4 GENRES OF HIRING MANAGER

Published on efinancialcareers

As middle men (and women) we recruiters often feel like ping pong balls; bouncing all over the glorious Square Mile between arrogant coffee slurping candidates and two dimensional internal recruiters/’hiring managers’ who never look up from their Blackberries. As Freddie Mercury once sang, “it’s a hard life”.

Candidates complain about the poor quality service we provide them regarding issues such as interview feedback. However the reality is, much of this is simply the fault of hiring managers. To help candidates understand what we are up against when representing them, I have compiled a list of the kinds of HM’s who make us wish we worked harder at school so we would not have to chase these morons to pay for our beans on toast.

The four genres of investment banking hiring manager are:

1): The process followers:

These risk-averse dullards are guaranteed to have been accountants at some point in their lives. Hence, they have PROCESS drilled into their unimaginative brains. This means they cannot do anything without the permission of fat middle aged women who eat too many muffins, known as HR staff. HR staff are glorified secretaries who bizarrely have more authority than HM’s. This silly obedience to HR delays things, leading to exceptional candidates taking offers elsewhere and many of us recruiters downgrading from Heinz to Tesco Value.

2): The bored ones:

Banking is becoming less and less exciting by the day. As a result, an increasing number of hiring managers are happy to meet even more bored recruiters during hiring freezes, just to get out the office. Unfortunately, these guys immediately negate the affects of a double espresso when it is needed most. Stuck in the rat race, they give off very little enthusiasm, and oblige recruiters to over-compensate. For all of you who have been sold jobs that were not accurately described, now you know why.

3): The schizophrenics:

Now that their bonuses have disappeared, these guys need an extra kick from work which they seem to get by giving us a hard time. They call us every few months on our holidays with “exclusive mandates”, frantically begging for Ndebele speaking mining specialists willing to spend half the year in Zimbabwe. As soon as we dig up the earth and find them such an idiot, they tell us the candidate is no longer needed. This is why some candidates never hear back from recruiters.

4): The decent ones:

Last, and certainly least in terms of quantity, are those who are pleasant enough not to have the following recorded message on their answer-phones: “If you are a recruiter, speak to HR”. Sadly, that is the only nice thing about them.

New efinancial careers article: What do recruiters do in a hiring freeze?

The following article was published in my efinancialcareers column.

Back in February, I revealed that the most enjoyable days of recruitment arise in bonus season when arrogant Oxbridge bankers come grovelling to us polytechnic parasites like their lives depend on us. Joy.

However the worst time to be in recruitment is during the annual hiring freeze. This is usually reserved for Q4, but this year icicles began appearing in Q3 with the cold winds of sovereign debt blowing harshly about our nethers from July onwards.

In the ideal world, recruitment CEOs would like to send people on unpaid leave every Q4. In the real world, they are obliged to pay people to surf LinkedIn for three months. And yet, some recruiters are intelligent beings who use Q4 productively. Personally, this is what I have been getting up to:

1) Propping up Starbucks

With no reason to cold call candidates, we find our tyrannical KPI obsessed bosses forcing us to meet with clients to talk about their hiring strategies for the following year over “a quick coffee.” I am saturated in lattes and doing my bit for the African farmers.

2) Building my own team for Q1 next year

Banking recruitment will pick up again. Trust me, I’m a visionary (and I have insider info). Many recruiters leave their jobs in Q4 because they’re unable to cope with the boredom. Those of us left behind spend our time searching for the next generation of university graduates to replace them. Unfortunately graduates come out of university like babies from a womb: crying and fearful. It's almost more difficult to find a thick skinned graduate who can nail down deals than it is to find a geeky accountant with the twinklesome charm of Stephen Fry.

3) Tapping the trusting for information

There's clearly some crossover here with point one, but this activity need not necessarily take place over milk froth.

The trick here is to promise the world (come Q1 when hiring starts again) and to rinse the victim for names and department maps. Overseas candidates unfamiliar with this technique tend to be most forthcoming. We recruiters save this practice for Q4 as the two hours it takes to spell their names also helps kill the time.

What do people who “fall into recruitment” study?

The following article was published on Square Mile

“Education, education education”. These were the words of war monger Jonathan Powell, conveyed to the nation through the lips of the ever coy Tony Blair- the channeler of right wing ventriloquism. Unfortunately these words were not intended to mean we’d become a nation of Chinese or Indian-esque super efficient geniuses. Rather, they meant we’d become so thick we’d conflate the word polytechnic with university.

So now, consultants, risk specialists and investment bankers with PHDs in econometrics and quantitative analysis are subjected to brutal cold calls from those who would have been (happily) decorating their houses and unblocking their drains had the three evil E’s never been implemented in such a grotesque manner.

Recruitment Rehab has discovered the most popular undergraduate courses for recruiters who would have been manual labourers (had the past 14 years of education policy been different).

To end up in recruitment it seems you should (passively) “study” one of the following:

5. Real Estate Management at Oxford Brookes University

4. Administration at South Bank University

3. Fashion Marketing at London Metropolitan University

2. “Business Management” at Brunel University

And the most popular of all...

Employment for Dummies (self taught over 6 years from your bedroom).

You will certainly deserve the letters B.A. after your name and most likely the letters S.T.A.R.D too.

What's going on in the middle office?

HSBC, Barcap and any other major bank you can think of are shedding staff be it in IBD, retail or boring old back office. Essentially, to reduce costs banks need more technology to replace humans who are accountable for unpredictable performance and gross operational risk.(Computers don't take 5 minute cigarette breaks every 10 minutes nor do they need 30 days off every 12 months do they)? But remember MR CEO they do break down when you least expect them to (much like your libido).

Despite Credit Suisse announcing cuts in finance, most recruiters are optimistic about middle office hiring. But then most recruiters in London are thick. Very few possess market insight let alone foresight.

As finance change projects are being updated and re-implemented left right and centre in the mad rush for 2012 global ledger convergence it makes sense to think contractors and their recruiters are in the money.

That may be the case now but come 2013 (allow at least 12 months for major delays in implementations) when global general ledgers have been put into place (shoddily) processes will become leaner. Thus there will be less need  for product controllers, regulatory reporters and financial accountants. The machines that are creating the jobs now will take all the jobs in two years time. Unless of course recruiters are encouraging contractors to deliberately jeopardise implementations with unknown "disruptive occurrences" in order to lengthen the number of days at which they can charge £800 per day. No never. The chances of that happening are like the Murdoch empire crumbling, right?!

However, if that is true banks will have to make redundancies and invent computers that can implement computers. But who will implement the implementers? And what will us recruiters do?

Troubled times ahead indeed.

In other news- I've found out some pretty interesting things about some corrupt recruiters and there dodgy dealings with certain banks. WATCH THIS SPACE. If you are reading this and are worried better call your lawyers and get that defamation claim written up!

Until tomorrow...

Why being a lefty liberal might leave you on the wrong side of right!

I finally got through to a candidate who picked up his phone. I wish I hadn’t. This poor confused liberal has had his head screwed worse than me.

What better summer could one have than my candidate? First he had to cancel his very expensive holiday to Norway because some nutter (who looks like Julian Assange’s bloated evil twin) after probably just being served a few too many bad curries gets annoyed with Muslims (despite probably being served by Hindus but they all look the same don't they?) and takes things a bit too far (right) out of hand by massacring some innocent kids. (Somebody should have told him they were NOT aspiring to become recruitment consultants)!

On top of that my candidate found out his wife was sleeping with the Nigerian refugee who collects the rubbish ( apparently “out of sympathy”- he must have left too many Guardian newspapers lying around the house for her to read). It turns out she now has some strange STD which has left her infertile. This is not good news for more reasons than you think. You see on the wedding night she lovingly looked him in the eyes and said: “no matter what happens to us we must stay together for our kids”. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. To save his marriage he’ll  now have to adopt some children; probably the cousins of her Nigerian lover. The elderly couple down the road who have the Daily Mail delivered won’t be pleased.

Anyway, desperate to take out his sexual frustration this normally very rational citizen bought a copy of the The Sun for some page 3 frolics. (His internet connection was down you see and the guy behind the counter knows his boss so that left the top shelf out of reach). With the hurt of betrayal overpowering any chance of arousal he began reading the words instead and with all the events going on in the background he dangerously found the right wing racist ranting resonating within him!!! Shocked at this out of body like experience he zipped up his trousers and quickly logged onto http://www.libdems.org.uk/ to revive his lenient liberal tendencies. Needless to say when he saw Nick Clegg’s face he witnessed more betrayal, more disappointment and like the limp piece of flesh between his legs his liberalism never rose to the occasion.

He turned up to work the next day to discover New Labour’s theme tune echoing in his head. Indeed things could only get better. He was told via email his job would be offshored to a computer in India. This, he says, is only mildly better than it being offshored to a curly haired Indian called Nigel who uses cockney slang with an Indian accent.

All his hopes were ultimately dashed however when he realised this meant he’d have to take cold calls from dim witted recruiters like me. We are the residue of further left wing betrayal- New Labour. Had it not been for their brilliant plan to send every dyslexic 18 year old and his ADHD suffering sister to “university”, we may have become plumbers and joiners servicing his desperate house...and housewife. Instead, forced to find “graduate” work we find ourselves, hair gelled with pointy shoes in George shirts and Primark underwear, climbing the same steps outside Bank station as Saville Row pin striped Masters of the Universe...and confused liberal accountants, punting everything under the sun as “an exciting new opportunity”.

My candidate is losing his wife to a Nigerian, his job to India, his children to Nigerians again, he now reads The Sun instead of The Guardian and finds the only person he can confide in is a recruitment consultant...(who was raised by Pakistani foster parents after a stint with Nick Griffin's parents). Then, looking for a new job he logs onto efinancialcareers and finds this.

I asked him to meet me for a coffee at the Nero next to Liverpool Street station this morning to talk to him about a “fantastic opportunity” at Barclays Capital (that doesn’t exist).He turned up with an EDL banner to tell me he’d “found a new calling in life”.

I called the police but they were too busy being outsourced to Bangladesh to do anything about it. Should I be worried about my new racist candidate? 

Exclusive: Leaked email

The following article about a leaked email was published today on Square Mile

If you are one of the thousands of workers in the City confused as to why your, your mistress and your plumber’s CVs have ended up on every desk including your own, the leaked email below may explain a few things. 

A recently graduated recruitment consultant in a well established firm recently sent this email to a colleague.

(Being a recruiter, or severely dyslexic, his diabolical grammar and spelling (or txt spk) has been rectified for your comprehension). 

Mate, I’ve promised a candidate I won’t send their CV anywhere without their permission. I've got their permission to send them to three live roles. 

An urgent briefing has just come in from a new client and I know this candidate's CV is perfect. 

The client has given me a strict deadline of 4pm for all CV's. I’m not able to speak to my candidate until 6pm.

Sending this CV, which will convert to an interview, will allow me to hit my target for the week. 

If I don't hit the target my whole team will be let down, losing out on the internal competition. My team leader will be all over me again.

I’m sure I can send the CV out  then sell the role to the candidate afterwards. If I don't the guys at XXX will!!!! What should I do?

The response was simply: “welcome to recruitment...send out all CVs on your database to every single hiring manager you connect with on LinkedIn (every single day) and pray something sticks so you can pay for your rent...and hair gel”!

Annoyed? Join us at the Church of Moderate Capitalism for Sunday Mass where we will pray: “Dear Lord, regulate (or abolish) the recruitment industry”!

Fred Bayr: Diary of a loner- The Networking Event

No matter how hard I try the isolation of delusion keeps my frown firmly cemented in place.

            Last Monday evening I attended a networking event for entrepreneurs. I am not an entrepreneur nor do I have any realistic aspirations of becoming one. I went because the winds of loneliness forced me. I figured people proactively talk to each other  at these events so finally I could have some company outside of my working hours. I put on my best shirt and tie, gelled back my hair and thought if I stood in a corner with a certain look in my eye then for the first time since the recession somebody would talk to me. No one did.

            I stood, one hand holding a glass, the other sweatily clenched in my pocket. After twenty five minutes of feeling like the victim of a Paul Daniels magic trick I decided to “network” with others.

            After several dull conversations it became clear to me I was not on the same wavelength with anyone in the room. The length of a football match had passed by.I was down 2 nil: I looked like a complete loser amongst these bright ambitious go getters. I decided to leave.

            As I was walking out I somehow managed to pluck up the courage to speak to the most beautiful girl in the room. She had smiled at me. A friendly smile; perhaps inspired by sympathy. Perhaps she had seen me drowning alone in the sea of networkers and decided to throw me a raft. No. That would never happen to me. I thought I had imagined her smile but proceeded nonetheless.

            I immediately lowered my expectations. I saw a distinguished gentleman by her side complete with handkerchief in his suit jacket’s breast pocket. I assumed he had a pocket full of business cards displaying the words Private Banker or Fund Manager or even Fred Bayr’s Dream Crusher. But as I embarked upon my approach, somebody tapped his shoulder and led him away. I felt a wave of relief knowing  my crap jokes, ugly looks, Tesco Value prawn cocktail crisps breath and nervous twitch could go unchallenged. I didn’t know what to expect but I began to feel confident.

            I wasn’t in this for anything other than a conversation. Seriously.

            We talked. She worked in venture capital but wanted to set up a cosmetics business. She asked me what my business was. Without pause and without knowing where the idea came from I told her it was under construction. I could say no more as I hadn’t secured the patent. The lie created an air of mystery. After years of working in sales lying is second nature to me. I am not proud of this.

            She gave me a look that made me wish we were alone and stepped closer to me pointing her index finger. She began stroking my tie and complimenting my sartorial choices.  I was making an emotional connection but then out of the blue, at the peak of my excitement, she said she needed to leave. I knew it was all too good to be true. Before she left she pulled out her phone and demanded we exchange numbers before we part. My fate was suffering from bipolar: down one minute, up the next.

            The next day I called her to suggest we meet for a drink. She apologised three times before I could complete my invitation. She was tipsy the night before and “totally out of character”. I was a “really sweet guy” but she was “so busy with work and stuff” that she would have no time “ for the next few weeks”. She did suggest I “could call her then” by which point she will have undoubtedly changed her number. Expectation is a bastard.  I felt like a kid tied to a chair and forced to watch his best friends munch his chocolate birthday cake down to the last crumb only to have it all vomited out on his face.  To express myself honestly, I felt like crying. Everynight  since,before I fall asleep, I try to figure out why she smiled at me in the first place...

         

How to escape a life in recruitment

The day you received a letter of acceptance from London South Bank University to study Hospitality Management your life was doomed.

You were always two grades above the class dunce but in the three years of debauchery during which you forgot how to spell, multiply and divide, he excelled through his plumbing apprentice and stepped onto the property ladder. You, after bar work in Buenos Aires and  lazing around a ski resort in Switzerland , decided to “get a real job”. To further prove your lack of brain cells you assumed this to be a job in recruitment.

It started out well. You billed easily, earning as much as the lawyers and doctors who left school with five A’s. You were partying on the continent every third weekend and drunk off free booze on the last Friday of every month.

Now the saturated market has slowed down and you can barely afford to pay your rent. You want out from this soul destroying trap but there are three problems: you have no other skill set to survive a life outside of sales; you don’t have enough savings (or intelligence) to pursue new qualifications; and you don’t have the guts (or ideas) to set up your own business.

Regardless, you come to work every day intending to hand in your notice but become incontinent whenever your boss asks: “so what did you wanna talk about”?

Then a bulb lights up. You will get yourself fired! You will do something so bad that no consultancy will want to hire you again and you will be eternally free from life as a phone monkey. You will sign on and experience something far more stimulating; watching This Morning every day as your mind turns to an even softer, smaller mush.

The problem is - if you were ever unfortunate enough to be half decent - it is easier to get hired than fired in recruitment. Consultancies know idiots who sacrifice their autonomy to do their boss' dirty work (because they are “money motivated”) only come along every second day. As the tuition fees hike comes into effect next year and the number of new graduates from polytechnics decreases, the gold rush of naïve weasels willing to bash phones will fall. Performing or not, your employer needs you as a punching bag.

You can, however, try the following.

1 Get you company kicked off a major PSL

The best way to do this is to blatantly headhunt from such a client. Send out a mass email about a "fantastic opportunity" at a specified bank to all contacts at this account including hiring managers and HR staff.  Follow up with phone calls every hour to the mobile of hiring managers. Ideally you’ll end up pestering one whilst on their summer holiday

.2. Verbally abuse the global head of your practice area at a major account

Simple

3. Turn up late every day

Be creative with your excuses on this one. Try everything from “the sleeping pills were too strong” to “I had an interview with a competitor”.

I speak from experience when I say it is unlikely these will work. If not, tell your boss you slept with his wife. If your boss is single there is no way out!

Three preposterous responses to interview questions

This article was published on SQUARE MILE today.

If you are one of those people for whom interviews are daunting, fear not. Unless you are so thick that your only hope of earning a living is to work in product control, you can shine through with the right advice.

            If you got the interview through a recruiter chances are he’ll be begging you to visit his office for some “interview prep”. Be careful. There are some brilliant recruiters out there and some rather nefarious ones. The latter might get you interviews but that doesn’t mean their industry insight is credible. As a person of high intellect do you really want second hand advice from a residual of New Labour’s gruesome objective of “making university accessible to all”?

            Ensure you take advice from experts. Otherwise you will find yourself at interviews thinking the following responses will give you a hope in hell of securing the job. Believe me, these are horror stories some hiring managers have heard from ill advised candidates.

1. When asked: “Give an example of a time you had to think on your feet at work”, one product controller responded: “I once had diarrhea. I needed to use the toilet but all cubicles were occupied and the autistic IT support guy was approaching the disabled one. I thought on my feet, grabbed a bin liner, ran to the basement and emptied out into the bag. I then sprayed the room with air freshner”.

2. When asked : “What is your greatest achievement to date?”, another product controller said: “Meeting George Michael...” It would have been bad enough if he stopped there. But he continued... “in Hampsted Heath”.

3. When asked (last Thursday) : “ If you were a newspaper which one would you be?”, one dim witted product controller who never reads anything unless its a spreadsheet, replied, “News of The World”.

Guys, either be careful or avoid product control!

Email RecRehab; financechange@gmail.com

Follow FB on Twitter @Fredbayr

Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/fredbayr

What happens when you date a recruitment consultant?

Research has shown having a photo on a LinkedIn profile can increase responsiveness to cold invites. It can also make life a little more interesting for recruiters; if they are recruiting supermodels.

In the lonely world of recruitment, particularly middle office recruitment, the most attractive photo one will come across will be of a four eyed four foot dump who resembles Mervyn King in a skirt and uses the same razor to shave both her armpits and above her upper lip. (Yes, this will be visible to the discerning eye).

Because most recruiters don’t have a life outside of “power hours” and LinkedIn, a vast number have started using Lovestruck.com to find attractive love.

Unfortunately Lovestruck is being forced to ban recruiters because those who date them complain of “strange behaviour”.

Basically, a typical date with a recruiter goes as follows.

1.Recruiter (male) meets date (female) in dodgy Bangladeshi curry house where waiters with poor English continuously use the word menage when they mean manage.

2.Recruiter orders cheap wine.

2A).Before it arrives he starts asking open general questions.

(In his mind he has a methodology of questions which will result in her accepting his “offer”).

3. Recruiter struggles to open bottle. Waiter arrives, points at recruiter and his date and says “you, you, menage; you need me”?

4. Date vomits at the thought of this miscommunication and prepares to leave.

5. Recruiter says: “but wait you haven’t let me probe you yet...” (See 2a- this is genuine recruiter lingo, not an immoral physical act).

6. Date, subjected to this further miscommunication, leaves.

7. Recruiter gets dunk on cheap wine and makes some cold calls.

8. You, an accountant, receive an inarticulate pitch at 9pm about a job that is of no interest.

9. Life goes on...

10: and on... and on...and on...

Hope for former News of the World editor

Embattled former News of the World editor and current CEO of News International Rebekah Brooks need not fear calls for her resignation. A number of London’s notoriously unethical recruitment companies are keen to employ her.

“With such blatant disregard for ethics she’ll be a huge success in this game”, said Sir Vy Ver, Director of RedHead Recruitment.  “Alongside lying to candidates she can help us hack the phones of HR managers and discover vacancies before competitors”.

Brooks told us “cold calling  IT developers and accountants is a bit below the belt. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night”.

  

In related news, The Guardian has been accused of hacking the phones of NOTW investigators to reveal the above hacking scandal.

In other news: The Independent has been accused of hacking the phones of  The Guardian investigators to reveal the above scandal.

In further other news: ITN news have been accused hacking the phones of The Independent....

WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY

Objectivity is important in democratic society. Rec Rehab has been contacted by a number of recruiters who claim we are biased against the industry. Thus, we are opening up the blog to the higher end of the recruitment market. If you or your company want to have your news/opinions/analysis published email FINANCECHANGE@GMAIL.COM

Alongside highlighting credible recruitment companies, for the benefit of the tens of thousand of candidates who visit us daily we will soon compile a short list of recruiters to avoid. Candidates- keep sending us stories of your bad experiences to financechange@gmail.com

Thank you for all emails to date.We will publish them soon.

Education secretary announces new white paper

Education secretary Michael Gove has announced the coalition’s most ambitious policy to date. In an attempt to raise success rates across high schools in England, Mr Gove proposes GCSE pupils visit recruitment consultancies in the City of London to witness the fate of academic failures.

“Seeing these spiky haired gum chewing monkey’s battle for crumby commission will instill fear into our teenagers”, Gove will enunciate in a speech later today. “ If they don’t read Shakespeare and study Toynbee they’ll realise they will end up with no value to add to society and no fulfilment to derive from their daily existence. They’ll spend their lives skimming LinkedIn profiles, leaving voice mails and re-writing CV’s for accountants who have the grammatic ability of dyslexic BNP thugs".

We attempted to ask deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg for his opinion but during our conversation he was repeatedly disrupted by cold calling recruiters asking if he knew any idiots stupid enough to take mind numbing product control jobs. “Try Osborne”, is all we could get out of him. We’re certain he wasn’t talking to us.

The world’s most successful loser

Judging by the reaction to my efinancialcareers article, I am the most talked about person in the Square Mile; albeit for being the world’s most successful loser.

Success is success as far as I’m concerned and as one reader commented I “reek of it”.

See here

My life long ambition can now be achieved. I am officially cool enough to wear sunglasses indoors. I walked into my office today with a pout, jacket over shoulder and a mysterious aura that would make Johnny Depp look as unassuming as George Michael asleep behind the wheel outside any given Snappy Snaps.

None of the girls turned their heads. That changed when my discounted pointy ShoeZone loafers got caught in the phone cable extension. I crashed onto the ground with my trousers in a twist revealing my aura destroying white sport socks. (My washing machine is broken).

Life is not good for some no matter how hard we try.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have accountants to be rejected by.

Efinancial Careers: My brilliant plan to revolutionise recruitment

Read my article here

It can't get any worse for some...

Tuesday morning. Hot and stuffy. You want to be in your shorts driving to the beach. Instead you’re back in the office, yawning. You down your 56^th caramel latte of the month, bored of the taste of repetition. Your only comfort is your survival of yesterday; 4 more days to go then back to the crap pub on a Friday at half five. Then a weekend of sleep. There must be more to life than this, right?

Cut to the chase. You hate your job. No autonomy. No creative input. Just repetition of a process which will never earn you the money needed to get a mortgage.

Staff in IT support who realise this tell themselves: it could be worse, I could be an accountant. Or a recruitment consultant. Worse, a recruitment consultant who recruits accountants. Ouch! It can’t get any worse for some...

MORE SHOCKING NEWS...

Further to a previous survey revealing the public's wretched perception of the recruitment industry, a new one follows up with even less to be optimistic about.

Research from Resilient Recruiters shows the 5 most common causes of depression in the UK are:

1.Working as a recruitment consultant
2. Marrying a recruitment consultant
3.Being an unemployed recruitment consultant
4.Being a failed artist who ended up as a recruitment consultant
5.Guilt of voting Lib Dem

Diary of a Loner: Fred Bayr’s table for one...

            “Table for one please”. These are the words every 30 plus year old hates to say as they enter a restaurant. Unfortunately, I am forced to say them every evening. After 10 hours of vomiting out repetitive sales pitches that make accountants want to Van Gogh their ears, I have nothing but the company of a dead salmon and the odd ant crawling over a lettuce to cheer me up. If there is a more painful way to die than contracting the current strain of E-coli marching through German cucumbers it is suffering from loneliness. (Or being hung up on during cold calls. Repeatedly. Everyday).

            Just as all good candidates are happy in their mundane but extortionately paid jobs, all beautiful women with the prettiest smiles are in relationships with men who can provide them with more than low lithium induced rants about the joy of missing KPI’s.

            Last night I thought my fate was set to change. For once I was not the only lonesome soul in the restaurant. As I walked in, on an island of her own, surrounded by happy couples, was a woman possessing eyes so stunning even Dale Winton would have felt a hardening in a certain part of his body by glancing into them. This was my one chance at having something other than a dead salmon to talk to. As I prepared my pitch in the toilet I revised my recruitment inspired objection handling techniques. Then it dawned on me: this is why I am single. I decided to go with the flow. I rushed out, heart pounding, ready to deliver some classic Bayr banter when I saw the seat opposite her had been occupied by another man. Just before I asked the waiter to be Fawlty to my Manuel, smacking a frying pan across my face, I observed hope in the air. They weren’t kissing. They weren’t touching. There was an awkwardness between them. I found myself  rummaging for twisted logic in the wreckage of my mind. I desperately prayed to God that they’d be brother and sister. As I opened my eyes God had either: a) revealed the 11^th Commandment: though shalt not be a recruiter or b) answered my prayer whilst allowing the anti-Christ Nick Clegg (whose poster once adorned my bedroom wall) to introduce another imbecilic law: legalisation of incest. They were all over each other. 

            With my heart sinking faster than Greece’s economic credibility, I returned to my darkened corner. Salmon, lettuce and ants. The only thing that could have made it worse actually happened. James Blunt’s Beautiful started playing through the speakers.At my request it was turned off to the alternative of Sky News and...the voice of Nick Clegg! Is there any justice in this world? Not for this recruitment consultant.

            Tonight I have a table for one booked at Jamie’s Italian in Covent Garden, 7pm. I would greatly appreciate it if any one of you would pop down just to say hello. Or, if you are one of the dedicated fans who love slating my brilliant cutting edge articles on eFinancialcareers, come down for five minutes and tell me what a low life weener I am. I’d really appreciate that. Seriously. It’s better than being alone.

Exclusive: Gaddafi has been supporting London recruitment managers

New documents reveal Gaddafi invented the KPI and tried to sell it to Ahmadinejad as the perfect modern day shackle.The Iranians felt it was too extreme calling it  "the kind of vile thing the Americans would use in Guantanamo".Struggling for customers, Gadaffi tried his luck on London recruitment agencies who lapped it up.

Unfortunately he now gets bombarded with cold calls, repeatedly being asked if he is a product controller with change experience. (No wonder he's gone mad)!

Read more from Fred Bayr - the man recruiters love to hate, here

New article on efinancialcareers: "How to identify a truly great recruiter"

Read it here.

How to spot a recruiter

Chances are wherever you go in the Square Mile you will be within several feet of a recruitment consultant. You need to watch what you say in their presence. Things you take for granted; reading out your mobile number for a friend, mentioning where you work or talking about new hiring plans, will be scooped up and used against you in cold calls for the rest of your life.

Fred Bayr can help you discern when you are in the danger zone but you’ll need to pay close attention. Recruiters are wannabe bankers. They’ll wear TM Lewin shirts and pin stripe suits like you, “to get your buy in”. They’ll flatten and part their spiky hair to look credible. Some may even carry briefcases (for their Tesco Value sandwiches and lads mags). But there is one way you can tell the person next to you is a recruiter not a banker.

He’ll be carrying a copy of the FT to look acceptable. Notice his eyes darting up, down, left and right as he panics at the sight of so many words. Notice the twitching left leg as he fears you may figure him out. Most obvious of all, prior to now, he’s never touched a broadsheet in his life.

You know the guy opposite is a recruiter when he tries to turn the page and the entire middle section drops out. He then looks up at you like a waiter who just dropped the main course your starving belly was craving.

You laugh, but, remember, he is a fellow human being. He’s someone who has faced a world of rejection. Someone who has had one too many lonely nights eating Birds Eye fish fingers and McCain microwavable chips. That person is me.

He may pick up the paper but he’ll never pick up his self esteem as he enters the office, picks up the phone and is told to F   OFF for the twenty zillionth time!

Regardless, recruiters are jammy dodgers you should never trust. Beware!

Intelligence will not earn you more respect...if you are a recruiter

As we value adding recruiters sit in our offices day after day, staring at the same database of candidates (until we have to utilise the discounted eye checks our employers promise and probably take a scummy commission from), the outside world fills with excitement. Revolution parades through the Middle East,(sort of) radicals protest against spending cuts  and we... have our heads stuck in the burning furnace of rejection, listening to the world's most hated people telling us to eat what pigs happily roll in.

With the world passing by, you’d think you’d be able to turn to colleagues for inspiring intelligent conversation. This may be true for doctors and engineers but not for salespeople.

Look, I’ll be honest. I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, I’m a recruitment consultant. But you know what? I’m probably the brightest recruiter in London. Why?  Because I got a 3^rd class in English Literature from the University of Winchester. Unfortunately my polytechnic colleagues think I’m an intelligent snob whenever I try and start a conversation about famous Shakespeare books I haven’t got round to reading yet, like Pride and Prejudice.

Mind you, it’s the receptionist I feel sorry for. She thinks Jim is an intellectual snob because he got a 1st  from Nottingham Trent despite “hospitality management, being, like, really, really hard”. Still, recruiters are treated with more disdain than receptionists? It’s such an unjust world!

The most wanted candidate in the City

            I called a meeting with my subordinates yesterday. I asked them to name me the best candidate in their respective fields, Corporate Finance, Finance Change and Product Control. All 3 of the dimwits (they’re recruitment consultants after all, I wasn’t expecting much) remained silent. I asked again, with arms crossed staring at the Pepsi slurping, jelly bean chewing timewasters, less than a year out of uni. “Fine”, I said, “what’s the name you hear the most about in your area”. One clever clog told me all he ever hears on the other end of the phone is “F**K Off”. The other two nodded in agreement like conformist c***s.

            So there we have it. Apparently there is only one candidate in the City of London. His name is “F**K Off”. He is a bit of a busy body multi tasker. According to my retarded team he works in Front Office & Middle Office for all the banks in the City at the same time. “F**K Off” is everywhere. He’s the last candidate left in the banking market.

The race is on to headhunt this guy. Are you up for the competition?
If you pick up the phone, ask for the name of the candidate you are speaking to and are told “F**k Off”, you should consider yourself lucky in this post credit crunch- on the verge of a double dip- investment banking recruitment market.

Good luck.

The coldest of all calls

  Masochists love pain. You can tie them down and whip them with leather belts- they’ll love you for it. You can force them to bite rocks with their two front teeth and they will buy you flowers in return. You can force them to stare at Anne Widdecombe’s zoomed in mug whilst singing Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely”–they’ll cry with joy.

            One thing no hardcore masochist can enjoy is making a cold call.  As painful as it is for those who make them, they provide more pleasure for sadists.

A report from think tank MBHM (Marry a Banker for His Money)  has discovered the number one cause of divorce amongst City professionals.

            Research revealed most headhunt calls made from female consultants take place between 7pm-9pm. These are the hours the candidate is in the shower after a long day at work. Innocently leaving his phone within reach of his beautiful wife, when it rings on private number, her suspicion over takes her. Every female recruiter loves to put on a sexy voice to make the call less cold. Add this to the pressure she is under to hit targets. The resulting combination of sexiness and heavy breathing when mentioning the candidate’s name means one thing for the wife.

            Not only are we commission seeking career destroyers, we are also home wrecking bank account drainers. Perhaps we’d make more money recruiting divorce lawyers. 

GUEST ARTICLE: “CityBoy" author Geraint Anderson on headhunters

I remember getting a call from Fred Bayr ten years ago trying to sell me a fake job and  get my managers name. I’ve got no problems with head hunters now but when I wrote ‘Cityboy’ in 2008 at the end of my 12 year stockbroking career I was a different person.
Those of you in the City now may feel exactly as I did then. Whilst in the thick of it I wrote...

I’ve always felt head hunters make traffic wardens, estate agents and even Manchester United supporters seem relatively acceptable human beings. They are essentially parasites living in the bloated stomach of capitalism. I know they are just doing a job but it is the way they do it that offends my sensibilities. Just like football agents who have a self-interest in promoting as many transfers as possible, head hunters will tell you whatever lies are required to encourage you to switch banks. If I had ten grand for every time a head hunter told me that my bank was falling apart and that all my colleagues were constantly calling him up desperate to move shop I’d be almost as rich as I actually am. You may think that estate agents getting two percent of the value of your house just for finding a buyer is a complete piss-take but head hunters often receive around thirty percent of a new recruit’s first year’s compensation. When you’re dealing with City types, who are sometimes earning seven figure salaries, that can be a disgustingly huge amount for essentially doing bugger all. I’ve also noticed that these spongers often ring up to get your details just so they can pretend to be involved in a specific job placement even if they have diddly squat to do with it. If you then do switch banks independently the head hunter who has got your details can sometimes try and get some blood money by claiming involvement. The sooner they realise they have no value and become street sweepers, the sooner the world will be a better, safer place.

I’m obviously a much calmer person now but are head hunters any more ethical? Will the nature of their job ever allow them to be?

Geraint Anderson is a former stockbroker and author of The Sunday Times Bestseller: CityBoy – Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile which can be bought here.

Find out more about his charity work at http://www.cityboy.biz/

 

A message to graduate recruiters

You are six months to a year out of university. You couldn’t find the ideal career so you were swayed into recruitment. You swallowed your pride the night before your first day and told yourself this could work. You looked around at the senior consultants with huge mortgages, no children and stale relationships and said: “if I work hard I can be like them some day”. You made yourself feel good by saying “hey, I might work in recruitment but I have a job, unlike 2.5 million people”.
            In your first week, like the interview stages, your team leader kept repeating, like a parrot, how much money you will potentially earn. Six months to a year in you’ve realised, “potentially” in recruitment means never! Boo hoo.
            You get into the cluttered office everyday at 8am, sweaty from a 45 minute commute. You’ve had your face rammed into a Bangladeshi armpit for 37 of those minutes smelling onions and armpit hair through an unwashed Trespass jacket that mice have urinated on. You sit at your desk, pick up the phone and....you listen to an answering machine. You do this non-stop till 6pm, stopping only for three things.
1)      A trip to the toilet.
2)      Your lunch break
3)      A meeting with your manager who reminds you every day how pointless your job is by asking why you are not hitting targets. You respond diplomatically: “Sorry, I’ll take responsibility. I’ll stay behind late tonight”

Deep down you know as well as your manager, you’re not hitting your targets because there are no candidates actively looking, none who can be convinced to move with your petty pitch  and no clients wanting to meet you due to upcoming hiring freezes. Those  disappointed by bonus payments will be likely to move out of banking altogether. They won’t be interested in the- watching paint dry type- financial reporting or java development roles you’ve been enslaved to recruit for.

You know what time it is. Time to leave the world of recruitment before the internal resourcers take over. Good night

Recruitment firm hires celebrity motivational speaker

MR T says: “GET ON THE PHONES MUTHAF****S”

Recruitment firm Resilient Recruiters brought MR T into their London office after a poor performance last quarter.

Fred Bayr interviewed Tony Wright-Chopper for his feedback. Tony graduated with a 2.1  in Objection Management from the University of Winchester last June. With the world as his oyster he chose a career in recruitment.

FB: What did MR T do?

TWC: He walked around the office all day shouting; "Get on the phones MUTHAF****S"!

FB: Did the different approach work for you?

TWC: Different? That's what our boss does everyday.

FB: Has MR T motivated you?

TWC: Yes, to hand in my notice.

Resilient Recruiters won our “Worst Recruitment Consultancy of 2010” Award.
CEO Michael Snowballs (who’s surname has a silent S) had this message for all candidates who voted: “Piss off you t*****s”! He has since resigned and is thought to be looking for work in the public sector.

SHOCKING NEWS: survey reveals poor perception of UK recruitment industry

A survey published today by Resilient Recruiters has found Britons believe the ten worst jobs are:

1)      Recruitment consultant
2)      PA to CEO of a recruitment consultancy
3)      Toilet cleaner in a recruitment consultancy
4)      Team Leader in a recruitment consultancy
5)      Rec to Rec Consultant
6)      HR Manager in a recruitment consultancy
7)      Marketing Manager in a recruitment consultancy
8)      Office Manager in a recruitment consultancy
9)      MD of a recruitment consultancy
10)   Sole white chef in a busy Indian restaurant
 

Recruiters from Hell

In our Recruiters from Hell series we will be publishing stories of candidates who have been victimised by these inarticulate creatures.  Send your story to financechange@gmail.com


Read Toby Jocks' story below.

Toby Jocks, a newly qualified accountant tells us: “ I was called during my father’s funeral and was pitched a job at BarCap as a Fixed Income Product Controller. When I told the recruiter-who claimed to be a specialist but thought fixed income meant fraudulent activity in cricket matches sponsored by banks- it was not a convenient time, he just kept rattling his script read spiel.  When I told him my father killed himself because a recruiter sold him a lie, he didn’t say sorry. He just asked if I had any colleagues or other family members who might be interested. They’ll never change”

So you want to be a recruitment consultant?

   My friends pulled puzzled faces when I told them I was a recruiter, wondering why anyone in their right mind would spend their life doing such a vile thing.
            Nobody ends up in recruitment by choice. I entered this squalid game 8 years ago having squandered my time at university, ending up with a third class degree. Being thick and lazy, but not wanting a life on the dole, I ended up in the City as a recruiter.
            Increasingly it is becoming the career of compulsion for more academic under-achievers. Consultancies lull in graduates with adverts on job boards telling them how they can pay off student debts in a year. The truth is, though you don’t need to be clever or qualified to work in recruitment, you need lots of one decreasing rarity: luck.
            My advice is, if you are thick or lazy and considering a career in recruitment, only apply if you want to be doing the following for approximately 60 hours a week.

1)      Earning just above the minimum wage: In today’s banking world there is no room for newcomers in recruitment. Only those with established relationships in the industry (like me) will be making any money. As a graduate today you’ll only earn your base salary; between 17k and 20k a year.
2)      Attending depressing morning meetings: As above, only a few consultants are making serious money. As you won’t be one, you’ll get in to work at 8am every morning only to be bawled at by your manager for not doing the impossible; hitting targets in an increasingly dry market. You’ll end up hitting your manager rather than your ludicrous targets.
3)      Listening to answering machines for 10 to 12 hours a day: Anybody working in  investment banking (even the toilet cleaner at Goldman Sachs) who receives a call from a withheld number knows it’s a recruiter on the line. With the fear of a double dip recession perpetually looming, few candidates want to jump ship for fear of being the last one in and the first one out – especially if you are recruiting below Director level. Thus, candidates would rather listen to pigs vomit than your pointless sales pitch.

                  So if you are thinking of recruitment as a fast-track to riches, think again. You might get more job satisfaction as that toilet cleaner at Goldman Sachs. At least you’ll be adding more value.

8 years of recruitment explains it all

What do you call a loser with no ambition? A recruitment consultant. I heard this joke being shared by two corporate financiers on the train home. The sad thing is, its not a joke, it’s the heart stopping truth for all underpaid post 28 year olds spending the majority of their lives on phones to people who hang up on them.

            If I could go back in time I’d have worked harder at school, gone to a proper university, earned a better grade and done something meaningful with my life. Something which provided decent money, autonomy and at least an inkling of satisfaction.

            People have been saying a lot of things about me recently on internet forums  and I’d like to give you a bit of context to explain why I might come across as “insulting and arrogant”, “a hypocrite”, “tasteless”, an “arrogant ignoramus”,  a“dumbo”,“a pathetic creature”, “an embarrassment”, “disgruntled, emotive and disillusioned”, “dismal”, “unprofessional” a “dead head”, a “plonker”, a “bitter failure”, an” idiot”, a “pratt”, a “weener” and “crass”. I am all these things because that’s what 8 years in recruitment has done to me.

            8 years of lying and being lied to. 8 years of micro management. 8 years of working a job that makes me feel like a manic depressive. 8 years of being treated like a sweat shop labourer by short fat women who take out their anger at not being able to give up chocolate on me. 8 years of being surrounded by the residue of polytechnics and failed artists. 4 years of being very successful at my job and 4 years of being an unproductive waste of space who does everything under the sun to get fired but is never let go by my desperate bosses. 8 years of wishing I’d accidentally overdose on lithium and wake up in hell to avoid having to go to work.. 8 years of being a closet Lib Dem supporter then having spineless Nasty Nick spit in my face after licking David Cameron’s shoes. 8  years of...misery I think sums it up best.

CITYBOY IS BACK WITH A NEW NOVEL: JUST BUSINESS

      If Vince Cable didn’t have to kiss David Cameron’s backside before opening his mouth, perhaps he would have Geraint Anderson write his speeches. Geraint has lost none of his energetic prose which made his debut novel Cityboy a cutting edge classic. Three pages in, the (justified) hero of banker bashing describes Goldman Sachs employees as “ the most vicious, repugnant ****suckers the world has ever seen”. If self-awareness is a requirement for leadership, Lloyd Blankfein has to agree this is a diplomatic understatement.

            Just Business is a sequel to Geraint’s debut. Narrated by Steve Jones, this gripping thriller brilliantly portrays his attempt to escape a complex crime trail brought on by a desperate attempt to leave behind the rat race of City life.

            This novel will be a surprise to many who thought Anderson was a one hit wonder. It reveals his ability to set intricate, suspenseful plots and create appealing characters. Upon reading this one discovers there is a bit of Steve Jones within all of us: a mysterious perpetual desire to escape the rituals of daily life. This novel forces the thinking reader to ask: is such a thing possible and are the results as desirous as we think?

Just Business is available to buy here

For more on Geraint click here

Who is Fred Bayr (Part 4)

Political beliefs

Until May last year Fred was a passionate supporter of the Liberal Democrats. Then the rose garden love in happened. Then the Comprehensive Spending Review. Then the tuition fees hike. Then the failed AV referendum and the 600 plus council seat losses. Now Fred is a political atheist- all faith has been lost.

Fred hates his job. The sole enjoyment in his life was once waking up every morning to a hot coffee, sipped from his Nick Clegg mug. He would munch on jam and toast from his Nick Clegg plate and dry up the dishes with his Nick Clegg tea towel. Whatever the weather, his bright yellow wallpaper would cheer him up. Now everything just seems...blue.

Who is Fred Bayr (Part 3)

Blog

Fred set up the highly popular and controversial Recruitment Rehab blog in December 2010 writing about his experiences in the industry. It has received a phenomenal amount of hits and has apparently led to a book deal. It featured a guest article from best selling author of City Boy- Geraint Anderson. The blog had to be taken down several times due to complaints of  its "highly offensive nature". 

Fred blogs regularly at eFinancialCareers. His first post was banned after causing an outrage. He has subsequently written several more articles each provoking global debate. One post: The Four Genres of Investment Banking Candidate was discussed on Wall St Oasis. Fred’s articles are famous for their contradictory arrogance and crassness. He is, after all , a recruitment consultant.

Who is Fred Bayr (Part 2)

Recruitment
Fred “fell into recruitment” after a year of unfruitful soul searching post graduation.
He has recruited across various areas in banking including corporate finance and equity research, areas he admits he knows nothing about. After the recession he switched to middle office, due to client demand, and currently recruits finance change staff- an area he also knows nothing about, “except how hard it is to find candidates, even rubbish ones”. It is unclear which company Fred Bayr works for. It is rumoured his former employers have offered him a large sum of money not to mention, in his public writings, the shady operations they asked him to indulge in.

Who is Fred Bayr? (Part 1)

Fred Bayr is a well known headhunter working in the City of London. He is also a columnist on the world’s largest financial services recruitment website eFinancialCareers.

Background
Fred was born on the 4th of Dec 1980 in an unknown location. He shares the same birthday as Ronnie Corbet- something he was severely teased about by a cruel primary teacher. This left him psychologically scarred.

 He was raised by a struggling single mother, until she committed suicide when Fred was 7. He was taken into foster care and eventually went to live under the guardianship of Edgar and Jean Griffin, parents of BNP leader Nick Griffin. After two months it became clear to the Griffins this arrangement wouldn’t work because Fred  “asked for curry every night”.
           
Social workers eventually made arrangements for Fred and he was fostered by a childless Pakistani couple in Ilford, Essex.
           
Fred stayed in Ilford until he left school at 18 and attended the University of Winchester. He graduated in 2002 (after repeating a year) with a third class in English Literature; an achievement he is extremely proud of. In an interview with the Ilford Recorder he said: “People with my kind of background don’t go to university. A third  for me is like a first for David Cameron”. The University of Winchester is rated 76th in the UK.