I decided to bite the bullet and begin the job search again. The first step in this process was to update my Monster.com resume. I had forgotten about all the negative things that come with that simple action. I know there are many job sites out there. It may be time for me to start exploring them in more detail. In all honesty, Monster.com can’t be blamed for all of these – many of the difficulties below are from recruiters that are likely to be on every job site.

10. Getting 30 e-mails in a day – In 2001 when I was looking for any technology job, I didn’t get any e-mails. This may appear to be a weird thing to complain about. However almost all the e-mails are…
9. Irrelevant jobs – If I don’t have the skill listed on my resume, it may be safe to assume that I don’t have “extensive experience” in that skill.
8. Recruiters – Almost every job is from a recruiter and not the company actually hiring. While recruiters can be helpful, they seem to have “so many jobs available” and rarely just give me the few that match my resume.
7. “Send me your resume” – Every e-mail I’ve gotten from a recruiter on Monster requests this. Aren’t they looking at my resume before contacting me? One recruiter actually wrote me, “After looking your resume, we feel you’d be a fit for several jobs we have available. Can you please forward on your resume?”
6. “Excellent salary and benefits including generous stock options” – Every company is offering that. If everyone is offering excellent salary then aren’t they offering average salary? I’ll be sure to make note this if it comes down to salary negotiations. I’d love the opportunity to open up Salary.com, call up these e-mails and ask for the salary in the 80 percentile.
5. “Call me and we’ll discuss opportunities” – Recruiters must love talking on the phone. Unfortunately, it’s terribly inconvenient and inefficient to talk to 20 recruiters in a day. It’s far easier for me to keep all job descriptions straight with e-mail. Yet no one seems to want that way. Let’s just pretend we are dating or making friends online – start out with e-mails, see if we have common interests, and then proceed to phone and meeting in person.
4. Mystery Companies – The recruiters never tell you the company they have the job for. I don’t know how I am supposed to give an opinion on a job without knowing the company. I understand why recruiters don’t give the company name (for fear that you’ll just apply directly to that company), but it’s one of the most basic pieces of information.
3. Invites to LinkedIn – A couple of recruiters have asked to join my LinkedIn account. Why would I want to be connected to them? We don’t have a relationship other than they saw my resume online, e-mailed me, and I responded. I get the feeling this serves them more than it serves me.
2. “We like what we saw on your resume, please apply for a job our website” – Wait a second, you already have my resume. The necessary information is all there. Why do I need to go through the effort of entering my name, address, e-mail, education, main phone, secondary phone, cell phone, cell phone provider (I’m not making this up), desired salary as one place asked. By the way, I desire at least 2 million dollar a year – actually let’s better bump that up to 5 million.
1. Interstitial ads – Every time you log in, I see a paid advertisement for Monster.com. It has all my information pre-filled from my Monster.com resume with a big button to accept whatever the advertisement is offering. Unless you are very careful to select the “No Thanks” every time, be prepared for a world of spam. I fear one day I may accidentally move my sensitive mouse slightly as I click hitting the “I agree” button. Monster has no option to opt-out of these.

Back in May, I wrote three posts on how to ask for a raise. I don’t really feel I got what I should have and my old company went as far to say that I should be getting about 15% more, but it just wasn’t in the budget.

I wouldn’t bring it up except that this month’s Money magazine mentions it on page 54B (by the way, what’s up with the letters). Their first hint was to toot your own horn. Well they had done that part for me saying what I terrific job I had been doing. I got a combination response of “tied hands” (nothing in the budget), and “lowball” (much less than I was expecting). So, I accepted the raise with dignity, but suggested an alternative (as Money Magazine suggests) to substitute the difference. Unfortunately that went nowhere as well and I ended up leaving the company, not solely due to that, but that played a large role.

It makes me feel good that I played the game well. I just wish both sides could have come to an agreement. I know that we both would have been better off if we did.

I’m starting my new job this week. This means that I’ll reduce the quantity of my postings. Additionally, the time I’ll be able to make posts will be fairly unconvenient for the east coasters out there. A fortunate side effect is that I’ll be able to raise the quality of the posts.