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davorg (18)

davorg
  dave@dave.org.uk
http://dave.org.uk/
Yahoo! ID: daveorguk (Add User, Send Message)

Hacker, author, trainer

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Journal of davorg (18)

Monday June 16, 2003
04:32 AM

Phantom Jobs

[ #12872 ]

This job has appeared on the UK job site JobServe like clockwork every two weeks for about the last two months. The description is always the same and it's always the same agent (Mani Suri at Aston Carter).

The job spec says "You will provide general development and testing using Perl, T-SQL and Unix Shell Scripting" and "Your main duties will be development of a feed system from supplied specifications, unit and integration testing of develop code and maintenance of feed documentation." This is pretty much a description of what I've spent most of the last eight years doing so I expect that I'd be a good bet for at least an interview for the role. If it existed.

So I've emailed the agent about five times about he job and have never had a response. I know I should follow-up with a phone call, but it's become a bit of a challenge to see if I can get any kind of a response just from emails. Even a response explaining why I'm not being considered for the role would be better than nothing.

I've become convinced that the job doesn't exist. I'm sure that it's just a honeypot that's used to attract CVs. I'm starting to wonder if Mani Suri is a real person or whether it's just an address that Aston Carter use to collect CVs.

My blog postings seem to get surprisingly high Google rankings, so I'm hoping that by mentioning Aston Carter and Mani Suri enough times in this entry then people searching for them in the future will find this entry and think twice before working with them.

Bitter? Me?


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  • Oh well (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alexmc (2957) on 2003.06.16 4:50 (#21099)
    I have a bit of a Love/Hate relationship with Aston Carter. They have found me significant amounts of work but I also believe their incompetance also lost me significant amounts of work. That is of course my opinion and value judgement. I think I may know something about this Mani Suri and the possible position. But I said I would not chat about it. I think that the client is looking for a cheap permie guru, and not urgently. If the job was advertised as a contract then I expect that they are feeling the water - trying to identify what they require at the same time as looking for someone to do it. If it is the company that I think it is then don't worry about it - forget this role and look elsewhere. PS No - I don't know whether Mani Suri is a real person - I never met him/her. (I forget which)

  • Are there good agencies? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ajt (2546) on 2003.06.16 4:56 (#21100) Homepage Journal

    Are there good agencies? In my experience they are mostly pretty awful.

    I get bothered quite regularly at work by mindless morons trying to place people here. When we did want contractors it got much worse. We have a permanent position at the moment, and they clearly did't read the job description...

    When I wanted a job, it was as if an agents job is to prevent you from finding a good match. Like you I'm sure that many advertised jobs aren't real.

    There are days I wonder how companies ever get anyone at all to work for them!

    --
    -- "It's not magic, it's work..."
    • Australia seems to be going down the same track. I got all excited a couple of weeks into my contract to find a good description of another contract that looked good and had just been posted. A closer look showed it was my actual job (complete with reference number). After a worried phonecall to my agent they took it off. I keep seeing generic job descriptions over and over from the same agencies - I'm sure they are just trolling for CV's. They try to tie you in to 12 months with their agency for any jobs w
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