The recruitment consultant
So I know I fucked up. I just didn’t think a decision I made over 4 years ago would have such far reaching repercussions. I better start at the beginning.
There’s this recruitment consultant who I’ve never met and who sends me the odd job specification to look over before disappearing for months. It’s the nature of our relationship and both of us are comfortable with it. He needs a few decent CVs to flash in front of his clients and I need work.
My major problem with recruitment agents is that most don’t know the industries well enough to be able to pick apart transferrable skills on a CV. The other thing is their commission. Some have taken as much as £200 a day for doing sweet FA. Certain organisations insist you go through them though so what choice do you have. They also don’t declare their commission up front. Instead they tell you about this being the quiet months and sucking his breath the market and recession and blah blah blah. Yes we get it. You don’t want to screw the client so you’ll screw me instead and not in the good way.
Any way today I saw a job with the same agency but not from the same guy. Had he left? No thankfully he’s still around but his client was dealing with one area specifically now. OK, I was willing to show how ‘can-do approach and ‘one of the team’ I was and go with it. And so I began the banter with newbie.
All was going well until he made a television reference. Now as you all know I don’t own a TV and worse I’ve not seen a soap in over 10 years. To add insult to injury it was Coronation Street which I’ve never ever watched so I was really stuck. I told him that I didn’t have a television and he gasped! Then he said seriously. “I suggest you get one”
Seriously? Was this guy suggesting that my lack of a license and TV were tantamount to making me unemployable? Did this mean that I didn’t have enough water cooler knowledge to fit into the organisational culture? WTF!
Begrudgingly he said he would try to set up an interview for me but something tells me that he’s not going to push too hard. Did I mention he was Northern? Maybe as a Northerner living in London he holds onto Coronation Street as a taste of home? Who knows? All I know is that I’m going to blonde up this recruitment lark and just laugh when they put on that ‘I’ve just told a joke’ voice that men do. It’s the only way my precious.
That’s it, I’m adding Twitter enthusiast and Facebook aficionado to my CV. But wait, that’s just going to sound like I will waste the company’s time being online? May as well start off being honest, right?
© Chelsea Black
