I didn't trim this post when replying, because I think Jackie's post is a great read. I'd like to thank Jackie as well as Will for this informative thread. I think that a face to face with recruiters at a local chapter of your favourite UX/IxD/UPA/IA meeting would be helpful.
Helen On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Jackie O'Hare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > At the risk of really getting you guys going - I'd like to take a stab > at this. > I've been a creative recruiter for two years, working at a company > that's been around for 30 years, working primarily in tech and creative, > so I know at least a little about what is going on.... > > To start with - NO - most of us do not have a specialized degree; > however, a good number of us have worked in the advertising/creative > industries at some point in our careers. I started as a fresh grad with > an English degree from a liberal arts school. I got my job because I > have excellent communication skills, am a quick learner, and have an eye > for design. > > So, NO, we don't actually do what you do. Most of us are not hands on > designers, information architects, or interaction designers. I had a > client once who was outraged that I couldn't read HTML code to determine > whether it would be pixel perfect - I told her that if I could, I > wouldn't be doing my job, I would be coding! In other words, if we > could do what you guys do, barring some exceptions we would be doing it, > not recruiting. > > My company is very specialized, so 98% of the orders we work on are the > same song and dance. We know the types of candidates who do it, often > we are friendly with them, and are able to get our clients the talent > they want and our candidates the exact type of work they are looking > for. Everyone is happy and there is much rejoicing in the streets! > > That said, sometimes we do get an order that we don't understand. I am > guilty of once writing a job ad that read something like, "first you > wash the LAMP with the SOAP". At my company, when we don't understand > an order we do a variety of things to get clarity - online research, > drill the client, call up a candidate we have a relationship with that > can shed some light on it (one of our recruiters is married to a hybrid > AD/Flash Developer at an NYC agency, so he gets calls sometimes). All > of those things completed, though, sometimes we still don't understand > and we have a client that is crying and wants to give us money to find > someone to help them. This is when things get troublesome. > > We often are forced to rely on skill searches to direct us to a > candidate pool - so if you have the appropriate language on your resume, > you will be worth calling in times of great desperation. (Also - our > own candidate database is the most poorly designed piece of crap > software that I have ever seen or tried to work with - but again, that's > something that we can't fix because we don't have the software > engineering skills to pull that off.) We often know that you haven't > coded HTML/CSS for several years when we call. We know that your IDEAL > position is not what we are presenting you with. But sometimes - > probably more often than you'd believe - the stars line up and a > candidate who is a little rusty in a particular area happens to be > willing to do some work for a very desperate client for the proper > amount of compensation. This won't happen, though, unless we make the > call. > > Recruiters aspire to be matchmakers. It is "personal" in that way. > However, sometimes in a desperate attempt to keep our clients happy, we > have to make embarrassing cold calls. I don't like it any more than you > guys do. > > I hope that helps and I'm bracing for your responses. > > Jackie O'Hare | Manager of Interactive Recruitment > TTS Personnel, Inc > Jackie at ttspersonnel dot com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
