Rules of conduct/courtesy for recruiters and candidates

I belong to the network Linked in and must admit that I don't participate in the site very often. However, the following two posts caught my eye, and I thought it worthy of posting with permission from both authors. It deals with follow up and follow through, something all recruiters struggle with on a daily basis. I've mentioned in a previous post how many people we deal with each week (we are required to make between 40-75 outbound calls daily) and how a great candidate can easily get lost in the mix.

On the flip side, all of you job seekers also talk to countless recruiters every day/week and I'm sure it's easy to lose track of who is with which recruiting service and who is seriously working behind the scenes on your behalf. You find numerous job postings on line and surely can't keep track of which company posted that job or even if the job is still around. (I'll make that a subject in a future post.)

So, here are notes from both sides of the fence:

Declining a position when you have multiple opportunities - Don't just disappear!  Jennifer Knepper

Nothing aggravates a recruiter more than working with a candidate for several weeks - screening, submittal, and multiple interviews - and then getting to the offer stage, and the candidate just disappears.

If you are working with a recruiter, we understand that you have multiple opportunities that you are pursuing. We understand that sometimes, an offer you receive might be better that what we or our client can provide. We get that you need to do what is best for you. What we don't get is why, when we are so late in the game, you would suddenly disappear. You avoid phone calls, don't respond to e-mails; when you have been responsive at every other stage of the process.

If you're going to decline an opportunity, that happens. However, at least have the courtesy to let your recruiter know that you are no longer interested. We have put a lot of time and effort in to get you this opportunity, many times, behind the scenes work that you may not be aware of. It only takes a few seconds to let us know that something else has come up. And, you never know when you might find yourself out of work again - it is never a good idea to burn bridges.

Then, this response appeared, and I thought it fitting and a worthy reminder to remind all of us that it does work both ways.



Christopher Knepper • It bears mentioning that the same applies to the recruiter. Once a candidate has applied for a position, they deserve to be kept up to date. So, to paraphrase your own post...

Nothing aggravates a candidate more than working with a recruiter for several weeks - screening, submittal, and multiple interviews - and then getting close to the offer stage, and the recruiter just disappears.

If you are working with a candidate, we understand that you have multiple candidates with whom you are working. We understand that sometimes, another candidate might be better for a given position. We get that you need to do what is best for you and your client. What we don't get is why, when we are so late in the game, you would suddenly disappear. You avoid phone calls, don't respond to e-mails; when you have been responsive at every other stage of the process.

If we are declined for an opportunity, that happens. However, at least have the courtesy to let your candidate know that they no longer in contention. We have put a lot of time and effort in to get to this opportunity, many times, behind the scenes work that you may not be aware of. It only takes a few seconds to let us know that someone else has taken the position.

Courtesy is a two way street

Struggling with Apraxia by Tori

I have decided that, on occasion, I will ask someone who is much more of an expert in the field of special needs than I am.  My manager and his wife, Tori,  are struggling with their youngest child's diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia.  So she agreed to write the following piece for me:

 

Speech Therapy - It Doesn’t Stop When You Leave the SLP’s Office

The Kaufman cards flash before his wide, blue-green eyes that peer out from his long eyelashes. Miss Kelly, the love of this little man’s life, is down at his level, demonstrating perfect sounds and pulling out all of the skills in her bag of tricks that she uses to help children speak. She is trained in the PROMPT technique and touches his mouth, neck, back, and chest in ways that can make the words fly out like magic, which makes a mother, like myself, get teary in an instant. She uses hand gestures that help him say the sound on the end and whispers “p” and “t” words.

My son, Jake, is three years and five months old and was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech the day before his third birthday. Two days a week, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, he sees an apraxia specialist for 30 minute sessions.

After two months of intensive therapy, his mouth is cooperating more and the sounds are getting easier to pronounce. But, it is still hard for him. His eyes still tell me, ‘Mama, this is hard. No matter how many times I practice these words, no matter how hard I try, it’s still hard to say the words that are screaming in my head. And why, why, could I say this word perfectly yesterday, but today it’s no where to be found?’

When it’s time to leave, Jake gives Miss Kelly a hug goodbye and shouts out a loud, perfect, “Bye!”  He picks out his favorite sticker to take home and then we are off.  After we leave, it is business as usual. Preschool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, play dates, taking his brothers to and from school and extracurricular events, grocery shopping, meal cooking, laundry ... all of life’s little distractions rolled into a week that flies by in the blink of an eye. To say the least, reinforcing the words he learns at speech could easily get lost in the shuffle once we leave the SLP’s office.

When we first started this journey, an SLP told me, “You are his mother. You are not his speech therapist. That is my job. Your job is to love and nurture him.” And for a couple of months, I took this advice, breathing a long sigh of relief that teaching him to talk wasn’t my job. But, what I’ve come to realize in this past year, is that if he’s ever going to sing a song, invite a friend over to play, or read a book aloud, I better be there to make sure it’s going to happen.

It takes discipline, hard work, and love, which eventually turns into a habit that feels a lot like normal life. I make him say words for anything that he points to or grunts at throughout the day. I demand that he always gives me his best. I drill him on Kaufman cards on the days he doesn’t have speech therapy. I’ve learned to turn off the television, ignore my household chores, and interact with him by playing games or molding play dough. I research online and talk to other apraxia moms to find out what’s working for their child. I sit with him and play abcmouse.com on the computer as many times as he wants. I read books and point to pictures, hoping one day he’ll be able to mimic the words that I say every night at bedtime. I have found the right therapy when the wrong therapy wasn’t working. Most importantly, I’ve learned to turn speech therapy into an all day, every day challenge and make the most out of every moment I have with him. 

The bottom line is, being the mother of an apraxic child means always doing your best to ensure that one day your child will be able to speak. It’s also about taking a deep breath of patience and then counting to ten to calm your nerves, when he repeats the same word two hundred times in one day because he can’t say the other fifty he was saying the day before. 

But, as our public school SLP told me last year, “Children with apraxia have good days and bad days. The goal is to have as many good days as possible in order to see progress.” Now that we are getting therapy that is designed to beat this frustrating disorder, we are hearing voices up ahead in this silent tunnel we’re trapped in. And I know, if everyone pulls together and works hard, we’ll make it to the end, holding hands, and most importantly ... talking. 

You can read more about Jake at www.jakes-journey-apraxia.com.

 

Great employers

Knowing that the holidays have ended and that it's time to "get back down to business", I just have to take a minute to comment a bit on my company.  While running a very successful business, my managers make our work place fun, interesting and rewarding for all of us working as recruiters.  Over the holidays, they devised a reward system (called the Cash Cow) for anyone who brought in a new contract by allowing that person to "pull" from the Christmas stocking (which they stuffed with money) and potentially win up to a 100 dollar bill.  We'd be called to the meeting each morning at 8 a.m. by "moo's" over the intercom.   There were also some fun games such as cow trivia (did you know that one cow can produce over 2000 gallons of milk per year and produce 20+ gallons of saliva daily?) and a contest to see who did the best Will Farrell cow bell impersonation ('Don't Fear the Reaper") from an SNL skit.

When I arrived at my desk the Friday before the holidays, there was a small wrapped box sitting in front of my computer.  I was fairly certain that it wasn't a ring, as I'm not anywhere near such a circumstance to warrant a proposal.  I opened it and still wasn't sure what it was.  My co-worker, Shelley, assured me that it wasn't a fancy lapel pin, but an IPod Shuffle!  Nice gift from management, eh?  Then they had us all leave for our "Winter Party" hosted by our president, David.  It's always a lovely affair with a catered brunch, more gifts, a performance by our choir (we have some lovely singers in our group), and the traditional hand-written poem read by one of our managers.  This year, the surprise ending of the poem announced the upcoming arrival of his first baby boy!

Well, in conclusion, I hope that all of you land in a job where you admire, like and respect your employer as much as I do.  Here's hoping that 2012 will increase chances of finding employment and that you are completely pleased with where you have landed; and, if not, call me and I'll see if I can help you make a change!  ;-}

1099 vs W-2 pro/cons

We as recruiters have to know what a traveler/contractor expects in their pay package.  We need to have a handle on money to determine if our company is a good match in their search for work.  It often happens that someone will give me a rate of pay that sounds astronomical and totally out of my range of an offer.  My next question would then be, "are you a 1099 contractor?"  So many people who contract individually hear an hourly or yearly rate of pay and are dazzled by it, as anyone would be!  

My company hires all of our special education contractors as employees who will receive a W-2 for their earned taxable wages.  The portion of the pay package that is non-taxable if you are a "traveler" (housing and per diem) is not listed on the W-2, nor is it required to be reported by the IRS.

I found the article listed below and think it gives a fairly good representation of the differences between a 1099 contractor and a contractor who is actually hired and under the umbrella of a company as an employee:


For a frame of reference, a 1099 contractor making 115k a year, will end up owing roughly 30k in taxes for that year. That is with a home office, mortgage interest, mileage, sales tax, office/computer equipment deductions - pretty much standard fare for a contractor.

Yeah, you can possibly be more aggressive and try to write-off more stuff - but the IRS is cracking down on the self-employed. Even taking a home office deduction is a risk.

You pretty much need to set aside 30% of your earnings and give it to the IRS quarterly.

The best way (that I have found) to compare a given W-2 job with a 1099 gig is to calculate what the yearly take-home NET pay is for each. For contracting, assume that 33% is your tax liability. Then add on health care. For the W-2 job, go to salary.com and use their paycheck calculator to figure out what your bi-monthly paycheck will be - and multiply that by 26 (many people forget that there are 26 bi-monthly paychecks in a given 12 months - usually resulting in an extra paycheck in June and December).

Then you have to take into account stuff like any matching 401(k) the W-2 company has, etc. There are also holidays and vacation to consider. A contractor is NOT paid for holidays and gets no paid vacation.

Also, if you plan on getting a loan for anything (car, house, etc) it is a bitch and a half as a self-employed contractor. Many times you have to get a "stated income" loan, which have higher rates.

NOW, you can avoid some of that if you incorporate. You can pay yourself a small salary, and then issue yourself dividend or bonus checks to make up the difference, and it will reduce your tax liability.

Honestly, if you do decide to take a contracting job, you should see a CPA about how to structure things to be best in your favor

Nightmare on Recruiter Road

 Most recruiters take their responsibilities to those working travel jobs for them very seriously; livelihoods are often in our hands.   So...when things go terribly wrong, we tend to fret over whatever happenstance we are dealing with.  So, when I placed one of my therapists (who was living in California) in a school district in Eastern Texas, I was worried about her making such a long trip by herself.  She had my cell number, and I encouraged her to call me along the way on her trip.  The first call came when she encountered a forest fire and had to take a detour, the second found her facing a huge traffic jam and being stuck on the highway for over an hour.  The final call came when she had car trouble and made the decision to hop in a car with a stranger to get help.  I'm a mother; I was aghast!  Luckily, she was fine and made her way to the Texas apartment by Sunday evening and to work on time that Monday morning.

Here's where the nightmare began for me:  She'd been on the assignment only 2 weeks when the client called to tell us that they were giving a a 30 day notice to end her contract, as they'd found a district hire to take the position!  OMG!!!  This poor girl drove through 5 states, forest fires, traffic jams and car trouble; left behind most of her belongings and family and missed the birth of her nephew to help this school.  I was LIVID!!!  Well.... I don't really get livid, but I missed at least 2 night's sleep worrying over it.

Well, I got on the phone and called every facility and school within 30 miles of her apartment.  The good news is that I found a pediatric clinic who needed help and agreed to have her start the next week; the bad news (for me, anyway) is that the bill rate is $9.00 an hour less than the school that ended her contract, and the clinic isn't giving her enough hours for her to keep her insurance benefits.  The worry continues, but I'll be back on the phones tomorrow trying to find her additional work.

We really do care about you guys and take it to heart when something goes wrong.  HONEST!!!

And.....let the dance begin!

You would think that since most schools districts around the country are already in session that the requests for Special Ed Professionals would subside a bit.  But.....noooooo, we still have 4 pages of school districts around the country still looking for school psychologists, occupational, physical and speech therapists.  The pursestring holders have finally relented and given the Special Ed directors permission to use contract services to fill their still-open positions.  So now they need us when so many of the therapists we had available in June and July have already accepted a placement for the 2011-2012 school year!

This, unfortunately, is the same dance we dance with school districts every year.  The directors are either very relieved that they have their open positions filled or are in a panic because they don't!  I have one director who has 4 maternity leaves coming up by mid October (she told me to count backwards to the ice storms in the Dallas, Texas area last winter...;-}.....) and I am scrambling to find SLP's who would be willing to work for only 8-12 weeks.  She did add that she has a couple more maternity leaves after the winter holidays.  (However, she didn't have any ice storm-type explanation for those.)  So, having said that, some of the Fall semester openings may transition into the Spring semester and become a near full-year contract.

If you are still looking for work, looking to make a change or think you might like to try a travel-type position, know that there are still beaucoup of jobs out there all over the country and you are needed!

Ceee-runch Time!!!

Well, it's here; the time of the year when the Special Ed Directors look at their roster and know that they are still coming up short for SLP's and OT's.  We've even seen a few full time PT spots for schools so far this year.  If you fit into one of those categories, you can be assured of employment.  HOWEVER......if you want to be 10 miles from your home, ask for $75 an hour and only want to work with elementary students, your choices go down considerably!

I spoke with a hiring manager in Iowa this afternoon who told me that his state is overrun with Speech Pathologists because the funding is tight and all they could do was lay off people and increase the caseloads for those remaining; Texas has run out of  federal stimulus funds and many districts are letting go all their contract therapists and offering early retirements to their veteran employees; North Carolina has held out until almost the last minute and is hinting that they may need Occupational and....just maybe.....SLP's.  They have also mandated that we reduce our bill rate by as much as $5.00 per hour.

What does all this mean for you job seekers?  Well, you may have to expand your location preference; if it works for your life-style, you may want to consider a travel position (see my January, 2011 post).  It may mean that you won't have a commitment for employment until after schools are already in session.  It might even mean that you need to compromise a little on your salary requirements.  Argh, the pain is hitting all of us!

We in the recruiting business have danced this dance for several years, knowing that the schools will eventually be in so much pain that they will get approval from the "holders of the purse strings" and call us for help.  BUT...in the meanwhile....all of you are getting nervous about finding work.  Take heart and know that the jobs will come; it's just taking a little longer this year.