Recruiting from hell

The woman on the other end of the call was hard to understand. Poor enunciation, difficult accent, noisy background.

Fishers of Souls, Adriaen van de Venne (circa 1589–1662)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

She was recruiting based on a resume I'd posted many months ago, for a "major employer in my town."

As best as I could tell, it was a marketing communications specialist position, 12 month temporary, with no benefits. 

The pay? An hourly rate half of what a full-timer with 3-5 years experience earns. And I'd need to pay my own social security and employment taxes. 

I said no.

Sure, the temp job might lead to a full-time appointment. But I wasn't interested in a "major employer" so stingy that it couldn't pay me in health insurance what it was paying the indecipherable recruiter to find candidates.

In my town, the well-known major employers are only a shadow of their former selves. They no longer rake in fat profits, yet they continue paying their CEOs absurdly high salaries. 

But their third-world approach to sourcing experienced talent is beyond insulting. Outsourcing your recruitment basically tells candidates: "We have no interest in building relationships."

Problem is: that's what marketing is all about, relationships. Especially when you're selling $500,000 boxes full of mysterious digital gadgetry. 

Relationships are essential. Taking the arm's-length approach to building a marketing team isn't the way to get it done.