The JD of a Recruiter based in Indiå

So this is how they get minted.

Job Title: IT Recruiter (US Staffing)

Duration Full Time

Positions 20

Job Description:
Experience in working on Contract, Contract to Hire,
Full time requirements.
Experience with Job Boards like Monster, Dice etc. 
with Strong Experience in placing IT Professionals
in US market with clients
Work effectively as a team member as well as an
individual with minimal direction
Good communication, interpersonal skills, and
leadership skills
Looking for long term relationship.
We will consider candidates with no experience
if other qualification criteria’s are strongly met

-ulianov

Is this the Laziest Recruitor Ever?

I have heard in my life about mail merge and bad recruiters but this outsourced one combines and bests both (noticed the verbatim fill-in-the-blanks). This is a new low in bottom-feeding recruitors for me.

Dear Myself,

My name is A... and I'm an IT recruiter at Tech Mahïndra. Our records show that you are an experienced IT professional with experience in ______________. This experience is relevant to one of my current openings. The opening requires ______________ in addition to the above skills. It is located in __________, __________.

... short relevant jd blurb ....

Knowledge in _______ is a plus.If you are qualified, available, interested, planning to make a change, or know of a friend who might have the required qualifications and interest, please call me ASAP at (844) 555-2579 Ext.70685, even if we have spoken recently about a different position. If you do respond via e-mail please include a daytime phone number so I can reach you. In considering candidates, time is of the essence, so please respond ASAP. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,
A...
Business Associate
Tech Mahïndra

-ulianov

On Mõnster US's Message Centre

So far after about 50 spamsahem messages they have all been low-pay H1-B specials propositions. Totally effing useless feature which Mønster uses as a pretext to spam your real inbox with "Yaw've got Mail". Sigh.

-ulianov

On US Contract Rate Escalation

The key in dealing with marginal/offshored agencies is patience and persistence.

The verbatim jd in question [which appears to me as a Sr. position] was this:

Title: Linux Embedded Software Developer
Duration: Long Term Contract

Overview:
- Experince in Linux Embedded Software Developer
- EXPERIENCE WITH 16/32 BIT CONTROLLERS.
- EXPERIENCE IN LINUX KERNEL LEVEL PROGRAMMING.
- EXPERIENCE IN KERNEL CUSTOMIZATION, GRAPHICS
  LIBRARY USAGE/PORTING  &  SW ARCHITECTURE DESIGN.
- EXPERIENCE IN  TOUCH PANEL LCD, NAND MEMORY,
  RAM MEMORY, USB, MMC CARD & PROTOCOL DEFINITION
  OVER UART
- experience coding in C/C++.
- Agile project experience.
- Knowledge of wireless network protocols (Wi-Fi,
  BLE, ZigBee, IPv4, IPv6, etc.)
- Develop and design software that will interface
  with various embedded stacks (BLE, Thread, ZigBee)

Secondary Skills:
- GOOD WRITTEN AND VERBAL COMMUNICATION
- Experience with the spectrum tools used for
  source code management and development/test
  environments: VS, TFS, GIT, SVN, Bit Bucket,JIRA etc.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
  capable of writing appropriate documentation,
  and interacting with other engineering disciplines.
- Strong ability to communicate deep analytical
  results in forms that resonate with scientific and/or business collaborators, highlighting actionable insights.

Here's the rate escalation e-mail exchange I've had with this drone:

ulianov: What's the W-2 rate? Split per-diem offered?
Recruiter: Duration is long term & rate $45/hr on W2.
Commentary: This is the bare minimum ($90k/year) which
an H1-B is allowed by law.
ulianov: [Not replying for 3 hours.]
Recruiter: Duration is long term & rate $58/hr on W2
without benefits or $65/hr on 1099.
ulianov: Thank you for the rate adjustment. However
my customary W2 rate for outside California is $NN/h.
Recruiter: Please make it $70/hr on 1099
Commentary: This is less than I charge on W-2.
Also 1099 is unsuitable for me as it does not provide
per-diem.

Mind you most of these bottom of the barrel agencies do not want to provide split per-diem as they labour under the impression this is extra money they have to pay me... it's not. It's an IRS untaxed allowance for people working 60mi+ from their place of abode.

Educating them in the ways of the per-diem is painful so my advice is this (should you qualify for per-diem): if a recruiter is clueless about the per-diem then hang up.

-ulianov

On J0bDïva's Email Traffic

I've blocked them in my in-app firewall for the past 5 years but I was getting 1000's of hits a month which made me curious so I changed my mail server tarpit logic to collect (but reject) samples of their wares.

I noticed that the following agencies use this spamhouse:

artechïnfo
cõmpnova
damcõsoft
enterprïsesolutioninc
eteamïnc
fïrst-tek
hanstaffïng
ïttblazers
lancesõft
mr-hadlïkon
pyramïdci
shorewïseconsulting
systelïnc
usgrpïnc
vegåzva

These agencies are mostly lowballers, based in 1ndia and cater to the H¦-B crowd via low-low hourly rates.

More random H¦-B lowball specials:

cynêtsystems
expedïteinc
mïndlance
pinakïtech
sageïtinc

-ulianov

Weird US Market

I've been trying to find some gig in New England since November and I got positively no bite.

The only outfit doing Embedded Linux contracts seems to be Bôse in Framingham and not much else. Something was happening on Washington St in downtown Boston but no bite.

I've never experienced this before... usually it was enough to raise my hand to land a gig paying my rate (which is basically the market rate). Perhaps this is due to the uncertainty following the elections?

It seems that there's the same vibe going on as in May-Jun of 2008.

-ulianov