Job search in the IT sphere of Russia in the XXI century

The last time is harder to find a job. Especially one that would be interesting for you and fit your plans for the future. How is it that specialists with higher education, good work experience and knowledge of foreign languages ​​are left without work?
I have many acquaintances who either do not work in their specialty, or for a long time cannot find any work at all. But their CV includes a lot of experience; professional staffing companies took part in its compilation.

I, too, with my higher education in the field of microelectronics and colloquial English, professionally written resume, was several times in situations where I could not find work for many months. Our job market is arranged in such a way that not everything depends on the experience and qualifications of the applicant.
The first and most important stage in applying for a job is interviewing for various vacancies.

')

Interview

The main problem that you have to face when you come for an interview is the HR specialist who conducts it.
Very often, such a role is played by a girl of 18 years without a higher education who has no idea what she does here. Dialogue with such "specialists", as a rule, is constructed as follows.

Her first (and in 95 percent of cases is a girl, a little higher than school age): “Tell me in detail about your work experience.” At the same time, she will nod with a clever look and sometimes write something down there.

Here you are going to retell your experience, the same as written in the resume, starting from the very beginning. About where they studied, what they did later. Sometimes your story is interrupted by her questions. Somewhere in about half of the story, you begin to understand that you seem to be saying something extra, because the interlocutor stops asking her questions, calms down, looking at something in her notes. At the same time, an HR-specialist will certainly ask you to tell about yourself in all details, mentioning all the timelines and achievements and so that in no case should you forget anything. What to do, you continue to tell.

When communicating, these girls usually behave arrogantly, accompanying all your stories with a reproachful gaze, ask some difficult question, and then, without having heard the answer, move on to another topic.
After asking: "Now tell about yourself, in great detail, with all the details." For quite a long time you have been talking about your hobbies and character under her nods depicting attention.

Questions at this stage that do not affect the outcome of the interview can be, for example:

• Why did you go to study in this specialty?
• What jobs are you considering?
• Why do you think you can handle this job?
• Why did you choose our company?
• What is your hobby?
• Do you have brothers or sisters?
• Why should we hire you?
• What will you spend your wages on?
• Where do you go on vacation?
• Who do you see yourself in 5 years?

Oddly enough, but if you have experience and at least some hobbies, then such a conversation with questions about you and other stupid ones will most likely last at least half an hour or forty minutes. At the end of your monologue, asking, perhaps, a couple more questions to take extra time, the interviewee puts her piece of paper where she has written something, and talks about the proposed vacancy.

And immediately it turns out that this position has nothing to do with your experience. Despite its description, in reality it corresponds little to it and sometimes even finds itself in another field of activity. The girl will look at you with blank eyes and assure you that this is just what you need. On the questions why one job is written in the job description, and the story turns out to be something else, she says that you don’t understand anything, because you don’t know about the job of recruiting, and she’s an HR specialist!
Also, at the end of the conversation, the interlocutor often confidently states that your qualification is insufficient.

Of course, you refuse an unsuitable job.
At the end of the interview with such "experts" you ask yourself the question, why did you spend so much time talking about yourself in vain, why did she need so much information?
But of course, she promised to look for other vacancies. It is only after a month of waiting that it turns out that she didn’t find anything, but she even forgot about you right after the interview. It turns out that when you contact this specialist with a question about other vacancies, she cannot remember who you are and why you call her.
You spent so much time talking about yourself in vain, spending, besides, a lot of strength and nerves. But she forgot all at once, asking about all this only for sight.

In the future, such specialists never call you back, and your resume is thrown out as useless.
As a rule, if you have already traveled to some company, when a new vacancy arises, recruiters do not look for candidates for it among those who have already come for an interview, even if the vacancy is new and still suits your experience. They prefer to look for job seekers again, as do simple companies and recruitment agencies. They never look at the base of the resume that they have already accumulated and do not recall the suitable candidates who have already come to the interview. They are still looking again, and even if they find the same person a second time, they can invite him, another specialist will meet him and ask him the same questions again. In their opinion, it will be a completely different interview, the previous interview is not considered.

Similarly, if you sent your resume for a vacancy you like to a company that has several such jobs, no personnel officer will consider your resume for another job that is different from the one you applied for. To get them to consider their candidacy regarding the next job, you need to send them a resume again. So if you do not come to this position, they forget about you. If there is another, more appropriate position, then the personnel officer will also not have the quick wit to consider your resume. Why personnel officers cannot transfer your resume to their own department when another specialist is in another position is also a mystery.

During the interview in words, they certainly promise to call and tell about the result. These are standard phrases, such as: "We will call you" or "When the director makes a decision, we will inform you about the results." But if the result of an interview or review of your resume turns out to be negative, then, as a rule, the HR specialist considers it his duty to keep silent about it. The applicant may wait for a call for weeks, and having called himself, he will find out that he has not approached. It is a very big rarity when the personnel officer calls back or writes and reports such an interview result. The e-mail with questions about the outcome of the meeting personnel officers often simply do not respond.

Well, the hardest thing in this case is to get an answer to the question about the reason for the refusal. If the personnel officer does not know this reason, then it can be understood, but why can't he ask the manager who made the decision? This may be either laziness or fear of turning to the leader, to seem incompetent to him. When employees of the personnel department can not tell the reason, it is usually dissuaded or unsubscribed in general phrases that experience did not fit or just another “you do not suit us”. All this speaks of a dismissive attitude towards applicants.

In any note about the interviews it will be written that the interview must come 10-15 minutes early and in no case be late. Among HR-specialists there is an opinion that if a candidate is late, at least for 10 minutes, then he can make big claims. I noticed that almost always, when I come 10 or 15 minutes early, they say to me: “Why did you come? We agreed with you exactly for so many hours. ”If the recruiter himself is only 20 minutes late after these words, this can be considered a success. Almost always, they linger, probably a percentage of 80 interviews.

Also, in all articles and books on the summary states that the candidate should make your resume without grammatical errors. If to look at descriptions of vacancies, there an error on an error. Recruiters make mistakes not only in titles, job descriptions, but also most of them are those who write absolutely illiterate emails. To itself require a special relationship: do not be late, do not make mistakes.

During a visit to a recruitment agency, the first thing to do with the applicants, unlike the employing company, is not to hold a meeting, as one would expect, but to ask to fill in some form. It includes 2 sheets of A4, it has questions about work experience, the desired position, the expected level of income. When filling it out, it is immediately obvious that all questions, with a few exceptions, copy the data from the summary exactly. Requirements to fill in the questionnaire are accompanied by assurances that it is very important, allegedly without this it is impossible to hold an interview.

The questions in it, as I have already noted, are all from the summary: experience with dates, places, positions and duties performed; education; expected level of income; desired position; marital status; telephone and E-mail; knowledge of foreign languages; a series of stupid questions such as describing your path to success or the same as in the interview. Sometimes they ask about bad habits, hobbies, pets and the presence of a driver's license. But sometimes they also ask some rather personal questions, for example, the address, number and date of issue of a passport, family composition, indicating the age, place of work, position and addresses of all its members, and whether you have relatives abroad. Why such personal data is required is also not known.



Fig. 1. An example of a useless questionnaire of one of the recruitment agencies

Why do you need to fill in incomprehensible forms, if the resume is available to the personnel officer in electronic form, it remains only to copy, because they are the ones who get the money to search for candidates, but not you? Firstly, the agent wants to get paid for his services, secondly, he already has a resume, and all the questions are exactly copying the resume, thirdly, in the yard already, neither more nor less, 21st century - and you are asked in your own time, fill out a paper questionnaire pen for half an hour.
Filling out such forms is forced to engage in every agency absolutely everyone, regardless of the position for which the candidate claims. Filling out the questionnaire, or rather, rewriting the entire resume there, takes up to 30 minutes and as a result usually turns out to be just a waste of energy. Of course, as a result of the data entered there, no one ever calls you back or offers a vacancy. And it’s not at all clear how all the information will be used, whether it is useful or not if the vacancy has not approached and why, after wasting energy, not filling in all the boxes, you are never called back.

Some companies are asking to sign a permit for some kind of “research of personal data” through some structures known only to them and transferring them to third parties at the discretion of the agency. What this study by itself implies, do not say.



Fig. 2. Counts from the personal data questionnaire

The interview itself, after wasting time filling out an unnecessary application form, is exactly the same as in a normal company. It will be held on the same principle, with the same questions, on the case and not very. The result of an interview at an agency is usually no different from an interview in a company, the same neglect and stupid questions in which you are also looked at with a wise look and reproach.

Unlike a simple company, after an interview at an agency, an agent will always compose your resume itself, even if it is already done professionally, and a more experienced HR specialist has previously created it. The agencies have such rules. After that, he will call and say that you didn’t come up, because the employer didn’t like your resume or, as it turns out, there was an important point, for example, about education. By itself, the question arises: "So why did you rewrite my resume, if in my all the points were, and in your version there are none?"

All negotiations before you personally meet with the employer is an agent, presents him with your resume and verbal description, and only he knows what he says about you. When using agency services, a lot of good vacancies are missed precisely because of the misrepresentation of the applicant by the agent.

At many job interviews, the “specialist” girl needs to speak with her in English. For example, in my resume it is written that I have completed English courses, experience in 4 international companies. I can speak freely in English, on simple and technical topics, I have quite a lot of experience in communicating with foreigners, I understand them without any problems, both during a personal conversation and by telephone.
If a person with good English comes to the interview, it is always visible from the summary. At the same time, her English is at the level of elementary school, she, as a rule, did not teach it anywhere except at school, especially since she simply does not understand what you are saying to her.

Sometimes the entire vocabulary of recruiters is only “Yes” and “No” . An interview in English in this case loses all meaning. But she will, however, then declare that your English is "weak."

Also, the conversation turns out to be very “interesting”, when the interviewer girl, not understanding absolutely no technical details, insists on talking to specific topics during the interview. Then she asks questions related to your specialty. But these questions are formulated as if she had heard them somewhere or was reading what she had written, and it seems that she only knows how they sound. In this case, the recruiter is full of nonsense, using the terms from your and not only areas. When you answer her, she pretends that she understands, but cannot continue the dialogue. She can neither understand what the question is, nor understand the answer, but simply looks wisely. If you ask her to clarify what she is asking, she will simply repeat the question again. But if she receives a non-technical, in her opinion, answer, she will immediately say that you do not understand this. After that, she can say that she understood that your knowledge is not enough.

For example, a personnel officer from some company called me recently and said that she wanted to talk about the vacancy of the Project Manager. Under such a name can meet various responsibilities, project management or participation in them may imply, in general, anything, depending on those projects that are meant.

- Tell me, how much experience do you have with project management systems?
- What do you mean by working with them, using, administering, translating documentation on them?
- Well, with project management systems.

If I asked her if she knew what project management systems are, the interview could be considered complete.

- I had to use some of them as a user.
- And with project management systems?

What can you answer to this ... Why ask if you have no idea what it is and what you want to know?

- As I said, only as a user.

Makes a smart look, so as not to show that she did not understand.

- Clear. What about security?
- With the security of what? When using these systems, during their installation and configuration? As I just said, I didn't do it.
- Well, with security in project management systems.

What security? In such a question it is even difficult to understand what she wants to know. Why bother about any technical details at all if she asks a question that she does not understand?

Then I read the description on the website of their company. It turned out that this is a vacancy - the administrator of the program Microsoft Project, to any projects, of course, it has nothing to do. Apparently, having translated the name in the Internet translator, she received the translation “Project Administrator” and, not understanding what it means, began to look for a project manager.

Having no idea about the essence of technical issues, it is not clear that such personnel officers are trying to achieve them. If you talk about technical details, she will not understand anything. If you speak in simple language, so that it is clear, she will say at the end of the conversation that you are not sufficiently qualified. That's all the interview.

In this situation, the question arises who teaches personnel officers to ask such stupid questions and waste time wasting information from it, which ultimately won't tell the personnel officer anything.

Apparently, their superiors also do not really represent how the search for employees goes. To ensure the visibility of the search, it is likely that it gives everyone an indication to simply use the template:

• 1) The applicant tells about himself
• 2) Describes his hobbies
• 3) You ask him questions to create the appearance of an interview
• 4) You tell the candidate about the vacancy

But you can’t talk about a vacancy right away, because if it doesn’t work, the HR-specialist and, therefore, their company will look unprofessional. If you ask the applicant for too little time and ask only the right questions, a potential employee may think that you are an incompetent recruiter. If the applicant does not respond to questions on a known pattern - he should refuse.

“All firms do the same, even if we have the same HR specialists as everyone. Let them also pull time, exhaust the applicant with useless questions, because it looks so professional ... ”

The results of the interview

I have been to many interviews. Most Russian HR specialists have two traits in common: incompetence and lack of respect for the candidate. An approach is always applied to the applicant: “He came to us, which means he is guilty.”

For some reason, all recruiters without higher education consider themselves miracle psychologists. Imagine themselves as super professionals, well versed in people. At the same time, they consider themselves above the interlocutor and speak arrogantly. The main thing for them at the interview is to try to make the candidate feel insecure. An important criterion is that if your knowledge is higher than the “specialist” who conducts the interview, then the chances of getting a job are almost nil (for girls, in addition to this principle, another principle also applies - if the applicant looks better than the interviewee).

Without even having a specialized education, none of the recruiters are able to draw up any effective plan of conversation, nor to imagine which candidate will fit this vacancy. They simply try to “work off their wages” and therefore show a type of turbulent activity. Therefore, the entire selection does not consist of testing professional knowledge or personal qualities, but according to the criterion: it was possible to humiliate the applicant — let him communicate with the manager.

According to the leaders, who have repeatedly searched for good employees, after the “services” of the personnel department, they will never again entrust the recruiter to choose the candidate himself. They limit such “personnel specialists” to the framework of personnel workflow, and the functions of recruitment are imposed on themselves or their deputies.

As for recruitment agencies, they also do not leave a very good impression. After the visit, there is a feeling that the agencies are mainly engaged not in fast and efficient personnel search, but in idle chatter and circulation of unnecessary questionnaires. Companies, in search of more professional personnel search services, agreeing to pay the agency and neglecting their employees, often change the “awl for soap”, because usually in companies recruiters work most professionally in their work. As experienced agency workers say, they rarely have competent, established professionals. The recruitment agency is usually the forge of the staff of HR specialists for companies. Before the personnel officer will look for a good position, he has to get some experience, that's why he goes to work for the agency.Although, during my search for work, I have also met recruiters who are suited to their duties incredibly professionally. Such personnel managers can be counted on the fingers, I remember them all by name and all the companies where they work, almost all of them were from recruitment agencies.

Some examples from experience

Example 1

For example, here’s a real rejection of the company that came to me by E-mail, read it:

Hello!
Thank you very much for the interest shown in the open vacancy. Unfortunately, at the moment we are not ready to make you this offer.
You can apply for other vacancies of our company in the future - we will be happy to consider your candidacy. You can always find a full list of vacancies on our career site.
Thanks again for your interest in our company and good luck with your career.
Sincerely.

Without explanation, I am denied further consideration of the candidacy, offering to do something with regard to other vacancies. In Russian there is no word "to apply". What does this “specialist” want to tell me? The question arises whether he speaks Russian at all. If so, he could have written the reason for the refusal, and if not, how did he write the rest of the answer? Most likely, such formulations are not of a great mind.
The person who reviews my resume cannot connect two words in Russian and at the same time has the authority to refuse, even without explaining the reasons. But this is a world leader, a huge international company. Thus, it turns out that the person who refuses to me cannot write the reason for the refusal, and his candidates, apparently from a shortage of other cases, are engaged in the fact that they are “being applied”.

Example 2

And here is another case.
I received a letter from a small company about work. I will give the correspondence, while correcting the spelling.

"Good day.
Your CV interested the CEO.
We invite you to an interview for an open position "Sales Manager".
Information about the activities of our company, you can find on our website.
Location map in the attachment.
Sign up for an interview by phone below.
Respectfully,
Svetlana
Ltd. "N"

I replied: "Good afternoon. Do you have any vacancies that are not related to sales? ”
Svetlana: “ All the information below, I would like to clarify what your resume has noted. Maybe you should drive up and talk to the general director? ”
I: “ I do not sell, just pre-sales ”.
Svetlana: “He brought your resume to me and asked to contact you, which means that he is satisfied with everything.”
I: “Well, I can come for an interview, but I have no idea what we can negotiate about. I can next week, how about Thursday, at 17:00? "
Svetlana: " Yes. Just for sure! He does not like being moved or late. ”

So: it suits him, he doesn’t like something there, “they have noted your resume”. In the opinion of this girl, I have to come for an interview for a vacancy, which I certainly do not exactly fit. And the style of conversation of this lady raises some questions. It is not clear where she has such an inexplicable thrill in front of the head.
After the last phase, I didn’t want to go there. I looked at the job description, nothing but salary, it does not assume that the room was dilapidated, no conditions. In general, this company cannot offer anything worthwhile in exchange for its conversation with you. As for the wording of the phrase “Signing up for an interview on the phone below”, it immediately resembles a postscript on the subpoenas or the medical board, as if by force.

Example 3

Here is another example.
Vacancy "Project Manager", again, with amended punctuation:

"Requirements:

• Willingness and willingness to solve tasks ‚
• Achieve your goal at any cost;
• Along with the resume, it is necessary to send a justification for why we should invite you to work with us;

Duties:

• Building and maintaining relationships with customers;
• As a test task, 1-2 tasks will be given ‚terms and resources are given to solve them;
• The task: to solve the tasks in due time;

Conditions:

• Cozy office in the city center
• Stable and timely wages
• Schedule 5/2
• Corporate training ‚career growth"

This description, taken from one of the job sites, can be found on the Internet. As you can see, in the description are mixed up some scraps of requirements and descriptions of tests that will have to be passed for some reason. From it you can only understand that someone is looking for, to build and maintain relationships with customers. At the end, compensation is offered in the form of “Stable and timely wages” and learning something, unfortunately, it’s not clear what.
What gives the company in return? There is no insurance, no language courses. There are only strict requirements, and for the sake of them the candidate will be asked to solve some problems as a test, for this you need to write some justification. A more inconsistent job description is difficult to find.



Fig.3. An example of an incomprehensible description

Sometimes, when applying for a job, dishonest employers try to cash in on applicants at the interview stage. Once upon a time there was such a case. When there were no personal computers, one company was engaged in publishing. She needed typists to work, and she advertised in a newspaper about the recruitment of specialists in fast printing.

One girl, who rather quickly typed blindly, which was then a rarity, said that when she came for an interview, all candidates were given out paper and seated at the typewriter. They said that they would take the applicant who will cope with the task the fastest. The amount of text that needed to be typed to check the print speed was quite large, and it took about half a day for these girls to type it.

She had no competitors, and of course she finished the set first. The interview was completed, all the typists were dismissed home, promising to call and tell about the test result.

The next day, the girl received a call and was told that they would not take it, because they considered the speed of her printing insufficient. She was very surprised, because no one except for her could print at the same speed, and she saw it with her own eyes.

As she later found out, so said all the candidates who participated in the selection. After some time, a book appeared in a store near her house, in which there was a text typed to her at that interview.

Thus, the company managed to release a whole book without spending a penny on typing. The typists deceived, it turned out that they did all the work on that interview.

Currently, deception of applicants, of course, is not so common, but it also occurs. There are cases when applicants for the position of designer are asked to carry out a project of a complex system, and for some reason immediately for some reason in high resolution (ready for further use). Then they applied these projects in their work, and all candidates were refused, citing insufficient quality of execution.
Economists were asked to perform large calculations, taking into account all the parameters that companies usually don’t tell people, and then never call back, even to report a refusal.

Usually, the purpose of making money on an interview becomes visible when the applicant is asked to perform a test task, using a lot of data relevant only to this employer, or something too laborious. Honorable employers, as a rule, do not require performing a complex task. For example, it is more important for a designer to demonstrate his previous work than to perform any one complex project to test knowledge.
Also, there are recruitment agencies that ask for money from a candidate, ostensibly for a job search. These agencies are scammers who get paid and then disappear without finding anything. Real agencies for a candidate always work for free.

What can be done to remedy the situation

In many ways, the reason for the presence of illiterate recruiters is the lack of controllability, irresponsibility and impunity of human resources specialists. No one can check whether he made the right decision, because they take the decision, mostly on their own. Roughly speaking, they believe you, the customer will take the specialist whom only you choose - do what you want. By the way, this is at the same time a good opportunity to compensate for their own inferiority complexes - now he is the “master of destinies” and can afford to talk to applicants haughtily. They are their own guide. Recruiters can deny who they want and when they want, no one will check them. I have not heard of any case where the authorities would punish an HR specialist for eliminating a good candidate. And no one could find out.Because of him, the company lost a good specialist, but he got away with it. From this they are becoming more and more impudent.

There must be some kind of organization in which claims of employees to the personnel departments of companies could be considered. Then they will say the reasons for refusal, and call back, and not refuse, only for the reason that you did not like the personnel officer.

In this case, it would be possible to dispute the results of the interview and change its result. Now this can be achieved only through the courts. This requires money and at least a few months time. Who will do this? If there was such a service and would take effective measures, then she would not have a rebound from the claims.

A good addition would be to provide the candidate with a response indicating the reason for the refusal. In this regard, we can recall many cases of foreign experience won by candidates in court when they were denied employment, and it turned out that only their gender or political views were the reason for this.

In addition to the introduction of responsibility for personnel officers, in order to eliminate the consumer approach to applicants, in my opinion, a “black list” of recruiters is needed, which would include the names of “experts” who are rude and waste time on interviews, indicating the reason for bringing him there. The list may contain both the name of the specialist and the name of the unfair company.

Such a list would be useful both to the companies themselves, seeking to protect themselves from such HR managers, and to candidates who before the interview are able to check the HR specialist to whom they go for an interview, on this list, to know what to expect. If the personnel officer corrects and gains experience, then it can be removed from this list. The list should be comprehensive so that there are the names of all the recruiters and companies working in Russia.