Than recruiters  of the poor soul who is looking for a job.   I am at a stage in my life where I am about to bang my lap top on the fine coffe table at Caribou coffee.   Just moved to Raleig,NC from New Haven, CT and I am dealing with one stupid recruiter after another.   Applying for the usual array of jobs of course...Here is a list of questions I am being asked here:

 1.   How many years of C# development.  

 2.  How many have been ADO.NET.  ( Why would a manager want to hire a C# developer who has no clue what a dataset).

3.   Have you ever worked on win forms.  

4.  Have you ever worked on XML.(   When I hire people, I intend to give my recuiter a tech interview).  

5.  Have you ever worked on SQL?  What about Oracle SQL. 

 Ok, I have not looked for a job in over a year so what am I doing wrong here..

 ... What? In what way does your title refer to the post?

 

Doctor Steel:

 ... What? In what way does your title refer to the post?

 

"Pimps ask their 'hos' more intelligent questions than the questions recruiters ask me"

 Not that I really get what is going on either.

 Also, wtf? When I hit backspace it deletes two characters o.O

Keeping in mind that most recruiters are about as technical as my cat, why do you feel these questions are particularly wtf-worthy? 

-cw

gain skill in how to talk to those who have no idea what they are talking about...? Keep in mind, it, like many things is just a game... a retarded one.

 

What I hate are the rate yourself on a scale from 1-10 questions... So this recruiter asks me to rate myself 1-10 on a number of languages... This is after we have talked, in plain english btw, about what I have been doing in and what my skill levels are. I'm guessing he couldn't follow that, or just thinks this is a great tool to pull out of his recruiter expertise.

He mentions J2EE, I say 7. (There are many senior developers who understand J2EE much more indepth than I do, this is what I explain to him)

C, so I say 10.

Now my resume also states 6 more years of Java than it did for C, not to mention J2EE. So this confused him greatly as he didn't seem to understand how Java != J2EE, or the concept that J2EE is a platform, thus much larger than just a language. I'm guessing he thinks these are all the same in portion but just different flavors! of course! because when a programming language is drafted, it is must be as equally complex as the rest, no more no less, otherwise, according to his thinking... maybe people wouldn't buy the programming language and ask for their money back because they didn't get as much! Yet another protip to add to his knowledgebase.

 

TBH, in my area at least, the only good recruiters were downtown. This is just my experience in the baltimore area.

If those questions are coming from the recruiter, they are not that all that unusual nor bad.  He's trying to get a good idea of what your skills are so he knows what opportunities would be a good fit.  It's actually a good thing for you, the recruiter, and the companies he deals with since he'll be less likely to send in your resume for positions you aren't qualified for - at least that's the theory.

cablecar:

 Also, wtf? When I hit backspace it deletes two characters o.O

Welcome to Community Server.  Get used to it. 

If they ask "Do you know technology X" questions, just give them the generic answer back. As in

"I love working with X, i've used it before on project A, B and C. I have a high confidence level in working with X, and am sure to adapt quickly when job Y uses it." 

Depending on the amount of "Do you know tech. X" questions, you might need to think up a few variations of the above.  

Waddaulookingat:

 2.  How many have been ADO.NET.  ( Why would a manager want to hire a C# developer who has no clue what a dataset).

 

Two thoughts pop in to my head here.  First, I read that as ASP.NET before I read your parenthetical.  So perhaps they just got confused?

Secondly, not everyone that uses C# uses ADO.NET, even for data applications.  I started an app in VB.Net and was using ADO.NET for about 3 or 4 months.  Then switched to NHibernate, and later the project got converted to C#.  So techincally, I've done C# for about a year, with 0 of those years being in ADO.NET :)

 

Recruiters ususaly do not have the skills to check if you really have experience in C# or ADO.NET. So you should not expect questions like "what does method x in class y do?"

They ask those simple, generic questions and if you answer "5 years of C#, 4 years of ADO.NET" they will arrange an interview for a job that requires those skills. The nice people there will ask those more difficult questions. If you blow it (like: having no clue about C#), you won't get the job and the recruiter will be pissed off.

ammoQ:

They ask those simple, generic questions and if you answer "5 years of C#, 4 years of ADO.NET" they will arrange an interview for a job that requires those skills. The nice people there will ask those more difficult questions. If you blow it (like: having no clue about C#), you won't get the job and the recruiter will be pissed off probably won't give a fuck because you're one of four thousand resumes they dumped on the company.

FTFY

Well week one of job search in the books.   Interview one ...couple of potentials..

Interview One( Telephone )

Tech Lead:  "Well we have been looking for about 6 months for a qualified candiate; The Raleigh market does not seem like a good cultivator for technical people but I am willing to give you a shot.   In ten minutes or less I should be able to tell if you are a good fit"

Me:  "Ok".

Tech Lead:"  Your resumes tells me all I need to know about your background.   Tell me what is managed code". 

Me:"  Jiba Jabba".

Tech Lead: "What is meant by the fact that the garbage collector is generational".

Me: " Yo Quero Taco Bell"

45 mins later ok we will bring you in for an interview....

Interview

A panel interview of vareity of technical people...

"Well we have been looking for about 6 months for a qualified candiate; The Raleigh market does not seem like a good cultivator for technical people but I am willing to give you a shot.   In 30 minutes or less I should be able to tell if you are a good fit".

2 hrs later with a variety of questions ranging from c# to sql server to oracle...to a spider puzzle.  

..we like you but not for the salary you are asking.   If you want to come if for 38% less than your asking we will consider it. 

 Not much you could have done with that, although it is possible to ask the recruiter if they know the approximate salary, or salary range for a given job.

The job I'm at now told the recruiter what they wanted to pay, he didn't really tell me this till AFTER I did the phone interview.  It was about 15k off of what it should be for what they're looking for.  They wanted someone with experience but were paying just above entry level.  Told the recruiter I wouldn't do the onsite unless I knew there was a good chance they'd give me the salary I wanted (or close to it).  He called back a day later saying to go do the onsite because they said salary wouldn't be an issue.

 Of course, this interview required losing more than a day of time since it was in a different state, and I wasn't going to waste time playing salary games.

Well week one of wishing this thread would die in the books.

Conversation I just had with someone that isn't interesting to any of you (in person)

Vice President: "Did you have any luck getting in touch with Tom?"

Me: "Yes"

Vice President: "And what did he have to say?"

Me: "Googily moogily"

Vice President: "What? What the hell are you talking about? Did you suddenly lose the ability to speak the English language?"

Me: "Koo koo ka choo"

45 mins later he walks away in a rage and comes back with the president...

Conversation

A panel of the vice president, the president, and some mental health professionals...

"Did you have any luck getting in touch with Tom?"

2 hrs later with a variety of methods ranging from ink blot cards to prescription medication...to electroshock therapy

..well, he must have been driven insane by the worthless posts in that one thread of TDWTF's forums. What does that guy think this is, a fucking blog?

bstorer:

Me: "Googily moogily"

 

Honestly, lately I have become skeptical of you bstorer.  Are you a professional comedian?  Because you have had me in laughing fits like 5 times in the last week.