“If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there.” – Martin Blank
You’re a recruiter
And you have a lot of jobs to fill.
In fact, by the look of what you’ve posted, you have a lot of senior jobs to fill. Manager and Director level jobs.
Jobs that probably result in a nice check for you if you get them filled.
So I’m going to need you to explain something to me…
…because right now, I think you’re the parallel for The Lazy Job Seeker.
After our second Pink Slip Party over at Commune, I wrote You Can’t Always Get What You Want over at http://www.ITinTheD.com/83/you-cant-always-get-what-you-want/ – and as I’m sitting here thinking back on those events, there are some similarities.
You took the time to find our group and join it.
You posted a few gigs.
You RSVP’d that you were coming to our recent Pink Slip Party event.
You showed up. Hell, you even showed up early. We chatted for a few moments as I placed the name, recalled those gigs you’re looking to fill, and made a mental note of what you looked like, who you were, and who I should be sending your way.
Which I did.
All night long.
About a dozen senior, experienced folks that are prime material for IT manager or director level roles. It’s either what they’re already doing, what they’ve recently been doing, or what they’re ready to be doing career-wise.
All sent off with your name, your info, your description, and a helpful nudge because this was your first time at one of our events and so I wanted to make sure you knew we were routing people your way as promised.
And they were all excited. Most of them were new to our group and weren’t sure if that was the right place to be looking for jobs at that level, thinking that perhaps the recruiters were exclusively focused in the developer space.
And then they were all pissed off.
Because you were nowhere to be found.
So, as per usual, I went prairie-dogging – poking my head up above the crowd while walking them around and looking for you so that I could make an introduction…and then inevitably hooked them up with other recruiters in attendance who had let me know they were looking for those same things.
Because we had an awesome pool of recruiters that were there looking for just about everything under the sun that night.
But the kicker was when this conversation happened around 7:30 that night:
Random Guy: “Hey, are you looking for [that guy]?”
Me: “Yeah, off and on. You know where he is? There are a few folks looking for him.”
Random Guy: “I walked in with him, and you have to write a Don’t Be That Guy about him. He was here for fifteen minutes, decided it was too warm, and left.”
Me: “Seriously?”
Random Guy: “Seriously. Write it. I’ll be waiting to read it. Dumbest thing I’ve seen at one of these. He must not really need to hire anyone, huh?”
Ugh.
So that’s just peachy. Because now not only did That Guy miss out, but he also made us look like idiots for sending people his way…when he wasn’t even there any more.
We’re not unrealistic. We know it was hot at that event, just like we’re realistic that things come up, whacky mayhem ensues, and so sometimes you can’t show, need to bail out early, whatever. It’s no big deal. We’re not holding guns to your head keeping you there or anything…
…but we would appreciate a little common courtesy. You took the time to chat when you arrived, you made it a point to let us know you were there and what you were looking for so that we could send people your way, and so is it really too much to ask that you take that same moment of time on your way out to let us know that we don’t need to worry about doing that any more? Maybe it was a health issue and you couldn’t take the heat, maybe you had something come up…who knows? We don’t really mind or care…as long as we’re clued in.
Don’t Be That Guy. Because when you make us look bad, I assure you that we remember you.
That’s all for this time, folks. Go read one of the other Don’t Be That Guy entries, or perhaps something else.