Mostly Bollogs, I'm afraid

But occasionally, a glimmer of truth.
If you find one, please let me know.



Wednesday 3 August 2016

Job Agents. Again.

I don't know if I ever mentioned that if this breed of carbuncles on the backside of humanity, or recruitment consultants as they like to call themselves, are an unwelcome intrusion upon my state of being or not?

I am an engineer, of electronics, and software and firmware on microprocessors and PCs and huge computers when necessary. I have been doing this for many years and am quite good at it.

Years ago, when I wanted to do some "work" for some chaps and they wanted to give me some "money", they advertised, usually in newspapers or even maybe in a magazine, or more lately on the internet, and I would look to see if I wanted their money and I could do the job, and we would talk to each other and arrange a trade.

This worked quite well. If they wanted me to do a "job" I would arrange with them either so much per hour or so much for a job. I would do the job and they would pay me. This was good. They have always been happy with me.

What happens now is there are about two main web sites upon which the poor workers, e.g. me, put their CVs. These are then reduced from a finely-crafted document into a selection of key words. The "job agents" (for that is all they are, ill-educated scum who feed off the efforts of such as I) then contact companies, and convince them that they will add value to their seeking-of-workers requirements, and they will find what they want, convert it into some more key words, and match them against these two databases. They will then email, automatically, the workers who they believe match, and wait.

For this, they will charge the work, in perpetuity, around 1/6th to 1/5th of his earnings. Effectively the person who wants the work done pays this on top.

The problem with this is that these "job agents", or "scum", are stupid, have no idea what the company or worker wants, or can do, and refuse to understand this. This means that someone, such as I, who is good at this, never gets near the company who wants me, but instead he is presented with a raft of fucking dickwads who couldn't find their arses with both hands and a map.

Here is a simple example. It is an email from a "job agent":

Hi Pengy,

A key client of mine is looking for an experienced Firmware Engineer to join them onsite in Guildford on an initial 6 month contract.

The key skills they are looking for include:
  • Microchip PIC 18bit
  • MPLAB
  • Bare Metal
  • Good knowledge of Microprocessor hardware (sketch IO block and Timer Works)

Please send an updated CV for more information on location and rates.

Let me explain:

Microchip do not make an 18bit PIC. They make an 18 series PIC which is 8 bit.
MPLAB is obsolete.
Bare Metal is a term only used by fuckwits to mean no operating system.
"sketch IO block" and "Timer Works" are not even known to Google in this context.

An 18 series PIC would be filled with code in one day by me. I have met "engineers" who would take months or years and it still wouldn't work.

I so dearly wish I could find out who wants someone to do this work so I can save them 5½ months and in the process make at least another of these fucking useless cunts redundant and hopefully reliant on a food bank for his next breakfast.

That's how much I hate them.I wish I could find the words to describe how much I hate this, but sadly, they have not been invented.

I hope you understand.

Pengs x