Globalization: W2 Candidate RPO Experience. I Fired my India Based Recruiting Firm After The Final Interview

"5 Failures That Will Prompt Your Candidate to Fire You", is a recent W2 Candidate story that follows.  

GLOBALIZATION OF USA RECRUITING REQUIRES SOME WORK TO DO WELL. MOST OFTEN, THIS WORKS WELL.  Here is an exceptional story worth understanding.

W2 Candidate RPO Experience.  I Fired my India Based Recruiting Firm After The Final Interview AFTER too many failures. I wanted the job, I loved the company,  but integrity mattered more.   I was a candidate in the final interview.  How many American Companies are being impacted by hidden recruiting outsourcing issuess?

Brand matters as the Job Seeking Candidate and Client Company are impacted by Global RPO Partners who do not understand USA based recruiting process, policy or communications 

A great article was written by Rob Dromgoole titled , "4 Steps That Will Get The Candidate to say Yes" was released on LinkedIn's newsfeed, the same day I was a final candidate for a job I would have loved to accept, but ultimate felt the best course was to decline the terms and terminate the recruiter on the grounds of integrity and professional courtesy. 

An India based recruiting firm, had 2 different men speaking poor English over a bad VOIP line calling, competing to submit me for the same job.  I fixed that after both tried to schedule interviews.  After getting consolidated to one recruiter however it got worse.  He miss communicated on the interview schedule, the contract terms, and worse than that, I was sexually harassed, spammed, misrepresented, bait and switch job offered, begged for immigration help.

1. Bad Office Organization/Collaboration:  Be clear and consistent in communication and scheduling. Two men were competing to submit me for the same job, from the same office both over a bad VOIP line in their India office within 40 minutes of one another. They competed over the candidate qualification/interest phase, salary validation phase, and the interview scheduling phase. I insisted if we are to continue they collaborate or assign one person. 

•  I got one person assigned, who failed to cancel the call from his partner, so the first voice interview, went forward, even though he told me it was cancelled. Fortunately for all involved, that call was the Account Manager, so I was able to raise concerns appropriately and he resolved.  
• IF you have knowingly erred, make sure the next person that calls is aware of the nature of the error.  You put yourself in a bad place to have the Account Manager call me for a Thursday appointment you told would not take place because it would happen Friday in person.   
• You put yourself in a bad place to have your Office Manager contact me and try to strong arm me into changing the terms after you have knowingly failed in so many elements of this process, without telling her why this is not going to work. Collaborate and communicate well, even if you made an error. 

2. Inconsiderate Communications:  Be clear, respectful and considerate.  If you want candidates that will be great professionals for your client, observe a few important rules.  During the business hours they are in meetings, if they cant answer on the first call, don't call 5 more time, then text, viber/or Skype, and email.  

• Pick one vehicle and wait until the candidate is out of the business meeting at work, hospital where they are receiving emergency treatment, OR the Candidate Interview with YOUR client!! 
• If you want to attract a candidate who will do and be a professional, you must extend the same professional courtesy that allows them to respond to your request when they are not on the job or talking to YOUR client in the agreed interview!   

3. Professional Courtesy:   Your job is to qualify and present me, your candidate for the life cycle of the recruiting process, and does not allow for you to request marital advise, immigration help, or helping you find a job in the USA.  Your American Contract Partner, or Branch Office, AND your client have a few basic and important rules against harassment  on the grounds of age, race, and gender. 

•  Its a very good idea to be aware of these rules before you me why I am old and married, and cant marry you. 
• Even better idea not to keep texting me,  failing to hear the verbal suggestions you fix this. 

4. Bad Technology and Bad USE of Technology:  Organize your office to either collaborate or have a step down process. 

• If you have a bad VOIP line, follow up with email and SEND email with your name and contact information when you promise to. 
• You candidates need to know how to reach you when they say they cant hear you well and to please follow up by email, that is important to really do!! 

5. Bait and Switch Bidding:  Be VERY familiar with USA hiring when bidding out IF the candidate says she requires W2, and you do not understand or hear the difference, put it in writing to make sure you are on the same page. 

• If you and I verbally agree and I put it in writing and we confirm, that is an agreement..  
• Do NOT expect positive negotiations when you come back to the candidate who told you 5 times verbally and once by email, and now you are coming back after the final interview and ask them change the W2 to a 1099 agreement for $15/hour less!!  

 WHEN it is done, and your candidate fires you and asks you not to call or contact in any way, do not send an Indian office manager to call to  to suggest that the only way the candidate, who at this point has gone above and beyond the call of duty to educate the recruiters and not compromise the offer, is to accept what you told them in the qualification phase, as a condition to the interview a firm agreement. 

Watch for the Business and Recruiting Point of View Article when we explore what Recruiters and US Based Companies can do to partner effectively in their Recruiting Process Outsourcing.  There are many companies that do this very well every day, for a great cost, getting a quality service. However the nature of this process, might cause Companies, even Recruiting Companies to get a negative image based upon lack of awareness of US based recruiting big rules, regulations, and common courtesies:

RECRUITMENT OFFSHORING: RPO Gone Bad, When What you don't know, hurts your Brand.

 

Ladies: YES, You are doing more than STEALING to do this!

EVERYONE DOES IT: So it must be okay.  Stores do samples of Perfume all the time, this is in the same aisle.  

A WOMAN STEALS MAKEUP, PAYS FOR TOILET PAPER. Stealing beauty products, selling at a flea market.  Rudy Giuliani's Daughter , Miss USA, Shannon Marketic , were both arrested for stealing beauty products they could afford why do it?  Think it does not matter?  Think if everyone does it, it must be okay. I would prefer however if you have to steal, do it outright so you can be caught rather than be stealing and leaving your product, tainted silently on the shelves for the unsuspected customer expecting they are buying a new product.  SOME products like nail polish does not have seals, you cant tell if it was compromised or not, but if its been on your dirty feet, I don't want it. 

LADIES, NO, IT IS NOT OKAY, YOU ARE DOING MORE THAN STEALING WHEN YOU GO TO THE STORE AND "TRY ON" AN ENTIRE MANICURE OF NAIL POLISH IN THE STORE.  IT IS STEALING.  

When Retail Stores offer items for sample, there are specially designated bottles set out marked "sample" that you may try from.  You are stealing when you "sample" items that are not marked sample, but its way more than that.  I have seen women and girls, 'sampling" nail polish, mascara, and lipstick in the stores.   Stop it already!  Its tacky, cheap, and unhygienic, no one wants your skin flecks, dna, germs, and toe jam in their beauty products, that they THINK they are buying NEW and have never been used. 

Now I never dreamed I would need to be writing about this, but I have seen this now a half dozen times recently, and the stories are disgusting.  Ladies, we deserve the best, so buy it, and insist others, who are trying to steal it, stop!!! 

• Target Stores:  6:00 p.m on a weeknight.  I am in the hair coloring aisle, where 4 teenage girls are huddled around blocking the aisle, using the open shelf area to polish their nails.  They brought their own "rag, and used a bottle of nail polish remover to remove the polish on their nails and select a new color.  Yes they did this all, while BLOCKING the access to the products I came to buy.  I asked them to move, but they ignored my request until I pulled out my cell phone and started preparing to snap a few pictures.   The last girl, around 18, left fluorescent yellow nail polish on the shelf, the nail polish remover bottle, and had not gotten it all cleaned up, so she picked it all up and moved over to the makeup aisle to finish the work.  I rounded up security, where they were picking out their makeup colors to complete the look. I pointed the 4 girls out to the security guard and went on my way. THEN called the store manager, FURIOUS that paying customers were being so impeded by stealing customers. 
• Target Store:  10:00 p.m. on a weeknight.  Its late and I need to get some cleaning products.  The 30 something year old woman had set up her own little spa in the Target store, she was talking with her family on the phone, sitting on the low clear shelf at target where the high end anti-aging products are housed.  She took sandals off and was replacing the old nail polish on her toenails with a fresh coat of bright pink nail polish.  I watched incredulously as I walked AROUND her feet hanging out in the aisle, so I can finish shopping.  ICK I thought.  OMG I have been buying nail polish that possibly has been put on someone's dirty feet. IF I dont want this I must say something.  On the next aisle over a night worker is stocking the shelf.  I said, "Um there is a woman talking on the phone, blocking the aisle, and painting her dirty toenails with new polish" "Nothing I can do he said, happens all the time, we cant really make them stop". 
• ULTA:  A Teenager with a Twenty something girl, both in micromini skirts and platform shoes brushes back her hair and gives herself a complete makeover, broke the seal on eyeliner, rimmed her eyes, applied mascara, lipstick and eyeshadow.  

OTHER REASONS BESIDES THE FACT ITS THEFT TO USE SOMETHING NOT LABELED SAMPLE: Makeup is NOT like a used car that can be cleaned and used!  

• People have every reason to expect the new product they are purchasing hasn't been worn. 
• It is unhygienic to use a product and return it to the shelf. 
• You could be spreading OR receiving sickness, germs, pink eye, hepatitis A, cold sores
• Unclean feet have OTHER germs on them that could be spread when put on the hands of unsuspecting owners. 
• People want to buy things in the store you are stealing from, and you are in the way. 
• People don't want to buy the things you opened and closed back up like its nothing. 

READ MORE ABOUT IT: 

• Bacteria in Makeup Testers
• Microbiology and Cosmetics 
• Makeup Reveals Bacterial Contamination
• $9B is lost yearly due to Beauty Snatchers, some of theft is unknown and passed on to customers in bacterial tainted samples. 

Virgin Mobile: Case Study " Corporate Care" is more than a name and an apiology.

 Having the right talent on your phones and social media creates the experience your customers will experience.  I love to talk about great companies.  Sadly today's blog is my sharing of a personal experience about a situation I wish would have been responded against a company whose brand I loved!  

Where are your Corporate Headquarters I asked, after being asked to give them one more chance to say they are sorry without solving the problem.  What was the problem?  5 months of failed calls with drop rates at around 90% failed on 2 calls.  After buying a new phone, getting a new number, jumping through 48 hours of hoops, we had hopes social media might solve what their service center failed to.  No in fact they compounded and drag it out.  I guess they should be proud they retained us this long, because WHO willingly stays except for hoping a company will be the company they loved for 2 years prior. 

Twitter support would not give me the corporate headquarters information to pass on my concerns, but of course this is public information 

Virgin Mobile USA is located in Warren, New Jersey, United States.  I was told Virgin runs on Sprint's "B" towers so service I suppose is unpredictable. When bad is an epidimic how does a social media savvy company respond?  The answer defines much about what the company is, and I daresay I am disappointed, because I LOVE the brand and Sir Richard Branson, but this abysmal failure to respond, deliver or resolve is something I am proud to be done with as of today.     


VIRGIN MOBILE:  You could hear a call drop.  I love to talk about great services, and I recommended Virgin Mobile as one of the most affordable and effective no contract plans, until we moved. In January 2013 we moved to Pleasanton, CA, and the problems seriously began.  Problems that Virgin Mobile was happy to have us running around paying full price, buying new phones, and all the time, from February until June, telling us the performance was due to the towers being upgraded. Not sure when they would be done.. 

 
 
If coverage is so good?  Why is it bad?  That is the question I would ask over and over again The answer became clearer, and clearer.  In the end it comes up to this.  Virgin Mobile did not care about performance problems or the customer experience. 

Now if 90% of your calls drop, and YOU KNOW it, would YOU reimburse the bad experience?  

Virgin Mobile says no!  They can not reimburse, they told me after being dropped from business conference calls, clients, customers, my kids in an emergency, my parents telling me of the death of my Grandmother.  You see to Virgin, its just a drop, not EVERY SINGLE TIME your call fails, at a rate of 90% dropping, and not being able to reconnect or stay connected.

Just because someone has a Facebook, Twitter, Customer Service, and Email does NOT mean they care about creating a positive customer experience.  

After calling repeatedly and spending  over 48 hours on support calls where we were told to get a new phone, a new number etc between January and March, we began emailing and tweeting. 

Twitter:  48 tweets from February 3, 2013- June 20, 2013 I requested assistance. Phones have got to work, I asked them to fix or reimburse.. Instead they apologized.  I had to trial another account, I did T-Mobile have NOT had a call drop since.  I asked them to reimburse the time I went without a working phone to my husband's account so HE can wait until they fix the towers.  They failed to call on 3 promised calls, declined my request to follow up or reimburse.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%40VMUcare%2C%20%40dawnckhan%20%40VMUcare%2C%20OR%20%40dawnckhan&src=typd


Email:  45 emails from April 2013 until yesterday , when my husbands contract was up for renewal, requesting assistance, resolution, escalation and compensation for paying 100% and getting 10% service.  

CONSUMER SERVICES: Hiring a Mover

Some friends had asked me to share some tips and experiences for hiring a mover.  In 2012 the Better Business Bureau fielded over a million searches about them, and and more than 9,300 against movers. Move fraud is on the rise and the Tyler Better Business Bureau did a nice article with Advice for a Safe Move. 

PROCESS FOR FINDING MOVERS: In the internet and social media age, we can identify services really quickly. Identifying sources is part of the objective for certain, validating the service provider's track record for customer satisfaction is the other key component.  

Your first work is to get a good understanding of the move scope.  Create a template of the FROM and TO location details, you might want to consider the truck access. We had a move complicated because of the difficulty of access for the semi to the storage unit. Create a list of items moving, if you already have your belongings in storage, include the storage size of your unit and take a few photos and approximate the percentage full. 

I.  SOURCING MOVERS:  

• Ask for recommendations from your social network, someone who has had a positive or negative experience with a contact locally is always helpful. 

• Select a Moving Bid service as a source for getting private bids on moving.. Upside is a potential for savings from local small business owners, downside is a serious risk in validating the quality of the mover. 
• Craigslist.com 
• MovingGood.com
• UMovers.com

• Select a Moving Aggregator as a source for getting a nice volume of bids from moving companies.  Just fill out the webform with details and you can get within a few days, a range of bids on your move request. Upside is a potential volume of competitive bids will help you get a range of quotes, less risk then a bid or free classified add service, but you still need to validate quality. 
• Moving.com 
• GetMover.com 

II. CHECK REFERENCES:  Moving scams are a growing concern that has made national news recently. Pricing scams, hidden costs, extra charges, bait and switch deals,  theft, etc are all valid risks.   Using a licensed, bonded mover can help reduce risk, but you should always make sure your service provider has a track record for ethical business.   ALL Perfect References could be just as questionable as negative references, so whats the best way to make sure the Mover is credible, and you can rely on them to honor the scheduling, estimate, pickup, and delivery elements of the move?  

• Check Better Business Bureau report for the vendor you select.  Its free, its easy, and it saves you money.. Just because someone 'says' they are in business x years and have a commitment to customer satisfaction does not guarantee it, and here you will see how they manage their customer satisfaction.  To report a fraud or scam, call the BBB Hotline at 903-581-8373.
• Check Yelp  by putting in the company name and City/State.  If I had done this for the service I contracted I might have never had the experience I did. 

III.  STILL HAVE HIDDEN DOUBTS?  If you are not sold on the company and the offer.  If you have doubts, worries or uncertainty, trust that.  If you have a lawyer on retainer that can be very helpful.  If you don't, a subscription to Legal Shield is well worth the investment.  They can help you review contracts and deal with consumer issues, either proactively or re-actively.  While an attorney on retainer could be expensive, Legal Shield is a prepaid legal service with a low monthly charge and can review your concerns and offer legal advise that can save you time and money. 

OUR STORY: 

We moved 11 times in the past few years, and have had a variety of experiences on do it yourself,  contracting help on an extremely limited budget, to contracting help when you want it done right and don't want to lose anything.   

I had tried moving bid services before and was successful in hiring a very good local mover in Bloomington IL that I definitely recommended. Were money no object, we would hire him again, as he helped us in 2 moves and did a great job.  Results were not so good with moving bid services on our cross country move, we received few realistic bids that were believe able enough to go to the next step with. 

I asked for recommendations from my social network of people who had moved cross country, most were the result of corporate moves, which in today's economy are less and less common.  Which explains why the situation of Moving Fraud, makes alot more news these days.  

With no personal experience recommendations to work from, I turned to an aggregator.  This is an important story that could have gone much worse, but the lessons learned from MY bad experience do not need to be repeated, by me or others.  Using an aggregator gave me a good source I think we received well over 18 bids.  We interviewed a few. I threw out the cheapest and the most expensive bids.  I did not want a low price leader who could not explain the difference in costs, and did not want to work too hard to uncover them re-actively. We  wanted a fair price for a fair move.  We selected the top 3 companies on price, responsiveness, presentation.  The company who won was friendly helpful and able to get us scheduled very easily. We had a furniture inventory, we explained the unit is in storage, and we are not living there, so they will need to get the keys from the office.  They accepted this and we paid the 10% downpayment and were excited for the process to finish.. I felt good that this was underway.  As I had other friends moving I could share about how easy it was.. It was easy so far.. but then...  a twist.. 

AFTER SIGNING THE AGREEMENT: 

1. They said they could pick up on Friday, then it would change 3 more times, the last date being the VERY DAY we needed to be out of our storage unit. Thats okay, things happen right?  OK just enforce the importance.  "Yes ma'am we will call you 24-48 hours prior to give you a time window. 
2. 48 hours. Nothing.  24 hours.. crickets..  No notice, I emailed frantically and got the drivers direct number. We talked 13 hours before I needed the driver to pick up the keys.  Again I explained we must be out of the unit tomorrow, and you are picking the keys up from the office, so you must arrive before noon.  "OK I will call you to notify when I have arrived." 
3. 11:50, no call from the driver, the office closes at noon.  With my husband on one phone calling the storage unit, and me on the other phone calling the driver I confirmed he just arrived. He got into the storage unit.  
4. He called me back, after the office had closed.  There are problems.  It is going to cost us $400 for boxes.  Then NO not $_00, $_,_00. Then NO no double the price.  Frustrated and angry but needing to get our stuff out I struggled with what to do.  We needed to get our stuff out of there, I said okay look we need to be out of there today. We MUST have our stuff by 6/8, and you have already failed us on scheduling, 24 hour call and now your are doubling the price.  BUT they did something unexpected.. They cancelled the contract, on the spot, because I wasnt there to sign it-- a fact we never discussed since estimation.  I demanded they honor the contract and that I would get someone there to sign on my behalf because we couldnt be in the unit after today.. They hung up on me, refusing to return my call to confirm I had a family member in route to get the keys and sign the contract.  

AFTER THE CANCELLATION: They offered no emergency number, no after hours number and we did not know where one of the keys was, what the situation was, and they would not return our calls.  I tried the office, no number.  I emailed an urgent email Sunday to then.  No response on Monday. I called the sales person who was escalating to a supervisor who escalated to a manager, who called me and told me the driver said I cancelled the contract because the new charges were too great. "I feel like I am stuck between my driver and you", he refunded the downpayment.  Ultimately I decided it was best to not try to finish something that started so badly, for if the manager of a moving company is reticent to believe a customer who wants to give them money, even after they have failed the customer on every key point of customer service... It was a temporary insanity on my part.. I wanted the pain to stop by just finishing this bad process and getting it done.  

At this point, we postponed the move, until we can find the moving experience we want.. To pay somebody a fair service, for the safe, timely, accurate delivery of our belongings.