Dodgy Agents

My flat smells like steak. It smelled like steak last night too. Thankfully, tonight's steak smell is a fresh steak smell, not last night's, but I still only have myself to blame. On both nights, and other occasions in recent times, I have forgotten to switch on the stove exhaust. Sometimes I even forget to switch off the stove when I'm finished cooking. I also forgot to reply to Kevin's e-mail for seven days, and on Sunday just past, I forgot that it was Father's Day. Now in my defence, Father's Day is celebrated on a different date in the UK. But I have no excuse for the other stuff.

My point is that lately I have been so busy I forget to do stuff, let alone have time to do anything. True, I'm not working, but in recent years I have rarely been as busy as I am right now. It's like the less I do, the busier I get. And as the joke goes: the trouble with doing nothing is you never know when you're finished. The solution is that I need to get a job, as abhorrent a thought as that is to me right now. But help is finally at hand.

My interview with the law firm went well yesterday, according to me, and according to the feedback I received this morning. The interviewers, two in number, threw me a few curve-balls, but I think I handled it okay. I've come up with a consolation prize of sorts. My agent advised me that they were happy with me, and would like to offer me a job... Just not the job that I was going for. See, when asked yesterday if I liked supporting existing software applications, I stupidly replied, that yes I did like supporting stuff partly because it's an easy job, but preferred doing totally new stuff. My zeal for honesty worked against me, proving yet again that it is wiser to lie to get the job. The job offer is to use software tools I have never used before, to do something I have never done before. They're happy for me to learn on the job, which I'm not happy about, as it will require me to think. I have abandoned all hope of a brainless job to fill the time. Still, it's a job, and I am officially in the red, living on credit (but surviving). So it would be wise to take the job immediately. And it's not like there are any other offers, but more on that in a minute.

The firm is one of the oldest and largest international law firms in the world, so I count the fact that it will look good on my CV as a positive. And the workplace is on Fleet Street, in a flash new building, only a ten minute walk from my steak-stenched flat. Plus plus. On the negative side, I may have to wear a suit (or at least a tie), and the environment is a little stuffy. Imagine a funeral home, run by IBM. The suit/tie thing is depressing me, because for two years I have fantasised working for a funky West End media company. But Westpac don't deal in dreams, so the here and now job is the best job. Mind you, it's not mine yet. I have yet to pass an HR interview, which is office bullshit for a behavioural/psych test. Officially they are testing to see if I will "fit in with the team", meaning no serial killers. Still I'm hopeful that all will work out okay.

A few weeks ago I wrote of my Polanski-esque paranoia that I have been applying for jobs that, in fact, don't exist. Just in the last 48 hours I have learned a few things that vindicate my sanity, but don't make me feel any easier.

I blogged some weeks back that every agent has asked me the same vague questions: "how are you finding the market?", and "do you have anything else on?". I have since learned that both questions mean the one thing. With few exceptions, the agents are asking me if I am going for a job anywhere else, and if so, where is it at. Until this week I have sheepishly avoided a direct answer (having no prospects or interviews) in case the agent's decide that I am eminently unemployable. But this week is different. With nothing to hide, and figuring that it will present me as a viable candidate, I told a half dozen agents about the law firm job. Every agent asked me for the name of the law firm. Some agents even asked me the name of the contact at the law firm, and the only reason they could want that information is to poach the job.

That's bad enough, but since telling the half dozen agents on Monday I have had at least eight phone calls from agents offering me jobs. Every phone call follows the same pattern. Firstly, the agent offers to put me forward for a job that sounds fabulous, like at the Royal Bank of Scotland, or the Department of such-and-such. Then he mentions, almost in passing, that he has another job...at a law firm... in fact, the very same firm where I interviewed. I explain I am already represented for jobs at that firm, and so decline their offer. Then the agents go into overdrive. Have you interviewed? Yes. Who with? Oh, I can't remember. Was it Joe Bloggs? Sorry, I really can't remember. etc etc

Now you might be thinking one of two things. Maybe these agencies do have a job at the same firm? Maybe there are other jobs with other managers for the same firm? Well, those questions were answered for me when I met my agent a half-hour before the interview. Without any provocation from me, nor hint of these phone calls, my agent mentioned in passing that his recruitment company have an exclusive contract with this law firm to provide all I.T. contract placement, and have done so for nine years!

It's very lucky that I wasn't near a computer when I received the first of these bogus calls on Monday afternoon. I couldn't remember the name of the law firm contacts when asked, but promised to look it up when I got home. That agent offered me a job with "a huge international insurance company" called Acton Insurance. He promised a whopping 45 quid an hour, with the option for double-time if I volunteered to give up the occasional Saturday. I'm hardly going to refuse that job. When I got home, I googled Acton Insurance, and came up empty-handed. The agent claimed to be with a well-known agency that I had dealt with. So I called them, and asked the switch to connect me to the agent dealing with the Acton Insurance job. The switch said the agency didn't have a job with an Acton Insurance. When he used a seach engine to locate the insurance company, and also came up empty-handed, we both knew for certain that the insurance company simply doesn't exist. The dodgy agent was trying to spoof the details of my job.

Then the next daay, the agent had the audacity to call me back and try again. He used the same bogus name, and the same bogus company name, reminding me that we had "chatted before", in the way that someone says "we've known each other for years". Without delay he was asking me about the law firm interview, which had just happened. (I told him the interview time the day previously). Specifically, he wanted to know who interviewed me. I brought the conversation back to the insurance job, and that's when he really messed up. He said the name of the insurance company was something like Mercer Willis. I played dumb, saying "oh, I thought the job was with Acton Insurance. "Mercer Willis own Acton", he bluffed me with absolute confidence in what he was saying. "Oh", I said, "It's just that when I googled Acton I could find no mention of it on the net." He told me I should search for Mercer Willis, then tried to steer conversation back to the law firm job. The trouble for him is that this time I was at a computer. I googled Mercer Willis, and told him that the search had come up blank. He then went through the excruciating process of pretending to seach for it himself. I eventually let him off the hook, and asked him to e-mail the details of the job, knowing they'd never arrive, and haven't.

And that's pretty much how it's been for the last two days. The same basic strategy, but with slightly different approaches. One agent, when realised he was caught out pretended that the line went dead. I'm having a little fun with it now, though I expect my fun will be short-lived. Oh, yeah, I mentioned to my agent how I thought I'd been applying for jobs that don't exist. Without flinching, or seeming surprised, he said, "It happens quite often. It's called trawling. And in this country it's illegal to advertise a job that doesn't exist." I liked that... I'm going to remember it for the next time I deal with a dodgy agent.