Frequently Asked Reasonable Questions From Reasonable People

Q: Why does your firm not post your telephone number, fax number or mailing address?
A: When our firm established its website in 1997 - ten years after our founding - we naturally posted our phone number and mailing address. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that more problems were caused by doing so. Firstly, we were surprised at how many resumes and calls that we received from people who were in fields that were in no way related to our recruitment markets. Some people seemed to not read about our recruitment practice markets and competencies and instead they seemed more interested in sending their resumes to as many jobs-related companies as they could find, even if inappropriate. This did not serve their interest or ours. 

Some people would call us, and rather than clearly stating their business, they would simply leave vague messages, such as, "Please have a recruiter contact me." But when the call was returned, the message might have been from a tele-salesperson making a pitch selling some unrelated service, or even from a parent asking what were good college majors that might help their kids get good jobs! 

Since at least half a million new web visitors have been coming to our site every year, it just became too wasteful a proposition to have very highly trained and experienced headhunters spending their time with people who really did not appreciate our time, knowledge or efforts. Unfortunately, due to these few, we are caused to seem distant to those candidates whom we are very interested in getting to know.

Although we wish that we could post this information for your comfort level, the reality is simply that if we did so, we would be unable to spend as much time working to match our excellent candidates with our client companies' challenging opportunities. We truly regret this dilemma, and we apologize for any inconvenience that this policy might pose for you.

Candidates who are contacted by ART recruiters are put in contact with a recruiter whom they could call or write at any time. Many candidates tell us that they are surprised at how very reachable our recruiters are - often being available to respond quickly to their letters or calls.

We hope that we shall have the opportunity of working with you some day.

Q: What email address can I send my resume or CV to?
A: Unless a candidate has been recruited directly by an ART recruiter, we can only accept resumes or CV's sent via our online application form. We are interested in hearing from candidates who are willing to devote a minimum of 10-15 minutes to filling out our invaluable application form that significantly helps us properly match candidate experiences and requirements with our client companies' needs. To send us your application along with your resume or CV, please go here.
 

Q: Why can't I just send you my resume as a Microsoft Word attachment to an email message?
A: Because of the difficulty of converting resumes sent in a wide variety of formats, it makes more sense for us to be spending more time trying to find you positions than trying to decode indecipherable computer characters. Generally speaking, plain text files can be read correctly on every computer in the world and probably will remain so for a long time. When you send us your information via our online form, it is converted into plain text.

Before we set up the current system, some maddening occurrences often took place. For example, every day at least one person would send us two or three e-mail messages, sent at different times, each containing a different attachment (Resume in MS Word 95, Resume in MS Word 97, References, Publications, etc.). It is not very useful for the recipient to file these data in a simple way.

One person even accidentally sent us a recipe, confusing his file "recipe.doc" with "resume.doc."

By the way, if you e-mail your resume to an employer, they more than likely will require you to send it as Plain Text pasted into the body of your e-mail message, or, increasingly, copied and pasted it into an online form on their website --very similar to ours!
 

Q: Your firm sounds as if it could help me and my career, but I really find it a nuisance to fill out your resume and application form. Why do I have to do that? Other search firms are happy just to get your resume.
A: We ask a number of basic questions, such as "Where would you like to work?" and "What kind of firm would you prefer to work at?" not to waste your time, but rather to save you and us time. The time that our application should take to fill out is time well invested, as it immediately tells our recruiters a great deal about what types of jobs, industries and locations that we should and should not call you about.

There can be few things more annoying to job seekers than to get a call from a headhunter about the wrong job.  Our standardized application is the way it is because many candidates do not write clearly understandable resumes. Even very good candidates may on occasion omit important details or overstate irrelevant or misleading details.

Before implementing our current system, our recruiters found themselves calling candidates to get answers to very important but simple questions that should have been answered in the text of the resume or in a cover letter, such as "what products are you familiar with?" and "what positions do you wish to consider?"  Some people claim they are fluent in foreign languages when actually they took the subject in high school two decades earlier and have forgotten the language entirely. Others would say they were experts in "C" language programming or Kaizen, computer product marketing or MRP II when it would become apparent that their knowledge about such topics was limited to the reading of a book or attending of a seminar. Some claim they are willing to relocate when in fact they would never move for any job. After a great deal of wasted time, we determined that there had to be a more efficient way to begin the process of job search.

Sorry for any inconvenience, but it is the beginning of an important career search, recruitment and placement process. Being humans, not computerized resume scanning machines, we naturally feel more enthusiastic about working with those candidates who appreciate the work we have invested into making their career search process as effective as possible.

Our application is used solely to understand how to best serve you. Your e-mailed application and resume are kept in the strictest confidence. No information sent us is ever going to be used for any kind of outside marketing survey or database.
 

Q: I am accustomed to working with recruiters recommended to me by friends and colleagues. I do not know anyone at ART, and I do not want to entrust strangers to presenting me to employers. Why should I take a chance with ART?
A: First of all,  ART is a real executive search firm, not some sort of phantom internet "jobs bulletin board" type of operation. Our firm has long standing relationships of trust and confidentiality with candidates and client companies who recommend us to their friends, colleagues and family members.  Our business has derived from these successful non-internet business relationships.

Originally, our internet site was intended to be used only for the benefit of those candidates and client-companies, but early on we found that people from all over the world were visiting us and writing us about how helpful our ART Career Guide is. They wanted to send us their resume. Employers told us they were happy to hear about a search firm with our comprehensive "results oriented" approach, and they asked us to help them fill critical management and executive openings in their organization
 

Q: What fees does ART charge to its candidates?
A: No fees are ever charged to ART candidates for our search, recruitment and placement services.  Additionally, any advice concerning resume preparation and interview strategies is offered free of charge.  Executive search firms do not ordinarily charge their candidates fees.  All our fees are paid by our client-companies.
 

Q: I am particularly interested in a job listed on your website, but nobody ever contacted me about it. Why is that?
A: Sometimes it happens that the positions in which you might express interest are not considered appropriate matches by the ART recruiter who is in charge of that particular search assignment. For us, a "correct match" means that the candidate is now currently qualified to fill the job, and that the client company is now willing to consider the candidate for their position based on the client company's criteria. If an appropriate job comes up, it is to the great advantage of the ART recruiter to contact you as soon as possible, but if you do not hear from ART, it does not mean that you have been forgotten, but rather that we do not see an appropriate match for a current client opening. 

Please understand that it is always in our interest to not rule out any candidate whom we believe we could place in a position at a client company. Whenever possible, we try our best to encourage employers to consider the broadest range of potential candidate experiences, requirements and locations for their openings, because we understand that sometimes initial employer job descriptions are far too specific or self-limiting, and that what was yesterday's "absolute requirements" might be tomorrow's "preferences" if no suitable candidates surface in a timely manner.

It is important to be aware that headhunters are guided by their client companies' requirements in these matches, and some of these details, such as salary level or salary potential, a company's flexibility or inflexibility regarding a candidate's "required" experiences, or an employer's willingness to relocate a candidate, are usually not included in the online job description. It might appear to you that based on an online job posting that you are "perfect" for the job, but if you live in a city or country far from the target location, or if your experiences or salary requirements significantly differ from the ideal target client preferences, it simply might be that there are other candidates whose variables are far closer matches from the employer's point of view. 

Sometimes, for example, a person in machine tool sales, might feel supremely confident about being qualified to be a VP of Sales for a software firm because of the old aphorism "a sale is a sale is a sale." This might in theory be a reasonable self evaluation, but the reality of the job market is such that this person would be competing with people who are already familiar with the intricacies of software sales and with the customers that need to be reached. An employer simply would be extremely reluctant to take the risk of hiring a person who would have to relearn an entire industry. And if the position is a senior management role, that person must also be able to immediately instill confidence in a staff that would expect their boss to know more about their market, customers or product than they do. 

If the company is a public company, stockholders also would demand a VP or "C" level person to bring very credible and immediately recognizably relevant industry experiences to the company. From the employer's point of view, if you cannot step into the job immediately with the right experiences, industry knowledge, customer contacts, etc., then you are too great a risk to be hired for their job. Some companies can indeed "take a chance" on a management hire involving a person whose experiences are different from theirs, but typically such firms do not hire an executive search firm to present them with such candidates. In fact, ART often is brought in by companies specifically after they "took a chance" on a candidate whose experiences were too different from their needs and failed simply because he or she did not come in to the job with the right road map of relevant experiences.

What do we mean when we say that a candidate had experiences that were "too different" from a client company's needs? This depends entirely on the employer's criteria. For example, in the case of software sales again, one company might feel that a person selling IT services, telecommunications services, software, computers, telecom equipment or other high tech sales would be perfectly fine, whereas another software company might not only refuse to consider people outside of software products, but they might only consider people coming from a very limited range of software product areas, such as network management or CTI products, and then, only people coming from certain companies or from certain product lines at those companies.

With the issue of location, some companies simply do not wish to relocate candidates due to the costs of interviews, relocation, expatriation packages, visa sponsorship, or other issues. You might want that job in London, Shanghai, or San Francisco, but if you would be competing with highly qualified, experienced and talented people already in those locations, why would an employer feel compelled to interview you before them? So even if you appear to have "perfect" qualifications for a posted job, it might be that there just happen to be very qualified local candidates that you are competing with, and the employer might only wish to consider those candidates. ART is a global recruitment firm, and whenever our clients are willing and able to consider qualified candidates who want or need to be relocated from other cities or sponsored from other countries, we are happy to present as many of those capable candidates as possible. ART has placed many candidates who had to relocated, but in every case, the employer chose to do so only because that candidate was more suitable than other candidates.

Q: I am not currently employed in any of the disciplines or industries that ART recruits in, but I would like to interview for jobs in those fields. Can you help me?
A:.If you are a person with little actual industry experience in a field in which ART recruits, we likely cannot be of too much assistance to you until you gain that experience. Typically, the principal reason why companies decide to hire an executive search firm to help fill a vacancy is because they need a very experienced executive or experienced manager who already has done or is doing the kind of work that they need to be done today. This can be frustrating for candidates who wish to change careers or industries and may believe that, if given the chance, they could perform the duties required. The problem is that, in most cases, employers would not consider that a search firm is offering them appropriate choices if their candidates do not already have verifiable track records in the target job or market. For those who seek significantly different jobs from what they are doing now, most headhunters can do little; but if you are prepared to make more gradual transitions to your ultimate "dream job," perhaps we can help.

Q: I am unemployed or about to be unemployed and I need to talk to a recruiter immediately and get interviews as quickly as possible. Can you help me?
A:.While we may try to see if we can assist any unemployed person or soon-to-be laid off executive, we should not be relied upon to provide immediate job interviews with our clients. Rather, in such cases, we might best be regarded as a possibly useful job source. When or if we can be of assistance is unpredictable. It depends entirely on the current searches that our client companies have asked us to help them with. 

Please also be aware that not all jobs posted on our website are currently available. We might already have filled them. These listings are primarily meant to show the types of positions for which ART is typically called to fill. Some are currently available, but also some currently available jobs are not posted, often due to reasons of client company confidentiality.

Q: What do Headhunters such as ART do?
A: ART is a headhunting company. Its recruiters proudly call themselves headhunters. Nowadays it has become common for people to refer to any and all companies or individuals remotely involved in the recruitment field as "headhunters," but within the executive search field, the term "headhunter" has a very specific definition: executive recruiters who seek out and approach candidates by the direct approach for their client's specific needs. Most of the companies on the internet using headhunter - related trade names or images do not do what we do. They usually are only dotcoms or advertising companies that do not have staff that is capable of analyzing candidate resumes, much less properly and carefully matching them to their clients' needs.

Firms that place "help wanted" or other classified job advertisements in newspapers or on the internet are also not strictly considered headhunters. Headhunters define their job as finding and placing people, not placing advertisements and waiting for resumes to come in. Those firms usually are called employment agencies, and in most countries outside of North America, they overwhelmingly form the majority of private companies engaged in the recruitment of professionals. Being such a new recruitment standard in many countries is why in many non-English speaking countries, the local term for "headhunter" is still the English word "headhunter." 

ART treats candidates whom its recruiters directly recruit and those who send their resumes unsolicited equally, regardless of job title, industry or location. By sending us your application, your qualifications can be seamlessly and rapidly conveyed to the relevant ART recruiters for their consideration. In one noteworthy case, a website candidate sent his application to us and was placed by us as CEO of a software firm that he eventually sold to Microsoft at considerable gain to all parties. 
 

Q: What does ART not do?
A: Although you might have first come to us via the Internet, please understand that ART is not some gimmicky dotcom. Nor is ART a "jobs bulletin board" or an "online resume posting site." Nor are we career counselors, although candidates often tell us that both the suggestions and advice from our recruiters and our web site have been of great value to them and their careers. 

While we may try to see if we can assist any unemployed person or soon-to-be laid off executive, we should not be relied upon to provide immediate job interviews with our clients. Rather, in such cases, we might best be regarded as a possibly useful job source. When or if we can be of assistance is unpredictable.

If you are a person with little actual industry experience in a field in which ART recruits, we likely cannot be of too much assistance to you until you gain that experience. Typically, the principal reason why companies decide to hire an executive search firm to help fill a vacancy is because they need a very experienced executive or experienced manager who already has done or is doing the kind of work that they need to be done today. This can be frustrating for candidates who wish to change careers or industries and may believe that, if given the chance, they could perform the duties required. The problem is that, in most cases, employers would not consider that a search firm is offering them appropriate choices if their candidates do not already have verifiable track records in the target job or market. For those who seek significantly different jobs from what they are doing now, most headhunters can do little; but if you are prepared to make more gradual transitions to your ultimate "dream job," perhaps we can help.

We normally do not extensively edit or rewrite most candidate résumés. If a résumé does not tell us what products or services you have worked with, what achievements you have made, or other standard information in a résumé or CV, we are highly unlikely to contact you to ask you to redo your résumé. We take very seriously and literally what you tell us or do not tell us in your application and résumé, so please always be as accurate as possible. For example, if you tell us that you would only consider jobs in Brussels or Singapore, we likely would only contact you if we had a search assignment for someone with your credentials in Brussels or Singapore, even if you really would prefer San Diego or Atlanta (but never told us so). Similarly, if you state that you would only want a Vice President of Sales and Marketing title with a minimum annual base of US $250,000 and an annual package of US $500,000, when you might really be perfectly happy to consider a Director's title and a base of  $150K with a package of $250K at a better company, your statements might only cause to limit your choices. We pride ourselves at ART in trying to only contact candidates when we believe that we might have an appropriate job for them, so if information is misstated or omitted by a candidate, a possibly interesting opportunity might be lost.
 

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