Dealing with Job consultants aka Headhunters

[Manish Hatwalne]

I am looking for a change in Job now and made my profile visible on job sites and getting some 5-10 mails everyday and some consultants are coming up with quite a a close match for my interests and do send mails about opportunities frequently, however if I show interest and ask for some specific details about Job profile and travel, onsite opportunities etc.; most of them simply don't bother to reply to the mails. Is there some way to get the relevant information from them? Is this a common experience? I have never got a job through consultant and my previous 2 assignments found me instead of me finding them. This time though I want to explore more opportunities and chances so entertaining consultants as well. Can someone share few insights about dealing with these consultants/ headhunters.

[Sandeep Awasthi]

IMHO, not to look for job change right now unless you have strong reason to do so. My (and my friend's) observation is, the very few companies which are recruiting among them 60% to 70% are recruiting on their own ( not through consultants ). This is may be due to cost cutting.
About onsite opportunities, I guess companies are trying hard for cost cutting, so it is only possible if there is no other alternative but someone has to go onsite. If consultants do not reply for queries, because they may have bunch of laid of people to choose from. That is my guess.

[Manish Hatwalne]

I don't know about your area, but here some very reputed and big companies (can't name them due to JR policies) are hiring big time. I have few friends with 3 to 5 offers in hand getting around 25% to 40% hike in CTC. I have 9+ years experience and I find lot of people with my level of experience are finding good jobs now in India. Indian economy is far more upbeat since last 1-2 months.

And yes - I do have strong reasons for change, my current company may not have any funds to pay me after a few months, so it's better to switch now rather than be in a situation where I am not in a position to negotiate. As you'd know, it's next to impossible in Indian S/W industry to negotiate good pay when you don't have a job in hand.

[Sandeep Awasthi]

Getting job is still not difficult. And yes I know few companies are hiring. But I don't think any company hiring big time, very few may exception but at least not in my observation. But what I thought is if you have (stable or rather low risk) job in hand, not to take risk at this time. But since you said there is risk at your current job, then you must look.

[Nikhil Sun]

I have few friends with 3 to 5 offers in hand getting around 25% to 40% hike in CTC

Are you serious Manish?That may sound impressive but is this 25%-40% hike inclusive of the variable pay...ie does the CTC include variable component?in that case the variable component must be very huge..In the current scenario I don't know of any company giving even 20% hike on the fixed pay..Even I know of few companies hiring now but they are holding the purse strings very tight and negotiating very hard.That is why I feel the hike range you are stating would include a big chunk of variable component.

Ans as far as headhunters are concerned,very few really know the innards of technology and the connotations of the various acronyms that form the skillsets mandated by the IT companies.Also most companies do not reveal onsite opportnities to consultants.And if you are mailing consultants you will not receive any kind of useful replies.In fact they wont bother to reply.Best is to call then up and speak to them personally.That way you will also come to know if the consultant knows his job well and what are the job specific requirements.

[Manish Hatwalne]

Nikhil Sun wrote:

I have few friends with 3 to 5 offers in hand getting around 25% to 40% hike in CTC

Are you serious Manish?That may sound impressive but is this 25%-40% hike inclusive of the variable pay...ie does the CTC include variable component?in that case the variable component must be very huge..In the current scenario I don't know of any company giving even 20% hike on the fixed pay..Even I know of few companies hiring now but they are holding the purse strings very tight and negotiating very hard.That is why I feel the hike range you are stating would include a big chunk of variable component.

Ans as far as headhunters are concerned,very few really know the innards of technology and the connotations of the various acronyms that form the skillsets mandated by the IT companies.Also most companies do not reveal onsite opportnities to consultants.And if you are mailing consultants you will not receive any kind of useful replies.In fact they wont bother to reply.Best is to call then up and speak to them personally.That way you will also come to know if the consultant knows his job well and what are the job specific requirements.

Yep, hike includes variable pay but the percentage of variable pay is almost similar across many companies here. One of them that I am talking to doesn't have any variable pay!


Very good inputs about consultants though, calling up makes sense - if only they provide me with the cell number though.

[Debashish Chakrabarty]

I was able to land up a job after a full month of search. The current spate of recruitments are very specific to requirements so for example I had a sizable experience in Portals (Vignette) and it was terribly difficult for me. The market now has huge demand for Spring/Struts + Hibernate people. Vignette requirements also demand knowledge in VCM + DPM products, a handicap for me. It was quite a frustrating period as I was already coping up with the stress of being laid off. I am glad its over.

Consultants are mostly foolish, their job is a brute-force job really, send thousands of emails and few might hit the target. They are worse than brokers. They won't bother about the exact requirement (I was getting job inquiries for Technical Writers because my resume showed a Brain Bench certification on the subject). The only job they have is to add their logo on your resume (recall they always insist on a 'Word" resume, and won't accept a PDF one) and email to clients. Apart from this they have no role to play.

However, many consultants that had good idea of requirement were ditched by the companies. IBM Pune was one such organization. They organised walk-ins for many consecutive weeks, I attended two and it was total chaos. After waiting 3 hours standing in a queue I was told they are not taking people with "more than" 8 Years experience. Some of my friends were interviewed at TeamLease consultant's facility at Pune by IBM but even after 2-3 rounds of interview were told nothing about the results. Same is with JPMC Mumbai and RBS Gurgaon requirements, consultants are flocking like bees on these but have no mechanism to ensure they follow up on your application. But there are some consultants like TD Newton who do it meticulously and even give you counseling.

In short, with consultants you cannot learn without getting your hands burnt

P.S. A thing I noted during the whole experience is that recruiters in India hardly pay attention to your website, or blogs etc (I have been blogging since 2002). So, at least for me, it didn't help at all. But that should be the topic of another discussion entirely

[Manish Hatwalne]

Very useful inputs Debashish! Thanks!

And yes, you are mostly right about blogs, websites etc. I have not seen many recruiters understanding importance of such things. On the other hand, big company names, IITs or RECs do attract their attention quickly.

[arulk pillai]

Since you have 8+ years of experience, finding a new job should not be hard.

make sure that first page of your resume highlights your wealth of experience and relevant achievements to the job posted. It will be good to have customized resumes for each job you are applying for.

[Marc Wentink]

Manish Hatwalne wrote:Is there some way to get the relevant information from them?

No!

Manish Hatwalne wrote:Is this a common experience?

Yes!

Manish Hatwalne wrote:Can someone share few insights about dealing with these consultants/ headhunters.

Just suffer them! You won't get certain information out of them, since then they recover their client, and you can apply directly to the client, and they loose commission. Personally, and I have said this before on this board, I find them absolutely annoying, and can not imagine what use their occupation has. I think they got a place in hell next to lawyers.

[Henry Wong]

I find them absolutely annoying, and can not imagine what use their occupation has. I think they got a place in hell next to lawyers.

Well, their job is to cull -- specifically, to cull you. Companies don't like to go through hundreds and hundreds of applicants for a job. They like it done for them. And a good headhunter should eliminate tons and tons of candidates before submiting only the best.

Of course, that's the theory. I remember (20 years ago) the headhunters that I worked with, were all in it for the long term. They kept in contact with you, some even became friends, and if nothing happened, it didn't bother them. Their goal was to eventually get lucky and match one of their people with one of the clients. Their culling was to only maintain long term relationships with highly talented people -- and use those highly talented people to find other highly talented people.

These days (from the way people complain here, as I don't use headhunters much, if at all), it seems that either you are perfect for the one job that they are working on, or you are completely useless. There doesn't seem to be any relationship development. Every job search seems to be one-off searches for the headhunter.

Henry

[Marc Wentink]

Well, their job is to cull -- specifically, to cull you.

I do not wanna be culled!! Most head-hunters do not have any technical knowledge. So you get mails (or rather: spam) about jobs everybody in the industry knows you're not qualified for. For example if you did a weeks SQL course at school, but you have ten years programming experience in Java, they think they can put you forward as an Oracle, how do you call that in English, DBA? Spam! But technical knowledge is for those bad dressed nerds that never shower anyway. These people are insulting. No really, I do not like them.

Companies don't like to go through hundreds and hundreds of applicants for a job.

Like they have that many applicants! Well may-be now they do. But even then a company can write an advert and let the in site lower HR personnel do all the stuff most head-hunter do. Screening C.V.'s for technical words they do not know the meaning of. Even better, you can let a software program do that, and automatically send mails. (And well yes, headhunter agencies probably do such a thing even.)

Sorry. I really really really cannot stand these people.

[Sree Chinna]

Is this a common experience?

It has been common experience these days. Even if you send your profile without asking any questions, still, don't expect any call/email from the consultant. A few years back, the consultants used to acknowledge the receipt of the resume and they used to keep the candidate updated. In fact, some were so good that they used to develop PR (as pointed out by Henry).

The consultant who referred me to my present company is still in touch and he sends greetings for festivals and keeps sending new openings available with them.

As already pointed out by someone, I think there are few good players in the market. Most of the current head hunters are very dumb. It might sound exaggerating as I say this. Recently, my friend got a call from a consultant. My friend asked him the job description but the consultant hardly had any idea. He always mentioned about the technologies but nothing about the JD. As my friend says, he kept repeating the statement that there is huge requirement from junior to very senior level positions. My friend wanted to know, for which position he is being considered but alas! the consultant had no idea.

Previously, head hunters used to read the resume and screen the candidates. Now its has become a dumb business where they appear to be paid for spamming and picking up 40 or 50 resumes by a lottery.