the other hand may be sleeker than the solution providers with respect to the mark-up. It is worse now with health insurance costs constantly rising, which is why single payer health insurance makes more sense for job shoppers, who would frequently find themselves without, with COBRA or not having preexisting conditions covered.

So figure it this way ACAI (Advance Computer Age Incorporated), most likely made a fortune by selling that domain name, will mark up your rate by 30% or more, so now for example $50 is $75. Then CH2M HILL will mark it up even more, possibly doubling it, because they are on the front line, holding the bag on the deliverable, because they are more of a service provider. SO now you happen to discover the invoice stated you are billed out at $150 per hour. Essentially two thirds of your billing rate is flowing into someone else's bank account, people who are not actual doing the work; and, in most cases could not do the work them self, if their life depended on it.

So you thought paying out half of what you make in taxes was bad, between county, state, and federal; and, health insurance. Factor in alimony and child support, and you may only be see half of what you make. So now, when it comes down to it, you may be clearing just $15 freaking bucks an hour out of the $150 that was billed. So in essence 90% went to someone else. Are you feeling like a slave yet?

Are you still wondering why your jobs are going overseas. The USA simply cannot compete with places like India for IT services, when the cost of doing business in India is one-quarter what it is in the US. It is even cheaper to bring them here, because they will sleep two families in a regular, non-duplex, house.

FYI, CH2M HILL outsources the work that your municipality, county, state and national government's needs. They prefer to work with recruiters and not until they have known them for over a year. The job that I applied was not posted online, because it was a contract only opportunity, which would only flow through a head hunter according to the way CH2M HILL does business. I searched their site and there is no indication that they would work with an IT service provider (Consulting Corp) like myself. I sent them and email to this regard through their web site portal, and have not received a reply. From what I can see CH2M HILL is just another layer of bureaucracy.

Apparently it was the mayor's decision to go with CH2M HILL in the municipality where I have my business license, Sandy Springs, Georgia. Perhaps this was done based on the governor's insistence as a newly incorporated city, and the fact that CH2M HILL has a presence in an adjacent community. How disappointing it was for me to discover this after working so hard for so many years with the community to get it incorporated, and creating the mayor's original campaign web site; only to discover that they had sold out to big corporate interest of CH2M HILL.

Can CH2M HILL be more efficient than government when you consider:
1. They enable government to evade the bid process, which the law requires to avoid corruption?
2. They may be sending your tax dollars overseas, where it cannot benefit your community with the multiplier effect?
3. It is truly free enterprise? CH2M HILL is like a defense contractor. They only do government work.

Is not the corporatism of government the true mark of fascism. CH2M HILL has done this on a global scale. Something that the Nazis and Adolf Hitler would be proud.

Well that is who is hiring now in this downturn economy.

Background:

When I started in business, we had job placement agencies, recruiters were few and far between. Then there was that "great sucking sound" as the high tech jobs rushed overseas, when Reagan signed IRS Section 1706 into law as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which empowered the job shops, recruiters and middlemen. Before then, it was mostly solution providers, consulting firms, and a growing army of independent contractors. If you worked through someone else back then they were typically business savvy. Now employers get to try it before they hire it, sink or swim. It was more of a journeyman process back then that created efficiency, because the manpower came with solutions, if only partial ones. Now we have copyright laws that get in the way here in the US, which does not appear to bother the workers in India or China.

Head hunters recruits do not even come with partial solutions, in fact they interfere with the process of building human capital, because they are only interested in farming personnel out. Recruiters typically lack the business and technical skills to create their own solutions, let alone use the ones they have properly. They are 49% schmooze and 51% asshole, your results may vary.

Recruiting firms have no interest in investing in R&D or in the ongoing education of high tech personnel necessary to keep them competitive and current. When push comes to shove, they will just broker another body out that was trained at the expense of someone else as they turn the existing resource out to pasture. This makes it harder and harder for Americans in high tech to get the ongoing training they need to stay proficient; training that is necessary for technical innovation. Employers now know that once trained you will enticed by a recruiter to jump ship for a higher paying job, and ditch the one that was in atrophy. They may ask you to sign some agreement to pay back training, if you jump ship; but, it is almost impossible for them to collect on these devices.

Thus we have evolved an unscrupulous business culture in America as the national and trade deficit ballooned that is built around lies and thievery, where they survivors prosper by eating their young. There is just way too much overhead, and fat a the top to support; and, it keeps getting bigger all the time. That is why most of the high tech jobs have gone overseas. What remains are the positions that cannot be done off site. Which brings up another problem, embedded trojans, worms and viruses.

The state department now requires that the final stage in defense hardware assets be developed and assembled here in the United States, since these BACKDOORs were discovered in Cisco products, which impacts our global networks and computer security everywhere. It is expected that this type of problem could exist in every piece of software developed offshore. This week it was announced that no anti-virus software can protect your Windows computer from root kit infection. They say you can protect yourself with Windows 64, but it is only a matter of time before that cat is out of the bag, and the hackers get a hold of it.

It seems through all this we forgot about that element of trust. Wake up. The same things that plague us in It seems through all this we forgot about that element of trust. Wake up. The same things that plague us in the real world, only get worse in cyberspace. There are no technical problems, only people problems.

Connect the dots and I am sure you will come to the same conclusion that it really sucks when the client only works contractors through recruiters; and, it sucks even worse when you discover that you are paying the bill with your tax dollars for layer upon layer of middleman.

You too can get work without using a recruiter. All you need to do is contact potential employers and think like a recruiter. Call on the prospect, and ask them if they need help. Your employer will thank you for it.

Also, ask your politicians if they plan on putting contracts out for bid or on using CH2M HILL. Cast your vote against any politician that uses or plan to use CH2M HILL. Everyone outside that chilling inner circle will all thank you for that.

Now notice that I had the guts to say what you were thinking, but were too afraid to blurt it out.