Last Updated on 7 months by Christopher G Mendla
I received an email today from a recruiter that looked promising. It was for an IT Director position one town over. That would be perfect. BUT the spidey sense tingled a bit. I did some checking before replying with my resume. I’m glad I did because sending it would have been a mistake.
Problems with the recruiter’s email
There were a couple of things that stood out about this email. It was extremely wordy. Also, the following lead sentence caught my eye
As discussed below is the complete job details, Please check and reply me with your updated resume.
Two grammar mistakes in one sentence? Plus, I never discussed this position with anyone.
A quick check of the company revealed some problems.
I took a minute to do a quick check on the company. I won’ t mention the name here because the important thing is to identify these types of emails. Other companies could do the same thing.
The first thing I did was to look up the staffing manager on LinkedIn. He had an american sounding name. There was a link to his LinkedIn profile.
A couple of things stood out here (The smell of rotting fish was growing by the minute)
Check the hiring manager on LinkedIn.
- No picture on LinkedIn
- Two items in in his Experience were nothing more than a cut and paste of company information.
- The third experience item was “It Recruiter – Confidential”. Ok, this is really starting to stink.
- He has a twitter link on his LinkedIn profile but when you follow that, Twitter says “All tweets are protected”
Check reviews for the company.
For giggles, I did a quick Google search and found some Glassdoor reviews of the company. When I look for reviews, I add the word scam after the company. If you just searched for the company, then you will see mostly positive reviews. What I found was
- “their are no positives about this so called ‘professional staffing’ firm. They just collect resumes, and throw them against the wall to see what sticks.”
- “Your resume will wind up being sent around without your permission, causing you to loose out by double submissions of your resume since you would not know. Avoid ____ at all costs.”
- “They make us lie about names”
- .. and more
Call them
I called the number and spoke to the person with the American sounding name…. It was not what I would expect from a John Brown or Barry Smith.
Offshore recruiters masquerading as U.S. based.
It seems that the company is using some half baked ‘tricks’ to make them appear to be a large US based firm and not an offshore recruiter. They are playing a numbers game. Grab as many resumes as they can and throw them almost randomly at anything that looks like a fit.
Why it all matters.
The problem for the job seeker is simple. If the position mentioned in the email is real, I’m shooting myself in my foot if I send my resume to this gaggle of clowns. They will submit my resume to the hiring company with an almost non existent chance of getting an interview. Meanwhile if the same job comes in from a real recruiter (onshore or offshore) then I will lose out because I’ve already been submitted.
Let me say that I have no problem with offshore recruiters. I’ve submitted dozens of resumes through them. What I don’t like in this case is the pathetic attempt at deception.
Think carefully before replying with your resume.
