An agent told me this morning that every day he receives between 200-300 resumes via email.

He then has to go through and filter out those resumes where the person is from Asia and they have the Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP) visa. 90% of the resumes he receives are from people with HSMP visa’s which he immediately disregards. No wonder the contractor market is so screwed up.

The search for a job continues but I’m starting to lose heart a bit. There are loads of testing jobs going right now but for people with about 3 years experience.

The latest negative I got was for a company I had worked for a few years ago and where I know I have a good reputation. One of the guys I worked with put me forward for a position, and this is the second time he has done that, and today the response came back negative. The position was for a test manager and this is the kind of company where just about everybody is a manager so it’s not that big a deal. The hiring guy did some talking to some people who I worked with and one of them said that I was a business analyst and not a test manager. So that was the end of that. There are several people at that company that want me to go back as the projects I was on before worked OK, were under budget and weren’t late.  

That was the fifth time I have been personally recommended for a position and each time it’s gone negative. I would have thought the chance of failing to get 5 positions where I have been personally recomended was a bit unlikely. Is my resume scary? Possibly, it does show a lot of stuff. What about where they have got used to the resume and I have an interview, which fails, do I have 2 heads? Am I seriously ugly with foul habits, lousy dress sense and bad skin? Nope. Do I look like someone’s boss? Maybe.

Some of the reasons for the interviews failing or even my resume not being put forward are:

‘You’re not really hands-on are you, you’re a manager’ - said by an agent who was determined to get me off the phone.

‘He’s not a tester, he’s a developer’ - said by a UAT manager after grilling me for 15 minutes about Test Director, an application I know well.

‘Not enough testing experience’ - said by an agent for a team leading role. When I said I had 18 years experience she said that their test managers are expected to have 15 years experience. Go figure.

‘I need someone I can work with’ - said by a test manager, after the interview, that had very little experience and was a bit shaken by mine.   

In addition two positions that I went for put the company into such a spin that they ended up saying ‘We are looking at this whole area’ and put the positions on hold.

My partner wants to put me forward to her company who develop software, but they don’t really do testing in any structured way so they wouldn’t understand my resume and would end up shrugging.

She did interview a young guy recently for a business analyst position and he did embellish his accomplishments a lot. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, providing you can back it up. Anyway he was found out and not offered a position. Since then she has said that she wishes that she had taken him on because, though he had come out with a lot of bullshit and was found out, he was perceived as being dynamic and the kind of person they needed to take on. Hmm…

Someone has suggested I go to Starwest in LA in September. Suppose it would be good to meet fellow testers but it’s unlikely to help me find a position.

An agent phoned up about a position needing security clearance, which is becoming more and more the norm these days.

Agents always think I have good security clearance as I worked for the MOD recently on an army barracks. Oddly I didn’t actually need security clearance for working on an army barracks but if you want to be a janitor for a company that does work for the MOD you do. Go figure. Anyway they asked whether I had a British passport and whether I would be willing to undergo security clearance. I said yes as I don’t think I have any skeletons in the closet.

The agent emailed me three job specs and asked me which one was the most suitable. One was for a basic tester, then there was a senior tester and lastly a team leader. I replied that it had to be the team leader position as if I applied for and gotten the slightly more junior positions I would almost certainly have way more experience than the team leader or even possibly the test manager.

I got an email response later that they couldn’t put me forward for the team leader position as I didn’t have enough team leading experience. Huh! I phoned them later and she reiterated what she had emailed me. When I said that I had 10 years, at least, team leading experience in a total of 18 years testing experience and that could be more than the test manager she responded ‘our test managers are expected to have at least 15 years experience’. Good answer. He-he.

I’d never heard of this agency so said it might be best if they removed me from their database, as I had not much confidence in their ability to read resume’s. Though I didn’t mention that bit.

Fat chance of them removing me from their database, they’ll just make a note not to contact me for 6 months hoping that by that time I will have forgotten I asked to be removed. Good point, how do you enforce the Data Protection Act?

I saw a job advert for MI6 (British Secret Service) the other day and they were after staff. It said if you applied for a position with them don’t tell anyone. True.