Inundated – 10 Pings for the Same Position in 1 Hour
This was a very active 2nd week in my new job search. About 120-130 incoming recruiter contacts last week, and easily over 100 this week.
Funny thing is that in the final hours on Friday, one position in particular kept coming across my plate. It was for a Sr. Project/Program Manager with AT&T. While talking with one of the recruiters, the emails just kept coming in. At last count there were 10, but it might have totaled 11 or 12 – all between 3pm and 4pm and all from different recruiters/companies!
Hot Summer with Hot Recruiting
The temperature is 105 F every day in the North Texas area. But that’s not all that’s hot. Read on.
The economy is down and unemployment is up. Those with jobs should count themselves fortunate. That is how I viewed myself. Most people don’t like to job hunt. For me, somehow my career has become one of being a professional job hunter. It was not something I would have chosen for myself. But here I am – and I have become pretty darned good at it. My objective for this article is to show that despite the state of the economy, the hiring market is hot right now for those with a good resume and work history. And with a little strategic self-marketing, you can get a lot of good conversations with a lot of recruiters.
Many times my engagements are extended. But there another side to the coin. About two weeks ago, my “perm” position came to a screeching halt when politics, budget cuts, and reorgs collided. Oh well, that is nothing new in the life of this consultant.
Good news for consultants and contractors… The market is HOT! I have lots of activity; over 120 recruiters contacted me last week. And this week probably another 60 by EOD Wednesday. I refreshed my resume on Dice and Monster last Sunday night a week and a half ago. In that time my “number of times viewed in the past 30 days” on Dice went from 15 to 171 – which translates to 154 recruiter viewings in 8 business days – and about the same amount on Monster. Many of those viewers went on to check me out on LinkedIn.com and on personal professional website at www.BACommando.com.
Potential clients/employers include BAC, Fannie Mae, Fiserv, MedAssets, RBC Bank, Harris County TX, Pennsylvania Department of Energy, Charles Schwab, Verizon, Capital One, Citizens Bank, Siemens, AT&T, Home Depot, BackCountry.com, SpeedFC.com, Southwest Airlines, Toys R Us, PepsiCo, Fidelity Investments, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, and dozens of others. (Note: In most if not all cases, I am contacted only by agencies and consultancies, and rarely if every by actual in-house HR recruiters).
Locations include NY, ME, UT, NJ, NC, MI, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, DFW area, Cincinnati, Rhode Island, San Antonio, Austin, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, San Francisco, San Diego, and more. I have been contacted by recruiters for positions in Dublin Ireland and Brighton UK, but they have not followed up.
Positions include Sr. Business Analyst, Process Analyst, Project Manager, and Program Manager. Most are contracts from 6-12 months. Some are as short as 4 weeks. Some are perm. Start dates range from “ASAP” to “in a few weeks”. As you might expect, several recruiters are contacting me redundantly for the same position, so I ask who the client is immediately so as to avoid double submission. Nonmatching inquiries include developer, development lead, QA analyst/lead, systems analyst, security chief, architect, EMC Engineer, UX/UI Engineer, and other technical positions.
My standard quoted rate is $75/hr W2, but I have agreed to local submissions as low as $60/hr W2. (at “a fun place to work”), and as high as $100/hr for most out of state gigs, and one at $110/hr since it is in Chicago for only 4 weeks. $83/hr 1099 for a 4 day/week on site in Houston. $80/hr W2 plus travel/accommodations in NC. $130k quoted for two out of town perm positions. I have declined to pursue about 3 perm positions in the $100-$115 range. I have declined interest in many contract gigs below $60, including some in the $40-$50 range; the ones that really make me laugh are for things like “$48/hr 1099 in NYC” (Ha! Have they started giving away air travel and hotel stays?).
Filling a position has its cycle (and steps within the cycle can have their own cycles/repetitions). It often goes something like this…
- Recruiter identifies candidate
- Recruiter contacts candidate
- Recruiter presents candidate to client hiring manager
- Resume sits in pile on hiring manager’s desk
- Hiring manager finds time to review resumes
- Hiring manager provides feedback to recruiter
- Recruiter gets more info from candidate
- Recruiter sets up phone screen between candidate and hiring manager/team
- Candidate is phone screened
- Decision is made to 1) Hire, 2) Interview, 3) Not hire
- Offer is made
- Offer is accepted
- Acceptance paperwork is processed
- References are checked
- Candidate receives other offer(s)
There is no telling what I will end up with. It can be very interesting. Sometimes the ones that look the hottest fizzle out, and the ones least expected come through. You never know until the deal is inked. Sometimes the process can take forever and the candidate is lost to a competing recruiter. In one case I was being sourced for Time, Inc. in NYC. Weeks passed without contact from their recruiter. Then when they finally called, I informed the recruiter that 1 hour before he called I had just accepted an engagement at WalMart’s Home Office. In another case, a Siebel integrator was in a pinch to backfill a Sr. Business Analyst position. They rushed me through and had me report to work in Madrid Spain about a week after their first contact with me. And on one really fast occasion, I was interviewed by key staff at Stanford University on a Friday morning, and by 3pm California time they had made me a very sweet offer.
Though my family is rooted here and I really don’t want to travel, I decided a long time ago that being willing to take on out-of-town gigs can make the difference between putting bread on the table or not. By the way, when I am between projects and the market is hot like it is now, I spend between 6 and 8 hours a day updating my resumes, communicating with recruiters, and otherwise working on my job search.
Happy job hunting and career building to you!
Good Business Analysts Hard To Find
The past month has been extremely active for me on the job hunting front. In October a large national financial institution flew me to St. Louis to interview for a project/program management leadership position (put me up at the Four Seasons, no less). They said I was in the top two of only 4 candidates nationally they identified as potential fits.
Then I interviewed with a top medical technology/pharmaceutical company in southern California. They had trouble finding good candidates, so they approved funding for the position at $85/hr. After looking at my would-be expenses, I countered with $95/hr. They tried for a couple of weeks to get approval, then the recruiter told me no-go. Two weeks later he called to see if I was still available. Too late.
In the midst of all that, I was contacted by a major university on the west coast. In my attempt to scare them away (because I really did not want to move/travel for a 5 or 6 month gig), I quoted $90/hr. The next day I had my phone interview at noon, and they extended an offer by the end of the day on Friday. The specific need was a unique opportunity for any BA, and it would have been an excellent chance to exercise my entrepreneurial skills and make another awesome entry into my resume. Like I had been told before, they were having a very difficult time finding qualified or well-fitting candidates.
I turned down the offer for a work-from-home opportunity with a national mortgage company that paid a lot less but was perm. The next week they called me back to see if I could refer anyone to them.
Interestingly, between receiving the offer from the mortgage company and rejecting the one from the prestigious university, I was scheduled to have a face-to-face interview with a different mortgage company. But having planned to accept the offer from the first one, I called the recruiter at Apex IT Solutions to decline and cancel the interview. But there was a mix up in the communications, and his colleague called me to confirm the interview. When I told her I was getting ready to accept the offer from mortgage co 1, she somehow persuaded me into at least talking to the hiring manager at mortgage co 2.
Surprisingly to me, after talking for only 5 minutes I became very interested in the position because it appealed as a challenge which would use my process engineering skills, and it was a leadership opportunity. The hiring manager said she was having trouble finding a candidate who was a good fit (she had actually had to release someone hired previously who did not work out). By the end of the call, she basically said she wanted me and was willing to pay more for me. And I told her she better hurry with her formal offer since I needed to responded to mortgage co 1 the next day. In short, after a brief interview with a couple of her team members, the deal was sealed.
There you have it. In addition to the afore-mentioned instances, I am receiving about 2 or 3 or 4 recruiter inquiries a day looking for a good BA. Many of them are interested in process definition skills. This indicates to me that Corporate America is ready to look at innovation again and willing to hire good business analysts to do it. Companies are recognizing that you shouldn’t send a Systems Analyst to do a Business Analyst’s job.
Hot Recruiting Activity in 2010 Q4
I have been very busy lately – busy receiving emails and phone calls from recruiters. Busy interviewing and receiving job offers. I don’t mean to brag, but rather only to tell it like it is. In analyzing my primary job hunting email folder, I counted over 2,500 (2.5k) emails from recruiters over the past 12 months to date.
In the past month I have had over a dozen interviews or phone screens. And in the past 7 days, I have received 3 bona fide offers for contract or permanent employment. One was from a prestigious university on the West coast. Second was a work-from home position from one of the nations’ largest mortgage companies. And the third, the one I accepted, is with a up-and-coming mortgage lender.
As I have said before, many companies will ramp up on contractors at the same time they are downsizing FTE’s. Contracting is not something I wanted to be in as long as I have. But considering the fate of the jobs of many of my FTE counterparts, I have to admit that contracting has been good to me – though I have received plenty of bumps, scrapes, and bruises along the way.
2010 and Hunting Again
It’s been a while since my last post. Well, to sum it up quickly, in that time I have landed two jobs and talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of recruiters, while having updated my online resume dozens and dozens of time, and having received several thousand email inquiries.
My work took me to all of: Canada, a corporate workplace, and my home office. My earnings were C2C/1099 and W2. I had no benefits, and I had insurance coverage.
Much of the time there was uncertainty as to whether my projects would proceed. In one case it was uncertain as to whether I would get paid. And in the other case, my contract ended when I was expecting it least.
Most of the time my job hunting was passive. But now I am going active. Though not my favorite part of the profession, it is where I am, and I am doing what I have to do. Oh the life of the IT Consultant!
Cheers!
