HR Stuff

An email arrived this afternoon from a head hunter search firm professional I’ve never heard of before. He described an HR position on the East Coast at a very attractive salary and bonus plus car allowance.

I looked through it, and replied with a polite note telling him I knew of no one among my local contacts who might be interested.

(Oh! Would any of you like his name and email address? Let me know!)

I used to get these contacts by telephone more than by email, but the world is changing. In fact, there were times when they came so frequently they were a real annoyance. In the past six months I’ve probably only had 3-4, and two of those have been during January and now February. Business must be improving!

I have no idea how that particular head hunter search firm professional got my email address, but no matter. I would guess that he doesn’t read this blog, however, as few firms would have interest in an HR pro at such an advanced age as I have now attained. (And a big raspberry to all of you who have made “old” jokes at my expense following my last two posts!)

Regardless, it’s interesting to read a position profile (“job description” to us older folks) and note the compensation offered and the locale. It keeps me in touch with marketplace values and realities. And if the job is an HR position, and most of them are — that’s why they send them to me, to see if I might nibble at the bait — then I can either feel good or bad about my current job depending on the relationship of my current salary to the one offered.

(And in case you’re wondering, I feel pretty good about my current job after reading this most recent job/salary profile).

How about you? Do you ever get calls or emails from head hunters? Or is it just us HR types? I know that the engineers at our plant get calls regularly, and sometimes various managers do, but I wonder about others. If you do (or have in the past), let me know.

NEW SUBJECT

No news from my agent querying efforts lately. I still have 16 email queries out with no response yet, and I’ve begun sending snail mail letters to selected agents who request no emails. Some of those emails are over a month old.

But then, all of the responses that came back within a few days were of the “No thanks” variety. So maybe the others are carefully reading and re-reading my synopsis, getting the full force of emotions from my gripping tale. Or maybe the “John Earle Electronic Conspiracy” traveled virus-like with my email and has afflicted their computers, internet service, and email capability.

Or (more likely), they’re just so busy working with all their existing clients and fighting through each day’s onslaught of submissions, they’re a bit behind.

As I’ve so often said, “What a business!”