Biggish week

Today I applied for two jobs.

My total number of applications for this week is 19 (remember my weekly target is 5)!

But I've had zero bites this week. That's not so good.

Meetings

As usual in the afternoon I phoned the recruiters to whom I'd sent emails in the morning.

I got through to one but they asked if I could phone back as they were in a meeting.

What?

My view is that if you're in a meeting your phone should be switched off or diverted.

(OK, when I managed support teams I kept my mobile on but set to a silent mode. That way I could surreptiously see if someone had sent me a text message telling me a server was down or whatever. And participants in the meeting understood that I could run out at anytime - not that I ever did as I don't like running).

The recruiter said he'd call back in half an hour. And guess what?


He did.

But this was only to tell me he wasn't going to put my name forward - too long a career gap.

Still, I was quite impressed that he phoned back.

Other calls
I phoned another agency today and he said they'd call back. And guess what?


He didn't.

I also phoned the agency fronting the job in Duesseldorf (and this is how you spell its name unless you have umlauts on your PC). The agent wasn't around but I was assured by his colleague that he would have got back to me if there was any news - and from my experience of that agency I can believe them.

Agency risks
I know the market is tight and a lot of people are applying for jobs with IT agencies. And I know that, because of the recession, a lot of IT agencies are themselves under pressure.

Nevertheless, in my normal roles I get heavily involved in companies' IT recruitment processes with agencies. This is clear on my c.v.

So I would have thought it would be in agencies interest not to antagonise me with slack behaviour. The day will come when I'm back recruiting and I'll be choosing recruitment agencies to help me. The ones who don't return calls, don't give feedback, don't call when they say they will, won't be doing business with me.

There's one agency in particular who recognises this fact and are very good. They haven't found me a job (and I'm not looking for special treatment from them) but they have made the effort to keep in touch. A few other agencies - actually they're more search and selection consultants - have done the same.