Blue Sky Clarity

I’ve mostly kept my “reviews” here focused on end clients whenever a recruitment firm was involved, but because this was such a fine example of the piss-poor manner in which agencies treat candidates today, particularly in Stinkassachusetts, I’m calling them out here. In May 2014 I applied for a job they had listed on ZipRecruiters. Normally, I would not have applied for a “visual designer” job (because visual designer = UX designer = programmer who knows Photoshop) but the job description explicitly said “no programming” and read like a traditional graphic design job (JavaScript was a "plus") so I took a leap of faith and applied. 

I got an email back from the recruiter saying my background looked like a good fit, so we scheduled a phone call. During the call he asked me to explain my background; hmmmm, he’s got my resume, did he not read it? Whatever. I tried to expand on it a bit, and of course he asked about my unemployment gap. Finally, he asked me if I have any UI/UX design experience. No, I don’t (why in the world would I deliberately leave such an important detail off my resume?). He said I’m not going to be a good fit for this job, as “there are too many gaps” in my skills. Now, just wait one damned minute here, dude. You had my resume, you read it (or at least I’m assuming you did)…if my background was so terrible, why waste my time at all here? It's pretty clear that the job description was just a big lie. Which begs the question, did he contact me just to insult me…