Of headhunters and IT service companies
Posted Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 10:26 am by Clair Ching
Viewed 3932 times | Related entries: Software
Recently, our office has been bombarded by calls from headhunters. Funny thing is that it seems to be that they’re calling our developers one by one. And it was practically one after the other. They’ve been declining the offers because they’re happy working with us and yet we still kept getting those calls from headhunters during office hours!
Where the heck do these headhunters get info? From company websites, LinkedIn, etc. among other places perhaps. But for crying out loud, some of these headhunters even pretend they’re making personal calls, using aliases — one person has been mainly answering the phone and so she’d notice that the voice of the caller is the same.
Aiya. I know that the IT industry is having difficulty getting developers because of the attractive opportunities in Singapore but I personally think that even though it’s somehow flattering that our developers are being called up, it’s annoying when those headhunters just can’t even do their recruitment discreetly. I think that people will look for jobs when they want to and if you’re a headhunter, you should try other methods rather than calling the person’s office number. Really. That or make arrangements with the company if you want to hire a person maybe for staff augmentation or what-not. But seriously, if a person is looking for another job, he’d call you or respond to your email or call some other time.
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8 Responses to “Of headhunters and IT service companies”
Clair,
This is funny. I always get called by headhunters through my cellfone — probably lifted from my online resumes. I guess some of them can get really desperate to have the gall to call office numbers instead.
[...] could not help but chuckle at this post on Pinoy Tech Blog. Headhunters attempting to lure employees are realities in a corporate [...]
[...] reminded of this incident, after reading Clair’s post on PTB. If you’re wondering how people get your office number, that may be one way how [...]
Jon: Haha. Yeah, probably that. Pero at least those are online resumes. Meaning, your number is meant to be seen through those numbers. Pero calling the office is too much already na.
Joel: That bit of news is interesting.
Mon: Indeed. If your staff is happy, they’d stay with you. I can’t help but agree with you
[...] The Pinoy Tech Blog wonders why headhunters are actually calling office numbers [...]
Could it be that they are building their own databases and these are all new companies? How many headhunter startups are cropping up recently? I’m surmising that it’s a backyard industry already or it’s a guise for some other purpose…
Several of these headhunters have approached me as well, and i’d bet 3 of 5 are not legit. I said let’s discuss it – only to end up not returning half the time. I wouldn’t trust any of these guys easily if I were you.
I work in an IT service company in Tokyo… Many of our clients are financial or tech headhunters, and let me tell you — they will stop at nothing to build up their databases. They lie to receptionists to get through… They phone each of a company’s direct-dial numbers in the middle of the night, letting the voice mail pick up so they know the person’s name at each phone number… And of course, there are the old standbys like Linkedin and the job-hunting sites. I still get calls from headhunters who still have my name in their database from 3 years ago when I first came to Tokyo and was looking for a job.
Interesting to hear it’s also going on in the Philippines, guess it’s a worldwide phenomenon for us IT guys…
jdavies: Hmm, maybe they are building their databases but that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to just call any office and call for the staff one by one especially if it’s a small office. Then again, they probably don’t know if the office would be small or not.
Drew: Really? Rawr. That’s quite bad, them waiting for the answering machine, I mean.
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