(Talkin’ ’bout) my generation

Someone, somewhere, has been viewing my LinkedIn profile.

I know this, see, because I’ve had a couple of calls and emails from various recruitment agencies, and I’ve seen that recruitment ‘specialists’ have left their footprints all over LinkedIn. One of them called me out of the blue at work. When it became clear that I’m not looking to leave my current job at the moment he asked if I knew anyone else who might be appropriate. He subsequently sent me another couple of openings.

The thing is, of course I’ll help my friends find jobs, and if we have an opening I’ll think about who may be looking and be suitable. But I’m not about to become a freelance, unpaid recruitment service.

None of this is new (unless you’ve never worked outside academia, perhaps). The IT field in particular seems to specialize in boneheaded recruitment tales—or maybe sysadmins and programmers and the like just complain about it more. There’s probably a TV series in there, if it hasn’t been done already.

Anyway, this recruiter was pretty good, on the whole. We had a chat about where are nice places to work and live, and the kind of salaries one might expect in this business, and he hasn’t hassled me about sending him business. So, I like that.

However, I received an email from another recruitment agency that, frankly, makes me want to run a mile. The agency appears to be London-based (at least, that’s what I’m getting from a whois on the domain name. They don’t appear to have a website), and they certainly seem to want to appear knowledgeable about my field, but the English doesn’t exactly inspire confidence:

“Account manager with a well know agency based in London.”

“Programme Director directing the role out and development of a medical education program across Europe […] delivering events throughout Europe to support the campaigns roll out.”

“Client Services Director for a well know medical education agency”

“have a chat about you options going forward”

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Yes, I know that this cove is a recruiter and neither a writer nor an editor. But he’s trying to attract writers and editors, and if there’s one thing likely to make writers and editors reach for the valium (or a rifle, whichever’s closest) it’s stupid mistakes in any written material that leaves the building. So if you really do know your field, and you want to get the person to fulfill your client’s vacancies, you’d better make sure everything is spelled correctly (and that you know the difference between ‘role’ and roll’, for example).

(Admittedly the job titles in this particular email tended to be account- and project manglement-related; but those positions are frequently filled by wordsmiths in this business. And if they’re not, the manglers in question will have had their ears sufficiently burned by wordsmiths that they know how important all this malarkey is. One of my very young account manglers is in fact so well trained that she’ll run all her client contact reports by me before sending them off.

)

So, Mr Recruiter, no I will not be discussing potential rolls in any of your well know agencies, at Program nor Programme director level—at least not with with your.

And please, please please please, understand that “Salary – highly competitive salary and package” is as meaningless as the phrase “trustworthy politician”. Nobody’s going to tell you they pay fucking peanuts, are they?