No Questions Without A Resume
As someone who is currently unemployed and looking for work I have had the opportunity to talk with many recruiters over the last several weeks. One such conversation, which happened via email, made me think.
I was emailed a job listing by a friend of mine. The listing was very generic but interested me just enough to ask for more information. So I emailed the contact person asking three questions:
- Where is the job located?
- What is the approximate salary range/rate?
- What programming languages are being used at the client?
I thought all these questions were fair. I wasn’t asking for any information that would be confidential to the client. And if by some chance confidential information would have needed to be disclosed in order to answer one of these questions I would have understood. All the recruiter would have needed to do was say so (hopefully in a polite way).
But the questions themselves are reasonable. I needed to know the location so I could determine if the commute is feasible. I wanted to know the approximate salary range/rate to see if it was in the ballpark of where I need it to be. I didn’t need an exact number as I’m sure a final number would have been commensurate with experience and other factors. And since the listing said it required someone with programming experience and to expect a test in programming at the interview I thought it was fair to ask what language they were looking for.
I got back a terse reply that said that I should send in my resume. I then replied explaining the above and that it would be a waste of time for both of us if I were to send my resume only to find out that the job was 100 miles away from home or was for someone with far less/more experience than me or that I had no experience in the programming language they desired.
The reply back from this headhunter was just one word: “Sorry”.
It’s not the first time I’ve had this conversation with a recruiter but it got me thinking. Everybody has their own concerns when looking for a job and their own set of questions they ask before they will send in their resume. I imagine that most people would ask my first question and many people would ask one or both of the others. These are practical questions that are asked for the sole purpose of figuring out if the position is one that is worth pursuing. So why would a recruiter be so adamant to not even discuss them with a prospective applicant unless they have a resume?
Realizing what has been going on with the economy recently and especially aware of the lackluster job market I sent my resume to this recruiter despite not getting answers to my questions only to find out that I was not the right fit for the job. Had my questions been answered to begin with I would have known that before I sent in my resume.
The bottom line is that no matter how much or little sense it makes the recruiter can give or withhold any information they want about a job until a resume or other milestone is reached in the timeline of the application process. They can do this of their own volition so they have your resume on file for a later date or by request from their client for whatever reason the client may have. As the job seeker you have no choice but to play by their rules. Sometimes this leads to a miss, as the experience I described did. But sometimes it may lead to a big hit. And, as much as I hate to admit it, you’ll never know until they have your resume. So send it.
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