The following message was posted on INTERNET and expresses a point of view which you should consider when evaluating your options and planning your career - particularly when deciding whether to become an employee or entrepreneur. You should treat it as an opinion. It has been edited slightly. Its date is 15 DEC 95. My comments follow it.

Ted Harding wrote:

I am 51 years old. I have been around the employment "racket" for a long time. Got my first taste of some of the big "scams" back in the 60's. Today there are more con artists in the employment business than you can shake a stick at. Anyone would be an absolute fool sending in money to someplace that can "guarantee" a job. You should be sending me the money, instead, for giving you this free advice.

Believe me. Watch out. Most jobs that are advertised in the newspaper and on the INTERNET are either bogus or have already been filled. I know this for a fact because I have talked to several vice presidents of human resource departments who have "off the record" admitted to me this is so.

First, most companies don't have to fill a position by going to an employment agency. Most of the time the job is already filled. The companies still advertise in papers and INTERNET and employment agencies in order to fulfill the federal and state laws pertaining to equal opportunity. This means that they have to let all minorities, (women, ethnics, fat people, and old people, etc.) know that the job is available and give them a (fair?) chance to apply for the job. They then get all of these resumes that all you suckers spend most of your time printing and mailing. This way, just in case someone files hiring discrimination charges or federal guys check up on the company they can wave all of your rejected resumes in their face and say "see we did what we were supposed to do". This also includes a few bogus interviews just for good measure. Believe me when I tell you this stuff. I have caught companies doing this more than once.

Second. There are many employment agencies who advertise bogus jobs in order to get you to send in your resume. Then they use the old bate and switch routine. This is where the job you sent your resume for, all of a sudden is filled but they just happen to have this meager job which they will do their best to convince you that is (a.) better than no job at all. (b.) Your skills and experience is a dime a dozen and not in demand any more so you better consider yourself lucky and take this meager job while I have it offered for you. (c.) Go on the interview anyway if you are not interested because it will sharpen you interview skills and will make me look good for the employer that I am doing something for him.

Wake up guys! The good jobs are either hired internally or from networking with inside information or they are hired through the back door. Many are done by "head hunters" who hire someone already employed over to a different company. Very rarely are any good jobs available through an "employment agency". Employment agencies are used by companies to "entice" people to take jobs for low wages cause the company don't know how to do that kind of sleaze themselves, don't want to do that kind of sleaze, and don't have the time to do that kind of sleaze. as well as keeping the feds off their backs.

A resume is a rejection device. Send a resume in ahead of yourself and you just entered a pile of about 1,000 plus competing for the same position. They got some little bimbo sitting at a desk chewing bubble gum with instructions to thrash all resumes with the following: graduates from Texas A&M because the boss went to the University of Texas, anyone over 40 years of age, anyone with too much experience cause the boss will have to pay him too much, etc. After this is done then the bimbo will can the plain white paper resumes cause she thinks the ones on colored paper are cool looking. And, there you have it.

I tell you what. If you think I a wrong and want some different credibility read what is considered the definitive book on how to get hired. The book title is What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles. The book has been around for a long time and is revised annually to keep up to date. It is the best book to direct you in the best way to get a job. He will tell you just what I told you except in a nice way.

I am six years older than Ted Harding. Based on my own extremely limited experience with professional recruiters and employment agencies - which I try to avoid, I am not in a position to disagree with Ted's conclusions nor do I have a basis for assuming that the abuses he describes are or are not widespread.

In the 1970s, I responded to a newspaper ad run by a prominent electronic instrument manufacturer and received a call from a professional 'evaluator'. At the interview, I was told that the client management didn't want to hire a Jew and the evaluator was only serving as a screening operation. This event tends to validate Ted's comment; however, it occured over twenty years ago, constituted a single event and may not be common today. In any case, it is now illegal for a recruiter or agency to discriminate or aid a client in discriminating on the basis of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sex, sexual preferance, age or disability.

Later when I was employed by a large corporation - a job I found as a result of an introduction, I discovered another use for resumes. As a result of a 'lateral transfer', I was given a new position under a particularly mean-spirited boss. He would collect about 100 unsolicited resumes our department received every month and then circulate them to the staff for evaluation. He had no plans to hire anyone. His point was to show us that there were plenty of people outside the corporation who were willing to fill our jobs for less money than we were being paid. True, the prospective applicants were not as well qualified as I was; but, the corporation didn't need anyone with my qualifications - so I waited for the right opportunity and quit.

Early in my own business, I learned as an employer to avoid employment agencies and professional recruiters. Soon after our display advertisement appeared in the Yellow Pages directory, we started receiving telephone calls in which the recruiter or agent would introduce himself by telling me that he had 'the perfect man for our company who was just let go and would be willing to work cheap'. Then he would ask what kind of a business we were running!

Another ploy was to call, read someone's resume and ask if we knew where such a person could be placed and whether they could use our name. They would also use ruses (i.e. call and ask for our service manager) to try to obtain the names, salaries and resumes of our people so they could sign them up.

After a few years, we were receiving a dozen or more phone calls a week and nothing we said would stop them. Finally, we discontinued Yellow Pages directory advertising and, after 15 months, almost all of those calls stopped coming.

If employment agencies and professional recruiters actually perform an effective screening function, then they certainly are worth their fee of 25-50% of your first year salary. (Incidentally, they get to keep their fee only if you stay about one year.) But, the 'if' is a big 'if' and you have to be very careful before making a commitment to them. My opinion is that if you have any skill at meeting new people, then you can achieve better results by making your own contacts. You can develop these skills by participating in Amateur Radio, Toastmasters International and other volunteer activities where communications skills are taught or encouraged.