This is exactly how I got hired for my current job nearly 4 years ago. I'm pretty sure I didn't say much of anything for an hour. The hiring manager spoke the entire time. Best interview I've ever had.
A couple of the biggest problems I have with most headhunting and HR departments : 1) They usually don't have an understanding of what they're looking for (not entirely their fault), yet they both are the first line of filtering of resumes. 2) Headhunting companies are trying to make money off of the interviewee and inteviewer. The interviewee may ask for a salary that the interviewer would be willing to pay, but they'll never meet because the headhunter isn't making enough money off the interviewee, so he won't forward the resume on. Things like this keep getting companies garbage resumes or people without a great skillset, while qualified people (who deserve to be paid more) are sitting around twiddling their thumbs hoping to get hired. Hiring at companies is often a joke. I still remember the bright canary yellow resume some lady gave us that had an image of Donald the Duck bashing a computer at the top by her name. I thought she was disturbed, but apparently another co-worker loved working with her, so we brought her in. She was clueless. She was hired because she was "hawt". Joy. Good looks don't make up for this kind of dumb. This was one of the few reasons I hated the dot com bubble... tons of people being hired that just should not have been.
If I need a new job I just put this on my resume'... <marquee> KINGCHEETAH 512-YOUR-MOM</marquee> ...and yes it marquees on 25 weight cotton linen paper.
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My company instated HR into the company last year.Somehow I keep making them want to show off their new HR prowess ... It has its benefits, but at times it seems like an unnecessary barrier to some things. Such as immediate communication, instead of trying to gather and build up data to reach a conclusion.
Thats really the worst kept secret of them all. That and the periodic "need some eye candy in here" hire. The list did mention "don't be fat" and "don't be old". Which is basically saying be HOT, and the door opens more.
Completely, absolutely true. Some have brought their mothers, fathers, spouses, and children to the interview. Ugh.
^Agreed..but what's wrong with hiring hawt girls? And with #17, its a double edged sword, as you want to let them talk and talk, but if you never sell yourself, how will they remember you?
On #17...in my case, they had purposely brought me in last because I was their top candidate (yeah, a bit back a**wards but that's how the hr person here did things then). I think I was essentially hired when I came in for the interview. The hiring manager just talked and talked for an hour. I got some words in for myself on occasion but not much. I was hired 2 days later...
I think my interview went horrible at a staffing agency. After the interview was complete, the interviewer spent 10 minutes introducing me to 2 other recruiters and talking about my experience. Can I take this as a good sign? If they did not like me, they would not introduce me to other recruiters.
I have got calls from recruiters before. I would just stay away. They will most likely just take your resume and just submit it to a company when you could do the same by just looking at their website. Like you can take the description they send you put it on google and find the actual job posting. Most of them have no idea what the job is other than the keywords. For example API could mean different things to different classes of engineers, but they have no idea.
The problem with HR in different companies is that it ranges from horrible to really good and it depends on how much the organization is willing to spend in terms of time and money to hire the good people. Studying I-O Psychology, I know that HR can be ineffective if all they're allowed to do are simple interviews while winging the questions. Unfortunately, like in my internships, smaller companies don't want to take the time and money to do multiple interviews or develop standardized and structured questionnaires and the like that will assess which applicants are best suited for the job. So HR will just resort to the computer scans or use arbitrary means of weeding out candidates.
Cool beans (who says that anymore..?), let's bring in more tips. I think I've gotten the resume thing down, but interviews really kill me. I've only had 1 interview where I kicked ass, got accepted, but didn't last with the company. Any more helpful tips about interviews? Like do's/don'ts on what to wear? I hear anything with yellow on it is a no-go. Also I've always been stuck on questions the interviewee should ask to the HR people...
You can never tell. In some cases, recruiters just ask specifics about how your interview went so they can get a better idea of what the company is expecting and pass that on to the next interviewee so their chances of being hired may be better. Did you actually interview with the company you'd be working at or did you just interview with a headhunting firm?
Your problem here sometimes is that many jobs aren't posted on company websites and possibly even worse, many companies will only accept resumes from internal referrals or from "authorized" 3rd parties (headhunters) they have on a list. So may not be able to submit your resume on your own.