Infuriation: unable/unwilling to respond to email that he specifically requested.
This particular waste of oxygen is just another droid who invites candidates to email him with interest, then ignores the response email sent within minutes of his outreach. With absolutely no business or IT experience, and whose only adult employment was as a security guard, Steven Armstrong of Apex Systems wastes time as well as oxygen.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Sunday, May 11, 2014
ASK Staffing - Atlanta, GA
Infuriation: enabling non-English-speaking "recruiters" to harass job seekers, phony job solicitation
ASK Staffing is an Indian-owned shop in the Atlanta suburbs. Ordinarily, the Recruiting Hall of Shame doesn't bother to list Indian recruiters, as they're so numerous and so obviously incompetent that listing these wastes of oxygen would be a waste of time and bytes. However, as with Artech and Pyramid Consulting, sometimes these firms are so egregiously unsettling that they need to be exposed as the unprofessional slime that they are.
Worse even then Artech and Pyramid's phone harassers, ASK Staffing has trained and enabled so-called recruiters, mostly unintelligible, to solicit resumes based on a phony job. Further, although neither of the two ASK recruiters who harassed our job seeker via phone could have had normal access to his phone number, at least one of those recruiters has access to another phone number from ten years ago, in another town, when the job seeker was in another line of work than the phony job they were claiming.
This particular job seeker does not list his phone number on the resume published on CareerBuilder, Monster, and Dice. Neither is the phone number in his profile on those sites. Instead, the first line of his resume says directly: "Recruiters, please email job description before calling." This is designed to weed out the myriad call-first-read-never recruiters who work only on keyword searches, not bothering to read resumes or notice geographic locations.
The claimed job was a phony one, purportedly from AT&T, although no such job was found anywhere on the Web. When a major company such as AT&T posts a contract job requisition, dozens of resume-shuffling contract agencies descend on that req like flies on poop, and the job description begins popping up almost immediately all over the Web. Not this one, though.
Finally, ASK Staffing's Simon Munipalli made repeated hang-up calls, then persisted in calling SIX TIMES IN THREE DAYS AFTER BEING BLOCKED.
ASK Staffing is an Indian-owned shop in the Atlanta suburbs. Ordinarily, the Recruiting Hall of Shame doesn't bother to list Indian recruiters, as they're so numerous and so obviously incompetent that listing these wastes of oxygen would be a waste of time and bytes. However, as with Artech and Pyramid Consulting, sometimes these firms are so egregiously unsettling that they need to be exposed as the unprofessional slime that they are.
Worse even then Artech and Pyramid's phone harassers, ASK Staffing has trained and enabled so-called recruiters, mostly unintelligible, to solicit resumes based on a phony job. Further, although neither of the two ASK recruiters who harassed our job seeker via phone could have had normal access to his phone number, at least one of those recruiters has access to another phone number from ten years ago, in another town, when the job seeker was in another line of work than the phony job they were claiming.
This particular job seeker does not list his phone number on the resume published on CareerBuilder, Monster, and Dice. Neither is the phone number in his profile on those sites. Instead, the first line of his resume says directly: "Recruiters, please email job description before calling." This is designed to weed out the myriad call-first-read-never recruiters who work only on keyword searches, not bothering to read resumes or notice geographic locations.
The claimed job was a phony one, purportedly from AT&T, although no such job was found anywhere on the Web. When a major company such as AT&T posts a contract job requisition, dozens of resume-shuffling contract agencies descend on that req like flies on poop, and the job description begins popping up almost immediately all over the Web. Not this one, though.
Finally, ASK Staffing's Simon Munipalli made repeated hang-up calls, then persisted in calling SIX TIMES IN THREE DAYS AFTER BEING BLOCKED.
Simon Munipalli - ASK Staffing, Atlanta, GA
Infuriation: Phone stalking, inability to communicate in professional English
This is an unsettling, even worrisome, case of phone stalking by an individual employed as a recruiter by ASK Staffing, who has access to years-old resumes as a result of that employment. Simon Munipalli persisted in calling an unpublished number SIX TIMES AFTER BEING BLOCKED, and had access to a ten-year-out-of-date phone number that was not currently published. That personal data archive and access is what earned ASK Staffing their own place in the Recruiting Hall of Shame.
It started badly enough, with an early-Saturday-morning call from another ASK recruiter. This particular job seeker does not list his phone number on the resume published on CareerBuilder, Monster, and Dice. Neither is the phone number in his profile on those sites. Instead, the first line of his resume says directly: "Recruiters, please email job description before calling." This is designed to weed out the myriad call-first-read-never recruiters who work only on keyword searches.
Since the applicant had never applied to ASK Staffing, he asked the first recruiter to notice the first line on his resume. He then asked her to email the job description - simple enough, right? She was momentarily flustered, then asked, "Are you in front of your computer right now?" He answered negatively on that early Saturday morning of Easter weekend, whereupon she pressed the issue with an odder question: "Do you have a smart phone, tablet or other device?" At this point, the applicant again asked her to simply email the job description, which she promised to do, whereupon he wished her a good day and hung up.
Ninety minutes after that first ASK Staffing recruiting call, Simon Munipalli entered the job seeker's personal world, and would harass the job seeker for the next few hours and the next few days. Munipalli called to describe a job and demanded a Word copy of the resume, but was barely intelligible to the applicant (who has 14 years of international experience.) The job seeker asked for an email of the job description, told Munipalli he could not be understood, and hung up. Munipalli then emailed a purported job description from AT&T for a contract project manager position, and again demanded a Word resume.
Second red flag: that job description could not be found anywhere on the Web. Whenever a company such as AT&T issues a contract requisition, it's almost instantly available on the Web, and is pounced upon by multiple recruiting firms, but this one was not found either by req number or keyword description.
The job seeker tried to learn where Munipalli had gotten the phone number by emailing that question. Munipalli replied, "from job board." When the job seeker pressed the issue via return email, he was dismayed to learn that Munipalli had access not only to the current phone number, but also another phone number from another area code, a prior residence from ten years previous. Weirdly, when the job seeker had lived in that town, he had been in another career field entirely, so Munipalli had researched based on name, not just resume keywords. Apparently, and we're all guessing, Munipalli and ASK Staffing have access to years of archived resumes, outside the published parameters of Dice, Monster, and CareerBuilder.
While the job seeker was researching the job, and his own resume trails, and trying to get answers via email, Munipalli called twice more within 30 minutes, hanging up both times when he reached no live answer. At this point, the victim was fed up. He told Munipalli via email, "If this is a real job, I'm sure I'll be contacted by a real recruiter. You've made two hang-up calls in 30 minutes -- this is highly unprofessional." The job seeker then blocked the Atlanta-area phone number from which Munipalli had been calling. That should have been the end of it, right? No, not with Stalker Simon. He had the oblivious nerve to reply via email, "call got disconnected that is the mistake, I think because of bad connection, I am waiting for your response from the long time." He proceeded to call six more times over the next three days!
There is no AT&T job, Simon Munipalli is a stalker, ASK Staffing somehow has access to years-old resumes, and they're both in the Recruiter Hall of Shame.
This is an unsettling, even worrisome, case of phone stalking by an individual employed as a recruiter by ASK Staffing, who has access to years-old resumes as a result of that employment. Simon Munipalli persisted in calling an unpublished number SIX TIMES AFTER BEING BLOCKED, and had access to a ten-year-out-of-date phone number that was not currently published. That personal data archive and access is what earned ASK Staffing their own place in the Recruiting Hall of Shame.
It started badly enough, with an early-Saturday-morning call from another ASK recruiter. This particular job seeker does not list his phone number on the resume published on CareerBuilder, Monster, and Dice. Neither is the phone number in his profile on those sites. Instead, the first line of his resume says directly: "Recruiters, please email job description before calling." This is designed to weed out the myriad call-first-read-never recruiters who work only on keyword searches.
Since the applicant had never applied to ASK Staffing, he asked the first recruiter to notice the first line on his resume. He then asked her to email the job description - simple enough, right? She was momentarily flustered, then asked, "Are you in front of your computer right now?" He answered negatively on that early Saturday morning of Easter weekend, whereupon she pressed the issue with an odder question: "Do you have a smart phone, tablet or other device?" At this point, the applicant again asked her to simply email the job description, which she promised to do, whereupon he wished her a good day and hung up.
Ninety minutes after that first ASK Staffing recruiting call, Simon Munipalli entered the job seeker's personal world, and would harass the job seeker for the next few hours and the next few days. Munipalli called to describe a job and demanded a Word copy of the resume, but was barely intelligible to the applicant (who has 14 years of international experience.) The job seeker asked for an email of the job description, told Munipalli he could not be understood, and hung up. Munipalli then emailed a purported job description from AT&T for a contract project manager position, and again demanded a Word resume.
Second red flag: that job description could not be found anywhere on the Web. Whenever a company such as AT&T issues a contract requisition, it's almost instantly available on the Web, and is pounced upon by multiple recruiting firms, but this one was not found either by req number or keyword description.
The job seeker tried to learn where Munipalli had gotten the phone number by emailing that question. Munipalli replied, "from job board." When the job seeker pressed the issue via return email, he was dismayed to learn that Munipalli had access not only to the current phone number, but also another phone number from another area code, a prior residence from ten years previous. Weirdly, when the job seeker had lived in that town, he had been in another career field entirely, so Munipalli had researched based on name, not just resume keywords. Apparently, and we're all guessing, Munipalli and ASK Staffing have access to years of archived resumes, outside the published parameters of Dice, Monster, and CareerBuilder.
While the job seeker was researching the job, and his own resume trails, and trying to get answers via email, Munipalli called twice more within 30 minutes, hanging up both times when he reached no live answer. At this point, the victim was fed up. He told Munipalli via email, "If this is a real job, I'm sure I'll be contacted by a real recruiter. You've made two hang-up calls in 30 minutes -- this is highly unprofessional." The job seeker then blocked the Atlanta-area phone number from which Munipalli had been calling. That should have been the end of it, right? No, not with Stalker Simon. He had the oblivious nerve to reply via email, "call got disconnected that is the mistake, I think because of bad connection, I am waiting for your response from the long time." He proceeded to call six more times over the next three days!
There is no AT&T job, Simon Munipalli is a stalker, ASK Staffing somehow has access to years-old resumes, and they're both in the Recruiter Hall of Shame.
Insperity - Houston, TX
Infuriation: Selling professional recruiting service without professional recruiter
Insperity assures client companies that their HR and recruiting functions will be better served by Insperity than those client companies themselves. Although we don't know about their HR functions, we know that their recruiting practice is an unprofessional waste of oxygen, based on their employee Andy Penland. He's in the Recruiting Hall of Shame for his strangely unprofessional inability to simply set and keep a normal business appointment.
Insperity has positioned Penland as the sole gate-keeper and job-blocker for at least one of Insperity's client companies. He seems like a decent fellow, but he has no business (pun intended) in that role, as he has professional experience in any of the fields for which he's recruiting, and he's never worked in a bottom-line focused organization.
Insperity claims that "We dig deep to learn about your company culture, competitive landscape and ideal candidate. Armed with this information, we develop and execute a recruiting strategy that gets results." Yet Penland knows next to nothing about the company for which he's screening, has no professional knowledge of the roles for which he's interviewing, and his "recruiting strategy" consists of "I'll try to call you tomorrow sometime." Insperity has nonetheless recruited (heh), hired, trained, and entrusted this individual to earn the fees charged to their client companies. Those fees must be exorbitant, because as said on Glassdoor in multiple employee reviews, "Very few sales are made but each new customer is so profitable that the business model works."
Insperity assures client companies that their HR and recruiting functions will be better served by Insperity than those client companies themselves. Although we don't know about their HR functions, we know that their recruiting practice is an unprofessional waste of oxygen, based on their employee Andy Penland. He's in the Recruiting Hall of Shame for his strangely unprofessional inability to simply set and keep a normal business appointment.
Insperity has positioned Penland as the sole gate-keeper and job-blocker for at least one of Insperity's client companies. He seems like a decent fellow, but he has no business (pun intended) in that role, as he has professional experience in any of the fields for which he's recruiting, and he's never worked in a bottom-line focused organization.
Insperity claims that "We dig deep to learn about your company culture, competitive landscape and ideal candidate. Armed with this information, we develop and execute a recruiting strategy that gets results." Yet Penland knows next to nothing about the company for which he's screening, has no professional knowledge of the roles for which he's interviewing, and his "recruiting strategy" consists of "I'll try to call you tomorrow sometime." Insperity has nonetheless recruited (heh), hired, trained, and entrusted this individual to earn the fees charged to their client companies. Those fees must be exorbitant, because as said on Glassdoor in multiple employee reviews, "Very few sales are made but each new customer is so profitable that the business model works."
Andy Penland - Insperity Staffing, Houston, TX
Infuriation: Unable to set and keep a professional appointment
Andy Penland seems to be a nice guy, but he's a failure as a recruiter in that he's simply unable to set and keep an appointment on a timely basis. Like the vast majority of recruiters, he's never worked in a professional capacity that instilled a sense of business-like time-keeping, and so does not comprehend the business need for making and keeping specific appointments. The fact that he's in a gate-keeping, job-blocking position is entirely the fault of his employer, Insperity, who sell professional recruiting services to other companies. It's failure in that that claim, and lack of professional preparation and supervision of Penland, that earned Insperity their own place in the Recruiter Hall of Shame.
Day 1: After an online submission, Penland emailed the applicant asking for times of availability. The applicant responded within the hour with several specific, hours-long blocks of time over the next two days.
Day 1, later: Penland emailed to ask specifically about applicant's availability in the morning of Day 3,without any request for appointment. Applicant responded within the hour with more times of availability in that morning, as well as the rest of Day 3. No response from Penland, the second chance he had to set an appointment as a real professional would.
Day 3, 10:30 a.m. (morning of the date that Penland had requested): Penland emailed the applicant to advise vaguely that he had a "management meeting" at some point "later" that day, was unsure how it would affect his schedule, and asked about applicant availability over the weekend "just in case." Applicant responded within 30 minutes, offering several specific hours on Saturday, and pointedly suggesting that if Penland cared to pick a time, the applicant would be sure to be available. No response. Applicant stood by at those hours on Saturday, of course, and of course there was no call.
Day 6 (Monday), 9 a.m.: Applicant emailed Penland to say specifically that 4 p.m. was open.
Day 6, later: Penland emailed to ask if the applicant were available at "3 or 4." The applicant, now biting his tongue, courteously replied that 4 p.m. was open, and so they finally talked at that time.
Day 6, 4 p.m.: Penland asked the applicant to regurgitate the resume, and proved to know very little about the client company who had retained Insperity. (Insperity claims on their website that "We dig deep to learn about your company culture, competitive landscape and ideal candidate.") Penland certainly did not know anything about the profession under discussion. At the end of this waste of oxygen, Penland allowed that he would try to get the resume in front of the client hiring manager, but that individual would be leaving the country in the next day or two.
Bottom line: Penland wasted several days to have a meaningless discussion, and knew that the hiring manager would be unavailable after those several days, all without ever knowing to set and keep a professional appointment time and date.
Andy Penland seems to be a nice guy, but he's a failure as a recruiter in that he's simply unable to set and keep an appointment on a timely basis. Like the vast majority of recruiters, he's never worked in a professional capacity that instilled a sense of business-like time-keeping, and so does not comprehend the business need for making and keeping specific appointments. The fact that he's in a gate-keeping, job-blocking position is entirely the fault of his employer, Insperity, who sell professional recruiting services to other companies. It's failure in that that claim, and lack of professional preparation and supervision of Penland, that earned Insperity their own place in the Recruiter Hall of Shame.
Day 1: After an online submission, Penland emailed the applicant asking for times of availability. The applicant responded within the hour with several specific, hours-long blocks of time over the next two days.
Day 1, later: Penland emailed to ask specifically about applicant's availability in the morning of Day 3,without any request for appointment. Applicant responded within the hour with more times of availability in that morning, as well as the rest of Day 3. No response from Penland, the second chance he had to set an appointment as a real professional would.
Day 3, 10:30 a.m. (morning of the date that Penland had requested): Penland emailed the applicant to advise vaguely that he had a "management meeting" at some point "later" that day, was unsure how it would affect his schedule, and asked about applicant availability over the weekend "just in case." Applicant responded within 30 minutes, offering several specific hours on Saturday, and pointedly suggesting that if Penland cared to pick a time, the applicant would be sure to be available. No response. Applicant stood by at those hours on Saturday, of course, and of course there was no call.
Day 6 (Monday), 9 a.m.: Applicant emailed Penland to say specifically that 4 p.m. was open.
Day 6, later: Penland emailed to ask if the applicant were available at "3 or 4." The applicant, now biting his tongue, courteously replied that 4 p.m. was open, and so they finally talked at that time.
Day 6, 4 p.m.: Penland asked the applicant to regurgitate the resume, and proved to know very little about the client company who had retained Insperity. (Insperity claims on their website that "We dig deep to learn about your company culture, competitive landscape and ideal candidate.") Penland certainly did not know anything about the profession under discussion. At the end of this waste of oxygen, Penland allowed that he would try to get the resume in front of the client hiring manager, but that individual would be leaving the country in the next day or two.
Bottom line: Penland wasted several days to have a meaningless discussion, and knew that the hiring manager would be unavailable after those several days, all without ever knowing to set and keep a professional appointment time and date.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Brantley Smith - Insight Global, Austin, TX
Infuriation: Lying to his own co-worker, ignoring applicant call directed by his own co-worker
Brantley Smith is an account executive for Insight Global, a typical contract resume mill, who lied to his own co-worker about having contacted a screened applicant. When the co-worker directed the applicant to call Smith directly, he simply ignored that polite, professional call.
First the recruiter reached out to the applicant and screened the applicant, to the usual limited best of the recruiter's ability. At the end of that conversation, the recruiter then told the applicant that the client account manager, Smith, would get in touch with the applicant. The next morning, the unfortunate recruiter had already been lied to by Smith, as per an email message that said, "Brantley was unable to reach you this morning but please return his call at XXX-XXXX as soon as you get a chance."
The applicant double-checked his phone to make sure there had been no message, and indeed there had not been any call at all. Nonetheless, the applicant left a succinct, professional, courteous message for Smith that made no mention of the claimed contact. Smith, having had no qualms about lying directly to his co-worker, lied by arrogant omission in not bothering to respond at all.
Brantley Smith is an account executive for Insight Global, a typical contract resume mill, who lied to his own co-worker about having contacted a screened applicant. When the co-worker directed the applicant to call Smith directly, he simply ignored that polite, professional call.
First the recruiter reached out to the applicant and screened the applicant, to the usual limited best of the recruiter's ability. At the end of that conversation, the recruiter then told the applicant that the client account manager, Smith, would get in touch with the applicant. The next morning, the unfortunate recruiter had already been lied to by Smith, as per an email message that said, "Brantley was unable to reach you this morning but please return his call at XXX-XXXX as soon as you get a chance."
The applicant double-checked his phone to make sure there had been no message, and indeed there had not been any call at all. Nonetheless, the applicant left a succinct, professional, courteous message for Smith that made no mention of the claimed contact. Smith, having had no qualms about lying directly to his co-worker, lied by arrogant omission in not bothering to respond at all.
In summary, a firm solicited an applicant to try to place that applicant with a client company. The first recruiter did his job, and the applicant responded professionally and promptly to all requests. Then the gate-keeper, Brantley Smith, lied to his own recruiter and ignored the applicant. This caused unnecessary work for the first recruiter, ruined Insight Global's reputation with the applicant, and deprived the client company of a qualified applicant. What a waste.
Like the vast majority of the wastes of oxygen in the recruiting field, Brantley Smith has never worked in any of the fields whose accounts he manages. He will never be held accountable for lying and causing wasted effort, which means he'll continue to operate this way forever. He is, therefore, a member of the Recruiting Hall of Shame.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Lance Loftin - Networkers Int'l, Dallas, TX
Infuriation: Soliciting for phony jobs, then leaving ads in place after admitting that the jobs don't exist - REPEATEDLY!
Initiative and planning ahead for future openings are good, but false advertising of non-existent jobs is never good. Recruiters are very rarely any good, and Lance Loftin is living, waste-of-oxygen-breathing proof of that. We're sure this is a pattern with him because we caught him in two such instances in just three weeks with the same leap to false advertising.
The first time might be excusable. Leapin' Lance posted a solicitation for an opening in more than one LinkedIn group for a particular discipline. Our first response was within 24 hours of his posting in one such group, but he already had a line ready that "the company has put the position on hold." That's suspicious, but could reasonably be true, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt. There were surely other candidates who responded who identified where they had seen the solicitation, but Leapin' Lance didn't bother to update or delete his ads. We'll never know how many responses he got, how much unnecessary work in editing and submitting resumes he caused, how much false hope he raised.
Within just a couple of weeks, and in just this particular profession, Leapin' Lance posted another ad. Again, we responded the very next day. This time, his leap-of-logic response was that he would be meeting with that company that very afternoon to "see if they actually are going to hire." Again, though, Leapin' Lance, despite being so quick to post the ads, completely abandoned his professional and moral responsibility to edit the solicitation or delete it. Bear in mind that these were just two instances, within two weeks of each other, in just one category of LinkedIn professional groups. We'll never know how many times he's done this all over LinkedIn.
Initiative and planning ahead for future openings are good, but false advertising of non-existent jobs is never good. Recruiters are very rarely any good, and Lance Loftin is living, waste-of-oxygen-breathing proof of that. We're sure this is a pattern with him because we caught him in two such instances in just three weeks with the same leap to false advertising.
The first time might be excusable. Leapin' Lance posted a solicitation for an opening in more than one LinkedIn group for a particular discipline. Our first response was within 24 hours of his posting in one such group, but he already had a line ready that "the company has put the position on hold." That's suspicious, but could reasonably be true, so we gave him the benefit of the doubt. There were surely other candidates who responded who identified where they had seen the solicitation, but Leapin' Lance didn't bother to update or delete his ads. We'll never know how many responses he got, how much unnecessary work in editing and submitting resumes he caused, how much false hope he raised.
Within just a couple of weeks, and in just this particular profession, Leapin' Lance posted another ad. Again, we responded the very next day. This time, his leap-of-logic response was that he would be meeting with that company that very afternoon to "see if they actually are going to hire." Again, though, Leapin' Lance, despite being so quick to post the ads, completely abandoned his professional and moral responsibility to edit the solicitation or delete it. Bear in mind that these were just two instances, within two weeks of each other, in just one category of LinkedIn professional groups. We'll never know how many times he's done this all over LinkedIn.
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