damn if you do

I met up with a headhunter today. And boy oh boy, it just sealed my lack of faith in this industry. While talking to me to find out what are the other areas that I am interested in exploring in my career, this consultant whom I shall call Ed, tried to put my experience and the very expensive education I've just received, down.

While looking at my past years experience, Ed went,"Well, your experience is relevant in blah area. But you've been out of the job market for a year so it might be hard."

If my eyes rolled, I couldn't care less. Out of the job market for year? Excuse me, it's not like I was sitting on my ass for a year not doing anything. You young punk who do not know the value of an MBA, please, just go educate yourself on what it really takes to be recruiter before you do recruitment for professionals. Especially for mid- to senior levels. Strike one.

Ed then went on to talk about my interest in the IT industry. And then tried to put me down again by saying that I do not have the knowledge in hardware. IT is not all about hardware, and in fact he didn't even ask me which areas of IT I was interested in. He was supposed expert in the IT industry. Strike two.

I then asked about work opportunities abroad. Ed asked,"Why do you want to go west when everyone is coming to the east?"If as a recruiter he cannot understand such basics of why people want international experience, I honestly think the whole recruitment industry should be on the brink of destruction.

Strike three.

So this has completely changed my job search strategy. Do more research on my own, depend less on these recruiters who don't know their stuff.

It's like this stupid encounter has deepen the dent in my dreaded job search experience. Just like what my friend said it's damn if you do and damn if you don't. When you have a certification such as an MBA, some people don't value it. And when you don't, hiring companies prefer it.

WTF?