There has been a push or mor accurately a desperation grab by technical recruiters to use Indians for the vetting process. This is always an unmitigated disaster. The ones that are “priced right” don’t know shit. Worse, they subcontract out the actual work to people who know even less.
Cox Communications
Today’s foray into the realm of “priced right” technical recruiters is brought to you by Cox Communications. Obviously they have a vendor management system run by one of the shit firms. (KForce, APEX, Tata, etc.) Floodgates opened before 8am with phone calls and emails. They were correct. My resume is an incredibly good fit for that project. The vast majority didn’t bother to read the top of my resume.
You betcha, most were working through APEX. Besides being a bottom feeding firm, APEX has the most incompetent technical recruiters. They keyword search an online resume database for one keyword then email and call the people without looking at a resume.
This is how convicted felons get hired
You know the firm these callers/spammers are working through is a serious shit firm when they mandate a LinkedIn profile. Shit firms mandate a LinkedIn profile because they don’t actually do a background check, just say they do. They glance at your LI profile and call it george.
I kid you not!
A firm I know and respect found a candidate that had been working at some client sites they do business with. All of those sites mandate a background check. Technical recruiter I know submitted him to the client. Dude did three interviews and got an offer. Because this is a legitimate firm, not an Indian consulting firm, they actually paid for a formal background check. This dude was a convicted felon. Client site loved him and said they could overlook a DUI. It was not a DUI. Don’t know exactly what it was, but recruiter told me “he was a really bad dude.”
Most legitimate IT consulting firms won’t touch an IT consultant that has been working for Indian firms. They’ve all had this experience. Do you really think people put their prison time on LinkedIn profiles when they are trying to get IT jobs?
You MBAs who think you are saving money with a vendor management system better think again. How many of you have not only corporate policies, but federal and/or state regulations baring you from using convicted felons? Best look up what the criminal penalties are for yourself when this inconvenient truth surfaces.
32,767 layers
You know it screams cam when the technical recruiter you can barely understand on the phone claims to be working directly for the company submitting you and the RTR has a different person and company named on it. Not only did I have to deal with roughly 15 phone calls and possibly 30 emails about this, one of the phone calls was from someone claiming to be this guy’s boss and from what I could make out he had a different company name.
At this point it would be appropriate for you to read about hiring scam #1. While you’re at it, read up on 24-MAG. They run a different scam but skilled IT consultants are put off when a process very close to hiring scam #1 appears.
The bottom line is, with the shit process you have in place using “priced right” technical recruiters, the consultant cannot tell who they work for. This is critical when they are going to have to sue them to get paid.
What you don’t understand is that you are filling out a credit application with us.
It is your responsibility to both vet and front credit to your client. When we agree to work with you we have issued you a personal loan that you are responsible for paying. We don’t give a rat’s ass if your client wants monthly invoicing with 600-day terms. That’s your problem, not ours. If you don’t get paid, it’s not our problem.
We need one entity with a U.S. nexus and bank account to drag into court when you try to stiff us.
W-2 Only
The ultimate warning gong is a “consulting firm” that works W-2 only. For clearance work you generally don’t have a subcontracting option, but for everything else, W-2 only screams shit firm.
Myself and most of the senior consultants I know formed our own companies years ago. Most of us went with Sole Proprietorship because Schedule C tax filing was straightforward and you could open a KEOGH to put up to 20% of your net income in. At the time all forms of “corporations,” even subchapter-S, had a lot of legal and paperwork requirements.
Though nobody does it, you are legally obligated to take out a loan and pay yourself a salary when you are working if you have a subchapter-S. Read the fine print baby. When the IRS gets the staff to come for you, expect a big fine and to do a bit of time.
Senior developers immediately say they work 1099 only just to weed out the shit firms.
Insult to Professionals
These muddling through the English language phone calls are a massive insult to professionals. This cut & paste from a vendor management system isn’t doing your image any favors either.
They didn’t just use C++ and they won’t just use C++ on the Linux platform. The UI will have to be developed using a toolkit. Real consulting firms know to ask for this information. You and your English muddling minions didn’t. It makes a difference.
If they are planning on using DOT-NOT-everywhere on Linux to “port” this application they failed before they started. There is one DOT-NOT-everywhere application in the Linux universe. Evolution. Nobody uses it. Even the Gnome wiki page is discontinued for it. The Wikipedia page is wrong. Thunderbird and BetterBird are still actively developed. New versions come out several times per year.
God forbid they used a RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool to generate their application in C/C++. Read my Agile book to see how that era of IT went. You aren’t “porting” that code. It was unmaintainable.
Technical Recruiters Used to Be Professionals
In the 80’s and 90’s the Chicago area had the TRN (Technical Recruiter Network). It’s members read the weekly trade rags not because they wanted to be developers but because they wanted to know what went with what. Computer World was always scoffed at by IT professionals. It had a well deserved reputation for being 1mm deep and 5 miles wide. Of use to MBAs and technical recruiters so they knew what buzzwords should be strung together in a sentence, and, more importantly, which ones shouldn’t.
When a req like the one above hit their desk the first thing they would do was kick it back with a list of questions about what toolkits. Instinctively they would know you can’t do this with just C++. There are other libraries and frameworks being used. The word “port” would set off red flags for them to find out what toolkits and frameworks were used for the original system. They didn’t code, but even they knew you couldn’t port the RAD stuff.
When you send the English muddling minions out on the phones, you prove to the world you are not a professional technical recruiter.
Congratulations!
Congratulations Dave at Wiverse. Off-shoring this makes you more productive just like Ex-Lax makes a human more productive!
There’s now a new box at the top of my resume.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the bottom of the IT industry! Take a bow!
