Craigslist and career searchers

You know what's sexy about my job? Everything. Really. Stop and think about it. I have my own office. I work half days on Fridays. I get emails in the middle of the night that I am expected to respond to first thing in the morning when I wake up and I steal my neighbor's internet signal while sitting in my underpants (today my underpants are Homer Simpson with a Duff beer) and watching Scarface. I don't think I'm allowed to 'get' this movie because I'm not a hiphop artist and it is no longer 1983. By the way, when I did a google image search for Scarface, I came across a piece of fan-art that was the Scarface movie poster but it had Homer Simpson on it instead. I think that might have been a bit too on the nose for this entry.

One of the tenfinity projects that I am working on right now is a temp-to-perm telemarketing position. See, I told you my job was sexy. Recruiting and hiring telemarketers? You bet! If you've ever tried to hire a high volume position, you know that if you can get the applicant to show up for the interview and they don't drive their car through the front of your office building then chances are they are going to get the job. That's not a knock on the applicant, just a knock on the job. I wouldn't want to do telemarketing. You probably wouldn't either. I am going to let you in on a little secret: the best way to get applicants for a high volume position is to run an ad on craigslist. And, oh, the emails you will get.

And get.

And get.

And get.

I've been emailing back and forth with one candidate over the past two days; most of the time it has been while I'm wearing clothes. This morning, however, that was not the case. And what kind of email would prompt a response from me in pure underpantsian bliss? One that read the following:

"Stephen, I don't have a resume. I'd probably just quit the job anyway. Thank you, Miranda."

The first part doesn't bother me too much. Not as much as, say, Cher sitting on a battleship. I've talked to plenty of executives who don't have a resume. The second part [remember when she wrote "I'd probably just quit the job anyway."?!?!?!?!?!?!] probably won't inspire me to reach out to this candidate any further. And to think that she was merely a didn't-crash-her-car-through-our-front-office away from getting hired.

By the way, what the hell is Robert Loggia doing in Scarface anyway? His real name is Salvatore and he's Italian-American. He's about as Hispanic as I am. Repeat that previous statement and insert just about anyone else's name: F. Murray Abraham, Al Pacino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, etc... and the effect remains the same. It's like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with the lack of British actors. Screw you, Sean Connery is Scottish.

I know that times are tough. The economy has been swirling the toilet for a few years now. I know that people are having a hard time finding a job. I also know that if the only requirement for getting a job was not crashing a car through an office window, which in the case of finding a few telemarketers to work on the north side of Nashville it pretty much is, it should be pretty easy to find a job. As a professional recruiter (and judging from the tone of this entry, you can tell how fuckin' profesh I am), I would recommend not communicating to a recruiter or hiring manager that you would probably just quit. Not the smartest move. The only thing it's going to make them want to do is just roll over and go back to sleep in their underpants. Trust me. I'm an expert on these things.