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.