When Do You Fire a Headhunter?

Captain Sarcastic writes "I have been a contract programmer for a few years (with some time off when a contract-for-hire paid off and made me a full-time employee). Currently, I'm between projects, but I'm a little worried about one of the contracting companies who's helping me. First off, a little history. "Zeke" (not his real name) was with ABC Contractors (not their real name) when I first met him, and he took my resume and started processing me through the jobs that ABC had available. A bit later, Zeke left, and his replacement Yvonne (standard disclaimer) submitted me to a company (call them "Acme") for a contract-for-hire. Everything looked like a good fit, and she E-mailed me a copy of the resume they submitted to Acme. Came the interview, I realized that Zeke had left out part of my history and had mis-dated other aspects, to keep me from appearing unemployed. Like an idiot, I tried to correct this at the interview, to find out that Acme had decided that I had fabricated all of my experience, and chewed out the rep for ABC for sending an unqualified applicant. Fine, learning experience for me — double-check what the contracting company says about you, and don't try to correct things in the middle of the interview." Read below for the rest of the story. What other difficulties have others gone through with headhunters and when is it time to leave one behind?

A couple months later, Zeke contacted me from his new position with Blue-Sky Consultants (standard disclaimer), and sent me on a couple of interviews. Once again, I found out he'd "corrected" my resume — the same way he did with ABC. I raised the issue with him, and he apologized and said he'd correct the resume, and he's submitted me for other positions, but none seem to have gotten to the interview stage. I suspect that he's not trying very hard, and I wonder if he's soft-pedaling submissions for me to keep his own bosses from recognizing he'd altered my resume. So, I have the following questions:

1. Am I suspecting malice and/or clumsiness where a competitive market is the true suspect? (An answer of yes would be harder on my ego, but a relief.)
2. Do headhunters modify resumes, and if so, should I just shut up and go with what the headhunter says? (I was always told that eventually, the truth comes out, so I'd be uncomfortable doing that, but life isn't always comfortable.)
3. Should I tell Zeke to get lost and stay that way? (I was always told that making enemies unnecessarily was "considered harmful", but I get the impression that Zeke isn't a friend).
4. Have fellow Slashdotters dealt with similar situations?

Re:making enemies unnecessarily

[Svartalf]

I would have to concur.

A reputable headhunter will typically ask you questions to ascertain if they need you to update your resume and have you do it. If there's an issue with formatting, but not content, the headhunter will show you what they've done.

This guy is a slimeball and I've met a few like him...drop him like a hot potato and make sure your colleagues know about him as well.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Specialized headhunters sometimes do the job properly. At least here they have the decency to ask for a pdf-based CV and copy it by hand into their database. They also usually don't have any concrete numbers for a salary, they just send you to the company and they get paid by the companies for this.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[CorporateSuit]

This. I'm not the HR of my company, but my job includes reviewing all resumes submitted for the people who will be working under me. If I asked you in for an interview because your resume showed me that you might not be a complete knucklehead, and you tell me that the agency who sent in your resume completely fabbed it up, you still have 2 minutes to explain to me why you're not a complete knucklehead.

Basically, you've substituted the list of skills on your resume with a single relevant skill: Honesty.

It's up to you, in the interview, to very quickly tell me what relevant skills you DO have and why I shouldn't waste my time listening to you any further. If you can do that, your false resume doesn't preclude you from the job. I'd rather have an honest person with a remotely relevant skillset and a bad resume than an idiot with an impressive resume. That's why most businesses won't even look past the coverletters anymore, because resumes are typically crap.

Also, as a personal note: Lighten up. Have fun with your resume and don't follow the exact rules and formats of everyone else. Keep it concise and to the point (I don't want to be bored while reading it), but also include something that will make it stand out and be memorable -- like printing it on the blank back of a page from a dinosaur coloring book. People think that HR's are robots who want to trash anything that looks individual or informal. They're humans with senses of humor, and something that will brighten their day will tend to come back and brighten yours. After I helped my wife with her resume, the next job she applied for (a bank, of all places) not only hired her, but asked if they could frame the resume on the wall.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[Jim Hall]

I agree with the parent. It's unfortunate, but sometimes headhunters mess about with the resume before sending it on. You can reduce the odds of this happening (somewhat) by only giving the headhunter a PDF copy of your resume. They'd have to re-type the resume to edit it, and many may be unwilling to go through the effort.

Definitely do bring copies of your resume with you to any interview, and if you find the resume they have in front of them is wrong correct it right away. Don't try to cover for the headhunter. In the original question, the submitter said he was an idiot to correct the resume during the interview - no, you weren't. As a hiring manager, I'd rather hear that the headhunter falsified your resume, than discover that you did.

If you find a headhunter has faked your resume, I'd drop him/her right away, and insist they no longer share your info with anyone. Limit the exposure. If it happens once, it will happen again.

You correct it.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You correct it. You take your lumps with this employer. And you drop the guy who hacked your resume.

It's OK so shorten your resume. It's not OK to falsify anything on it.

You should have dropped 'em the first time. Now that you know this guy fakes resumes you should never touch him again.

You may be having trouble now because there's two versions of your resume getting to some HR departments and you're flagged as a fake. If you keep getting no-replies you may need to include a cover letter explaining that a(n unnamed) headhunter had previously "enhanced" your resume and circulated this false version, that this one is true and correct, and you no longer do business with him.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[Lehk228]

i would prefer to notify them that the first time was the last time and they are to destroy or return to me any copies of resumes or other records pertaining to me, along with a signed certification that it has been done. any further deflection or waffling and they will get to talk to my lawyer instead of me.

if you are lying on my behalf your behavior reflects on me and i do not tolerate that kind of horseshit.

Re:Lucky you're not contracting in Britain

[Carbaholic]

that's easy to solve, you just add an apparently blank page that says "Intentionally left blank" on the top. Then, in very very small white font, you write: "Key words that may or may not be related to my actual skills: " and then you fill the whole rest of the page with every key word imaginable.

Re:Unfortunately, a lot of people want to be lied

[Ethanol-fueled]

Exactly. Juggling jobs is like juggling cops - Nobody bothers to dig deeper as long as the stories are consistent.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[bjourne]

Don't ask a fish how it likes to be catched. It is standard procedure for everyone to brush up their resumés, to highlight the good parts and try to hide the damaging ones. That is standard procedure not only for contractors but for everyone in the business. I'll wager to bet that whatever company you work for, they do the same thing with the products or services they sell.

Personally, when I have worked with head hunters, I've usually used multiple CV:s for each occasion. If we have a client looking for a Java developer, highlight my Java experience, read up on what the latest and greatest Java acronyms are (JDBC, JPA, JSTL etc). Same method if the client is after an embedded Linux kernel developer. I've also had to actively hide damaging facts such that I over 15 years ago grew up in a very "bad neighbourhood" or that I once was laid off.

The key part is to work *with* your head hunter(s) (use many, they are generally free until you get hired by a client) not against them like the OP seem to have done. You're like a team and you have a common goal. The commission and the salary. Correcting details an agency has given a client is just plain stupid. The asker could have easily avoided the situation by having "Zeke" send him the same documents he sent to the client. A sign of poor communication skills.

Always check what the head hunters send out. One who tried to sell me, failed to produce an interview in several months. I finally got to see what he was sending to the clients. Turns out he had thoughtfully rewritten all flowing text in my CV. To bad that he was dyslectic and had misspelled every other word.. My own fault for not checking it up earlier.

Bottom line: head hunters try very hard to sell you because the commission they get is ridiculous. Your CV is your advertising for a product which is you.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[jslater25]

This. Its a double-edged sword imho. If I were the person interviewing you and I received Zeke's version of your resume, I would not only not hire you (in order to not reward Zeke) but I would no longer use Zeke or his company to find me qualified help. Its unfortunate for you that (if you were truly qualified) you were not offered the position only because of Zeke. But that's the reason I would never use Zeke if I were in your position. One falsification on his part and I'm out the door and going to the headhunter next door.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[cayenne8]

"That's why most businesses won't even look past the coverletters anymore, because resumes are typically crap."

Interesting...this is the 2nd reference to a cover letter I've heard on /. in the past week.

I'm actually not familiar with this...what exactly IS a cover letter, and what would make it a good one?

My resume is more of a CV type document...skills, followed by job history with details on what skills were on what jobs. I've not had problems getting hired for contracting with that....

fire him, there's a million others out there.

[jamonterrell]

I can tell you that having dealt with headhunters from both sides, as an employee, and as the person doing the hiring, I hate the bad ones no less regardless of my current role. I have quit good jobs because the contracting company I was working through were being jackasses. I hated to do it, but it had to be done. The problem from the interviewers side is, even if they like you, you've pointed out that the contracting company misrepresented you to them. That means that the contracting company is disreputable, and they likely won't want to do business with them anymore. If they hire you, they have to continue to do business with them, and deal with potential issues that will arise between them and the contracting company, and you and the contracting company. Unfortunately, they typically can't just circumvent the contracting company at this stage, so you might not get the job, simply because they don't like the contracting company. The two of you get hired or passed up as a team, so you need to work as a team. They need to understand that if they place you somewhere you're not happy, it won't last, so they're better off putting you somewhere you're going to be happy, and to do that, it involves working together and not lying about things to either side. As a side note, I tell every headhunter before they submit me to any job that they are not permitted to change my resume in any way. I've never had them say no to that request, however, they have gone ahead and changed it once, in which case I informed them I was no longer interested in the position. Contracting companies/headhunters work for you, which you seem to get, now the second part you need to get is that there's a million of them out there, and they're all fighting over you and the positions, they aren't in a position to pull that kind of crap, and you should be sure to let them know.

Re:Copyright

[ChameleonDave]

Hey, if we want to go hardcore, let's sign our CVs with OpenPGP. Let them try to alter something then!

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[Anonymous Coward]

because most companies and corporate policies are dishonest. Honest people would RUIN EVERYTHING!

In all seriousness though, most companies are run by bullshitters who love to have their egos fed every waking second of the day. Honest people stomp on egos, honest people might be whistleblowers, honest people will disagree with shady dealings that go on inside the company.

I know this from firsthand experience. I left my last job because of bullshit like that. Good people were getting stamped out because of new management types who were turning the company into a management clusterfuck with nothing but feel good decisions that made the upper management feel good and justified about everything they did, mostly by firing everyone who built the company from scratch or forcing them to quit, or the more insidious shit like forcing them to accept a severely reduced salary (say, from $25/hour to $10/hour, less than what the lowest positions in the company make) because their results couldnt be mapped onto a pie chart. (people who got sales by taking people out to lunch, etc were slashed because of this lovely mindset)

Needless to say, many companies do run like that, so honesty is a trait that is looked down upon, usually because those who weren't honest rose to the top through clever bullshittery, and backstabbing. Why the hell would they hire you, unless they wanted a patsy who would take the fall if they happened to have a shady deal going on. You know, blame the new guy and all, make him serve jail time, or take the blame for an incident that happened when he wasnt around. I also witnessed that happen to one of the harder working people in that company too. Something bad happened, and this one supervisor, despite being on vacation at the time, publically receieved 100% of the blame for the incident, despite that not being their department, they were a mediator when they returned, and because they were actively involved in fixing the situation afterwards, they got fucked over by the higher-ups.

Again, to survive in the corporate world, honesty is the worst thing you could have. Smaller companies aren't as bad, as they haven't had as much time to be infiltrated by piles of shit wearing fancy suits. So you have people looking for human traits, not corporate drone traits.

It's a wonder that the US business world hasn't completely fallen into despair yet.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[upuv]

Putting your picture on your resume is a bad idea. Why open your self up to all sorts of discrimination? Your picture does that. There are always positive and NEGATIVE comments/thoughts when people see pictures of others. Why even have that possibility happen.

I can not say this clearly enough.
DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR PHOTO ON YOUR RESUME.

And guess what. You're not as good looking as you think. More than likely you look like some one in need of attention. When I look at resumes I toss instantly the ones with photo's. Why? Most likely the person has some social issues.

It doesn't matter if it's against the law ( CANADA ) or if it opens you up to discrimination it simple reduces your chances of getting an interview.

Re:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me

[Skreems]

"Same with the U.S. I almost never send a coverletter, my resume is 2 pages but it essentially explains what I've done at the past 4 jobs."

Really? Why so short, doesn't that show lack of experience, etc?

Mine is pared down (I thought) to about 12 pages....I've done too much to squeeze it down to less.

I had always heard that a resume should be exactly 1 page long. If you're young or incompetent it'll be 1 page of mostly filler. If you're older and have a strong career it'll be 1 page of condensed awesomeness, and you'll have plenty to fill in when asked.

As for your 12 pages, that seems really, really excessive. If that's 12 pages of multiple-year jobs with major accomplishments at each, the technology involved in the older ones is almost certainly obsolete by now. If it's 12 pages of every minute detail of every little thing you did at each contracting job that you held for 3 months, it makes you look insecure and incapable of picking out the highlights of your career (and the recruiter / interviewer is NOT going to pick them out for you).

What you really want is a short list of career highlights, with a sentence or two describing the old jobs and at MOST a paragraph or 3-5 bullet points describing the latest couple. More than 1 paragraph, even on the very latest job you've had, is way too much.