Recruiters vs company direct
I wanted to ask if anyone has had negative experiences with recruiters. It seems they are all over you until they submit your resume for a position. Then its like they fell in a black hole if the company was not interested. You never hear from them again and cant get any status on whats going on.
My sob story
I received my BSME from UCLA and went to work at various companies (aircraft, space systems, diffusion furnaces, aerial tow targets and 20 years in the disk drive business. Things were going great until I got laid-off in mid-2001 at age 55. I always got jobs immediately after leaving a position and even had companies contact me for employment.
Getting laid off at that time was bad timing. Sept 11th happened and the job market collapsed for about a year. I sent out over 1000 resume the first year with virtually no response except for 2 on-site interviews (Denver & Chicago) . It picked up a little in 2003. Sent out approx 1000 more resumes and had quite a few phone screens and on-site interviews. I got 2 Quality Engineering positions in Iowa and Missouri, contract/consulting, for most of 2004. I was hired sight unseen. Which was probably the luckiest thing that happened. But contract positions are just temporary. The end of 2004 and early 2005 was spent flying around the country from L.A. to Tampa for on-site interviews. I would get a phone screen and they would call back immediately and want me out there the next day.
Not one job offer came from any of this and I am convinced it is because of my age, and grey hair. I learned a lot from all this including what to take off my resume and what to include.
I can understand companies looking for people who will be with them for 10-15 years, and I even had the last HR interviewer tell me that. I'll be 75 in 15 years and I'm sure companies think twice about that, even with 30+ years experience.
