🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1967@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> pete@umbc3.UMBC.EDU (Pete Hsi ) writes:
>Am I being really naive to respond to one of those general recruitment ads that
>do not specifically solicit to fill a particular position?

If they're advertising, they'll look, and you're naive to think that they
won't buy, if you're a good product.  There are a lot of caompanies that
advertise, and a lot that don't.  I guess most of the really big, glossy,
frequently-run ads (GE, HP, GM, IBM, etc...) are something of an image-
builder and status symbol for those companies, since you'd probably call up
the personnel department whether you'd seen the ad or not, but would you
ever think to offer your services to Tektronix, the NSA, or your local
Utilities if you didn't see their we-can't-really-afford-this
advertisements?

>I don't really expect to be offered a position but if I was,

LOSE THAT ATTITUDE!!!!!!!!!

Not only will it cost you your best interview points, but it will let the
sharks scrape salary and benefits from your package as they negotiate with
you.  Humble is fine for your friends, and arrogant is a bit too much, but
if you aren't confident that a job-mill like GE will hire you, then either
they won't or you'll get screwed if they do.

>...I'm wondering what kind of job it will be.

If the ad doesn't list the job description, then they're fishing to fill
whatever is open.  Big companies always have lots of openings (even if they
refuse to fill them for budgetary reasons).  You'll find out before you
get hired exactly what they want to do with you.

>I've already been burnt once by a big-time high-tech firm while I was
>a co-op student so you can figure I'm a bit apprehensive about
>responding.  (The company I was working at put out a similiar ad and
>the full-time employees ridiculed it when I showed it to them.)

Yeah.  Personnel weasels aren't exactly in the mainstream of company
operations, no matter what they pretend in the interview, ads,
phonecalls, etc.  Everything they do comes off as unrealistic to the
employees.

>On the other hand, these ads may be legitimate in their search for qualified
>candiates so I don't want to cheat myself out of an opportunity.

I don't know if you can sue for false advertising if they don't even have
positions open and the ad indicates they're hiring.  I don't expect any
company that rich would lose a legal fight with a college kid, anyway.

Well, cynical is protective, but you'll get nowhere if you don't paper
their desks with your resume.  Make them just sick of you and your
qualifications.  Considering that the interviewer is probably not qualified
to give a realistic assessment of your abilities and potential, your
best bet is not to neglect the enthusiasm-and-desire factor.

				--Blair
				  "UMCP, '87.
				   I'm not CEO yet, either..."