For the past couple of weeks I’ve been a bit down. I’ve been waking up every day in a nightmare that I faced two years ago: Dealing with London recruitment agents.
When I first moved to London in January of 2005, I hit a series of walls. In order to find a job, I trawled through hundreds of internet sites, fired off thousands of tailored CVs and made – as well as received – hundreds of cold-calls from high-octane, fast talking recruitment agents.
But back then – and again now in deja-vu – these agents rattle off briefs and specs and speak as if I already have the role they’re pitching. They use words like “fab location”, “stunning offices” and “brilliant benefits.” Sometimes they get so excited I feel as if I could write cheques on what they say. But bounce, bounce, bounce.
They never call back. Or their PAs tell me that are always in meetings (despite one incident where the PA forgot to cover the mouthpiece when asking the agent if he was in.) Or my email inbox fills up with thousands of “AUTO-REPLY” messages, cut from a templates about “not right at this time” and “keeping me on file.”
For my entire 28 years of pre-London life, if I wanted a certain job I would just walk into head office, speak to the boss, make him/her laugh, shake their hand, and get the job.
But not in London. They like things to be complicated here. In a funny way, using a CV and an agent to get a job is kind of like dating: there are a lot of games involved as well as masking of true character.
So how does an employer in London see the real me and all my skills instead of my CV in a pile?
Oh my! The last time I asked a question like that, I set up AreYouMyWife.com, went around the world, asked CeCe out on the Ultimate Date and came back to where I started.
So maybe I should set up AreYouMyJOB! Yea! I could make it no rules, worldwide, dare bosses to interview me instead of trusting a potentially BS-CV and some Redbull-chugging, quota-having, sales-driven recruitment agent!
Hmmmmm….. so many ideas here.
But finally history repeated itself. Back when I first got to London I would finally meet a quality recruitment agent in the teeming masses of crappy ones who believed in me as a person, not just as a paper, and told me what my problem was: my CV. It wasn’t “Londonized.”
One day, she invited me to her office and sat me down with my CV and a red pen. Where I might have written “answered phones”, she wrote “liaised with suppliers and operations in a client facing role.” I hadn’t “written a book” but “produced copy in an agency facing role.” I hadn’t been a “CSR” but a “Team coordinator in a front line consumer facing role.”
Systematically, this wonderful agent “buzz-worded” my CV. Because in London, it’s all about titles. With that, she got me onto a playing field on which I never lose: THE INTERVIEW.
I love job interviews. I thrive on them. I treat them like friends having a discussion: I have fun, I make people laugh, and I handle questions and objections and always get offered a job.
Back to the present: Yesterday a recruitment agent who is a friend of a friend called. He sounded bored. He was going through the motions asking me routine questions about my CV when… SUDDENLY! ... and excitedly, he asked: “What kind of bike do you have?”
He had come to the last section of my CV: Hobbies/Sports. The first entry was mountain biking.
Next thing I knew he invited me to his office to show me his mountain bike. Then we went to the pub. Between talking about suspension, fat tires, cranks and Z-frames, (but never mud-guards), this wonderful agent once again tailored my CV to what he needed to get me into the interview room.
I guess it’s not just who you know, but what you know… about bikes.
When I first moved to London in January of 2005, I hit a series of walls. In order to find a job, I trawled through hundreds of internet sites, fired off thousands of tailored CVs and made – as well as received – hundreds of cold-calls from high-octane, fast talking recruitment agents.
But back then – and again now in deja-vu – these agents rattle off briefs and specs and speak as if I already have the role they’re pitching. They use words like “fab location”, “stunning offices” and “brilliant benefits.” Sometimes they get so excited I feel as if I could write cheques on what they say. But bounce, bounce, bounce.
They never call back. Or their PAs tell me that are always in meetings (despite one incident where the PA forgot to cover the mouthpiece when asking the agent if he was in.) Or my email inbox fills up with thousands of “AUTO-REPLY” messages, cut from a templates about “not right at this time” and “keeping me on file.”For my entire 28 years of pre-London life, if I wanted a certain job I would just walk into head office, speak to the boss, make him/her laugh, shake their hand, and get the job.
But not in London. They like things to be complicated here. In a funny way, using a CV and an agent to get a job is kind of like dating: there are a lot of games involved as well as masking of true character.
So how does an employer in London see the real me and all my skills instead of my CV in a pile?
Oh my! The last time I asked a question like that, I set up AreYouMyWife.com, went around the world, asked CeCe out on the Ultimate Date and came back to where I started.
So maybe I should set up AreYouMyJOB! Yea! I could make it no rules, worldwide, dare bosses to interview me instead of trusting a potentially BS-CV and some Redbull-chugging, quota-having, sales-driven recruitment agent!
Hmmmmm….. so many ideas here.
But finally history repeated itself. Back when I first got to London I would finally meet a quality recruitment agent in the teeming masses of crappy ones who believed in me as a person, not just as a paper, and told me what my problem was: my CV. It wasn’t “Londonized.”
One day, she invited me to her office and sat me down with my CV and a red pen. Where I might have written “answered phones”, she wrote “liaised with suppliers and operations in a client facing role.” I hadn’t “written a book” but “produced copy in an agency facing role.” I hadn’t been a “CSR” but a “Team coordinator in a front line consumer facing role.”
Systematically, this wonderful agent “buzz-worded” my CV. Because in London, it’s all about titles. With that, she got me onto a playing field on which I never lose: THE INTERVIEW.
I love job interviews. I thrive on them. I treat them like friends having a discussion: I have fun, I make people laugh, and I handle questions and objections and always get offered a job.
Back to the present: Yesterday a recruitment agent who is a friend of a friend called. He sounded bored. He was going through the motions asking me routine questions about my CV when… SUDDENLY! ... and excitedly, he asked: “What kind of bike do you have?”
He had come to the last section of my CV: Hobbies/Sports. The first entry was mountain biking.
Next thing I knew he invited me to his office to show me his mountain bike. Then we went to the pub. Between talking about suspension, fat tires, cranks and Z-frames, (but never mud-guards), this wonderful agent once again tailored my CV to what he needed to get me into the interview room.
I guess it’s not just who you know, but what you know… about bikes.
