I have no network in Oakland, and it feels like I've been throwing resumes into a black hole. So I started looking in to staffing agencies. I saw a online post that this agency was having a job fair.
It wasn't a job fair. A job fair is when employers all set up little tables in a shitty conference room. This was an open house where you could walk in and talk to their recruiters...something you could do any day of the week, I imagine.
There were two recruiters sitting in one cubicle chatting. They told me to fill out the questionnaire on the table and pointed...sorta.
So, I took the 1.5 minutes to fill out the crappy little questionnaire, and then I sat listening to them gossip for five minutes.
Finally, I stood up and walked over and waited for one of them to acknowledge me.
One was wearing Uggs... this should have been a sign to turn around and walk out.
They literally both sighed and rolled their eyes and one of them said, "I'll take him."
We sit down, and I hand her my resume. She pays no attention. She asks if I registered online, and I say yes. She pulls up my record and says, "I can't do anything with you until you finish your online profile."
I tell her that I'm happy to finish the online profile and then I sketch out what I'm looking for in terms of employment. I ask if that's something her agency can work with.
Impatiently, she says, "Sir, I can't look in to anything for you until you finish your online profile. I need to see your education history and work experience."
I point out that my resume - which she has completely ignored - contains all of that information.
I notice that she keeps fidgeting and looking over to the other side of her desk. I glance over - there is a fucking ice cream sandwich melting onto her desk! It's sitting in a stained Starbucks lid dripping onto the desktop.
She sees me starring at the sandwich and then back at her. She mumbles something about how I'll need to be tested and provide a couple of forms of ID.
"I can see that you're more interested in your snack than working with me, so I'll just go."
She says that she can find me something, but that its my fault for not reading the post correctly.
I get that often times, recruiters end up playing sort of case manager to folks with inconsistent employment history...and that's a tough job. But the attitude given to me by the recruiter indicated that she was unorganized, unprofessional and likely ineffective at her job. I don't want to work with an agency that makes people like her their first contact point. read more