I told you this blog was random....2018 Tax calculator based on Trump's tax law changes

 

I'm not making any political stands here just facts.

Below is a calculator that uses 2018 tax law changes to estimate your Federal taxes after the Republican Tax bill.

Try it out, it's fascinating what you'll find...

Taking the Human out of Human Resources

There's a lot of fear in the job market these days and most of it stems from a disturbing tendency of employers to treat candidates like some kind of trade-in at Honest Bob's car lot.  I'll give you some analogies (of course) to make my point a little more clear...

• I sell Trucks, they're trying to trade a motorcycle! - Does this person even fit the job?
• How many miles, Condition? - Are they too old or are they going to drive up my health insurance costs?
• What kind of options does it have? - Do they have all the skills and experience I need or do I have to train them?
• Show me the CarFax! - Anything in their past I can use to lowball the offer or exclude them entirely?
• Market value? - I want to get this guy/gal for as close to free as possible.

In the private sector it's no surprise.  In theory, removing intangibles and non-sequitur from the process should create a more level playing field.  It's also more efficient which plays well with the bean counters.

But it can go too far...

It's one thing to use objective criteria  to thin the herd but that's where its usefulness really ends.  We all understand that no employer wants to interview 100 burger flippers for a structural engineering job.  However, a potential candidate shouldn't be excluded by a process that's left to HR departments that have no idea of how to vet a potential hire.

We're coming back to the real point here. 

Today's work environment is frequently populated by underpaid and mostly disinterested workers.  There's no denying it in spite of the all the stock photos of happy faces populating the company HR page. 

We live in an age of stagnant wages, dwindling benefits and a slow erosion of worker rights.  Let's not forget the almost total lack of job security.  Even CEO's can't guarantee their tenure but then they've got a lot softer landing than the rest of us.

So don't expect a lot of that "personal touch."  You're just another resource to be evaluated, a commodity.

Which is a problem.

When you reduce talent to their lowest common denominator you end up missing a lot of important information to help you make a decision.

For example: A top notch engineer could be cut from consideration because of a bad credit record, a visible tattoo or if they happen to smoke.  HR pundits ( yes they exist) will offer up excuses like:

• A bad credit history reflects on a lack of responsibility. 
• Tattoo's cause issues with workplace culture
• Smokers drive up insurance costs and take too many breaks. 

None of them have anything to do with the quality of the candidate but more often than not they're used as screening factors.  The justifications are hollow but there's no point in challenging them.

It's the result of a process cut to the bone and borne out of a systematic devaluing of the Human in Human resources.  
The only advice given to the job seeker? 

Bend over...

Yeah, no big long flowery mental masturbation there.  That's the bottom line. 

Because you as the candidate have no value outside of the factors of a commodity you must focus on the irrelevant.

Look sharp, clean up your social profile, quit smoking, pay all your bills on time even if you're broke and without exception, never have been sick.

That's an awful lot of time spent on things that have nothing to do with your ability to actually DO the job.

Here's a posting for a VERY entry level job.  It's a good representation of what I've been talking about.

Flier Delivery (NOT door-to-door) Team Needed (East Valley, AZ)

FLIER DELIVERY TEAM NEEDED TO DELIVER TO EAST VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT SCHOOLS

What: Team (of 2) needed to drive to elementary & middle schools to deliver fliers for after school programs. (One driver & one delivery person per team)

What we are looking for in a delivery person: *GREAT personality a MUST! *Be able to effectively communicate with school secretaries *Must be able to present a clean cut look with business casual attire.

*No visible tattoos or body piercings
*Non-Smoker *Clean Background Check

What we are looking for in a driver: *RELIABLE transportation (with room for boxes) a MUST! *Proof of Insurance *Know the East Valley well! (especially school districts) *Clean Background Check *Clean Driving Record.

*Able to lift about 60 lbs.

Deliveries start right away! Hours will be Monday-Friday, approx 8am-4pm (when schools are open) We give preference to drivers with GPS or navigation systems.

This is NOT a sales position, but sales experience & driver). Driver & Delivery Person need to have a positive personality &
"personality" a ++. We offer $11/hour (per person) + mileage (for the professional attitude. 

Our Teams represent ***************of America to the schools, clubs, churches & districts that support our programs.

Some familiarity with *************** is WELCOMED

Ok , this is about as low on the totem pole as you can get but the takeaway is this: The same selection criteria is becoming commonplace regardless of industry or position.

Entry level jobs usually suck, that's a given but at some point along your career path you would expect to be given more consideration than some kid handing out colorful pieces of paper.

Sadly, you'd be wrong.

The reality of today's interview process is cold and impersonal.  You'll frequently hear catch phrases like, "Culture fit" and "Self Motivated" which translates to "anything we can legally discriminate against" and "doesn't ask a lot of questions."

It's only going to get worse before it gets better.  For now set the bar low and you might just survive it.

Just be sure that you can accept how employers see your value.  These days the demands of work will monopolize more of your time than family or friends and the higher up the food chain you go the worse it gets.

Remember, the price of potatoes is based on their current market value which can fluctuate with demand.

So, are you worth more than a potato?  You might be surprised.

The Pros and Cons of Phoenix... if you believe in stereotypes

I posted the following response to a YouTube video someone had put up about the "Pros and Cons of Phoenix."  I found it somewhat misleading and typical of the stereotypes you hear from people who really haven't spent much time here.  That the video was a glorified PowerPoint presentation with a voiceover didn't add to its credibility.

I'm the last person to defend the place and truth be told if finances allowed I'd rip up stakes in a heartbeat.  This state has been no friend to me but when I hear deliberate misinformation it annoys me to no end.  I've provided the video in question and my response to it.  If you really want to know what it's like to live in Phoenix, read the post that follows it.

My response:

"As someone who's lived in the Phoenix area since I was dragged here as a kid in 1971 I can say with authority that this video is somewhat lacking in content.

Let's start with all those great jobs she was talking about...I suppose if low wage jobs are your thing then jobs around Phoenix would seem plentiful.  I can tell you that for anything above flipping burgers the wages are absolute crap and so are the corporations that came here for just that reason.  Where do you think Michigan got it's ideas for union busting anyway?   

Cost of living may be lower than other places but so are the wages so it's not like everyone here can afford to just jump in the car and head to their luxurious cabin in Pinetop then take a jaunt over to the Canyon for some lunch.   The state's biggest employer is Wal-Mart so that should tell you something.  We used to have big companies here but most of them pulled out or scaled down in the 80's.  This state is only high tech if you think Best Buy is an indicator. 

 The majority of jobs are either retail or healthcare to take care of all those "snow birds."  Those wages are depressed compared to other places as well.  Want to be a teacher?  Try 35K a year to start and maybe you'll get to 45K if you stay for 10 years.   35K a year doesn't buy much of a house when median prices are 250K for anything but a shack in a bad neighborhood that's a bloody 2 hour commute with gas prices anywhere from $2.50 to $5.00 a gallon depending on who farted in Iraq today.  

Let's also not forget about our beloved Sheriff Joe whose corrupt administration has the feds and the ACLU setting up permanent offices just to keep an eye on him.  Socially and politically Arizona is the Mississippi of the Southwest.  We make Texas look progressive by comparison.  Nothing gets done around here unless there's a greased palm and plenty of photo ops for someone's coffee table book.  

But I digress...

The weather is what it is, it's a freaking desert you know.  You completely forgot to mention the monsoons which make it more humid but it does cool us off from July to September.  Late May through mid July are usually the hottest months.  What really irritates me though is that this city including all the other satellite cities that surround it has done absolutely nothing to combat sprawl.  The people with money here are the developers and they'll put up a 15 story office building just for the hell of it.  Then we got all of the refuges from California in the 90's and doubled the population.  

Now we have freeways that look like the 405 6 hours a day and even more competition for the few good paying jobs available. 

Traffic is bloody awful and the combination of Midwest and California drivers makes any trip an adventure.  Either they're going too fast, too slow or both while they babble on endlessly on their cellphones.  Traffic is bad everywhere but it's doubly so here because you never know what to expect depending on what part of the valley you're in.  It can take over an hour to get from Mesa to NW Phoenix on a Saturday evening.  

A trip of less than 50 miles on freeways with a 65MPH speed limit on a weekend day because of the equivalent of an early morning weekday rush hour at 5PM on a Saturday!  Let's not even talk about the elephant in the room.  The fact that 4 million people depend on a water source fought over by 4 states and the western half of the country is in a severe drought!  Are you people freaking nuts?  It's only a matter of time before the chamber of commerce has to admit that there's not enough water to sustain this many people. 

As for the people, yeah Scottsdale and the Biltmore area have their noses in the air like any wealthy zip code but there's far more zip codes that average less than 25K a year in wages meaning there's lots of places you don't walk to dog at night.  Most people are friendly enough on a superficial level but don't expect  much more than that.  People are usually very transient only sticking around a few years before bouncing off to the next new subdivision.  Everyone works very hard to keep up appearances even if they can't afford it.  That's what Phoenix is.  I don't know where this lady was living."

Don't go to work

I've always believed that the work you do should matter to you.  If you're just plodding along day after day counting the hours till the weekend then frankly you're just wasting your and everyone else's time.

I know it's not always possible to "follow your bliss" but life's too short to only enjoy the weekends.

After over 20 years in the field I've come to the realization that the closest I can come to cubicle dwelling bliss is to either run the IT department or just blithely take my marching orders at its lowest rung.

Anything else just has me spinning my wheels.

So while my credentials include jobs in system administration, support and  project management not to mention creating a successful IT consulting business, my dreams of sitting in the big chair are about as likely as a winning lottery ticket.

So as I scan the job boards and the occasional craigslist posting I keep a vigilant eye open for positions that match the other end of my proposed  bliss...

I had thought I found one the other day.  It was a support job that was described as being part roving admin and part helpdesk.  The nice part was that if I had to go  anywhere the company provided the transportation. 

It seemed perfect.  The pay rate was a little low but if I wasn't shouldering the cost of transportation that was a leg up on anything else I'd seen. 

My application had apparently impressed the hiring manager enough for him to schedule a short phone screen.

In the course of the subsequent conversation the manager told me that the job would involve around 80 hours per week at all hours.  The prospective employee was expected to be available round the clock 24/7/365 and work from the office, home and wherever else he/she was required.

Believe it or not I was still considering the position even after I did the math and figured out that I would be making $9.61 per hour before taxes.

But that wasn't what really turned me off to the job. 

It was the realization during the Q & A part of the interview that this company, like many others, was built on making bad decisions.

Decisions like:

• Attempted "Cleaning" of rootkit, malware and virus infections off of PC's instead of reloading from a backup image. 
• Not providing adequate training to your technicians
• Not staying current with technical advances
• Supporting 20 year old servers with no hope of replacement parts
• Installing software that was no longer being supported by the manufacturer
• Not informing the client as to best practices or upgrade options
• Accepting liability for an SLA at a client where meeting that SLA is impossible due to the previously mentioned reasons.

It all amounts to billing for work that isn't really being done and I have a problem with that. 

IT is an uphill battle and if you're not moving forward it won't be long till you're moving the other direction.  It seems that most of the major players disagree, however, as they've built their IT support businesses off of doing what amounts to little more than "busywork"

It's one of the reasons I don't make the money in consulting that many think I should be.  I like to fix the problem once and move on from there.  I'm not one to keep beating a dead horse.  

The client is the boss but I'm being paid to know things they don't.  That's a level of trust that I refuse to betray.  That means that sometimes you have to have an uncomfortable conversation but I'd rather lose a client that wants me to do shoddy work than continue on and sacrifice my own integrity.

We're getting back to my original assertion that your work life should be meaningful and anything less is just a waste of time.

Making money off not doing the job your clients are trusting you to do is the ultimate expression of that and I can't stomach it.

www.sentrytechnical.com

Social Media is a lie

Social Media is a lie

There, I said it and you know damned well that it's true.  Popular culture has adopted the premise of social media being the new normal.  That's what people mean when they overuse the term "ubiquitous" by the way.

We're told to carefully curate our Facebook pages and polish our LinkedIn profiles to ensure that we're giving the "right" impression to any drive-by onlookers who may take a passing interest.  I mean we wouldn't want to send the wrong message would we?

Prospective employers love social media.  It's a quick and dirty way to get the goods on candidates without ever having to meet them.  In other words your social media persona might as well be another copy of your resume, dating profile and background report all in one neat multimedia package.

So best be sure it's showing you in your best light...Which defeats the purpose.

Knowing that almost everyone engaged in social media is either lying or too naive to realize the ramifications of that video from your last trip to Vegas means none of it has value.

The only people who are honest are the ones with nothing to lose which is exactly .000000001%.  Good luck finding that needle in the haystack and when you do try not to be disappointed when you find out those people aren't that interesting.

Social media is less about connecting than providing a mechanism for personal advertisement.  Which means it's about as useful as a commercial for a feminine hygiene product. 

Social media is just an outgrowth of a society built on lies.  We choose political candidates based on which one's empty promises we're most aligned with.  We associate with people that otherwise would never get the  time of day if we think they can be of use to us.  We go along with the popular groupthink for fear of repercussion should we speak our own minds.

Keep social media in the context of a public facing mask and you'll stay out of trouble.  Ignore the starry eyed optimists proclaiming how connected the world is because of it.  It's not, if you live in Nebraska the chances that you actually care about anything going on in Uzbekistan are negligible.  So long as there's that strong "media" component in social media (meaning it's fake) it's nothing more than personal marketing of a false image.

In short, keeping it real does not include being a social media maven.  Reality has nothing to do with it at all.

The scarlet letter of entrepreneurship

See if this scenario fits.

You spend years working in the corporate world, learn a few things and one day you decide you've had  enough and strike out on your own.  Perhaps you're tired of being passed over for promotion or you just know you're capable of more than the middling opportunities that come your way.

Maybe you're motivated by one too many late night infomercials but whatever the reason you finally make the commitment and say goodbye forever to your cubicle.

Or so you thought...

Striking out on your own rarely affords instant gratification and tests your resolve on a daily basis.  You have your freedom but the list of things you don't have sometimes make you wish you would have stayed in your nice warm cubicle. 

As time goes on there's one of two things that will happen.  You'll be a success and never look back or you won't and you'll be looking to get back to that cubicle.  Thing is the latter may not be an option for you.

In today's job market with employers demanding more from their employees than ever before a candidate with an entrepreneurial background has an uphill battle.   Why?  Well, in case it hasn't jumped out at you yet, an ex-employee turned lone wolf offers a management challenge few supervisors want to tackle.

A free thinking self-motivated rebel may be the ideal employee for Google or Facebook (or at least it used to be) but ABC corp. doesn't want the hassle.  They just want their employees to follow the rules, not take too long on their breaks and get those TPS reports in on time.

Sadly, more often than not Interviews can be more of a test of wills than a friendly conversation.  A lifelong corporate type will be naturally suspicious of a candidate who once threw off the reigns.  After all if it wasn't good enough for you before why would it be now?

That will be the only question on their mind by the way.  Some may even vocalize it.

Conversely, an interviewer that secretly harbors a wish to flee his own corporate prison may see the candidate's abandonment of their own cherished dream as a personal failure.  From there it goes downhill since no matter what skills are professed, the failure to capitalize on them invalidates all your grandiose assertions to the contrary.   

If the interview is with a potential employer in the same line of business as the candidates former solo effort, chances are the interview is less about the job and more about getting the goods on the "competition." 

Interviewing someone viewed as a competitor (and that's how they see you) brings all the baggage of the standard interview plus the perceived risk that you'll somehow steal all their customers and strike out on your own if they hired you. 

From a business standpoint it's a safety play.  After all, how likely is it that Steve Jobs would have hired Bill Gates? 

You're not being interviewed, you're being pumped for information.  Once they get it they're done with you.  I've often felt like I should send an invoice at the end of one of those.

In these days of drug testing, background screening and credit checks just to get to the interview table how can anyone possibly overcome the stigma of a being a risky candidate?

I wish it were simple but the only way to overcome the objection is to minimize the experience.  It's a rage-filled, sucker punch to the gut but it's often the only way. 

It's maddening to have to undervalue your accomplishments but I'd put better odds on a winning lottery ticket than getting in front of a potential employer that sees your solo efforts in the same light you do.

You have two choices at this point. Suck it up as they say, swallow your pride and pad your resume with "regular" jobs that show you're a good member of the corporate denizen.  A regular job can be contract work, temporary jobs or anything BUT working for yourself.

Your other choice?  Sell the extra car, take out a few loans and keep trying to make it on your own. 

You'll either finally figure out how to be successful or go broke and be out of work so long that you won't have a work history anyone will care hearing about anymore.  Perfect for when you go for that sweet gig at the convenience store or fast food joint.

I'm not trying to be flippant, this is reality 101 in the job market now.  Threats to the status quo can come from as little as showing up to the interview with too loud a tie to the "wrong" work history. 

Fair is a relative term when you're looking for work.  Employers are demanding guarantees from candidates that they would never subject themselves to.   Your solo accomplishments exist in a context far less certain than your cubicle dwelling competition.  A fact most hiring managers are unable or unwilling to accept. 

Forewarned is forearmed.  You'll waste a lot less time and aggravation if you know the score going in. 

The disability of a narrow mind

Anyone who knows me well has heard me utter the phrase, "mediocrity is the standard" more than once and usually with disgust. 

So what do I mean by that?

To be blunt, the standard of mediocrity means blundering through life never attempting to do more than the bare minimum.  It's a fallback position that many in the working world spend their entire careers operating from. 

It usually happens when someone takes a position they may be qualified for but have no real interest in.  How such a person can rise to power when a more engaged candidate doesn't is usually indicative of a systematic problem within the organization.  In short, everyone up the management chain is similarly disinterested and will protect themselves from discovery.   

If one operates under the standard of mediocrity for a long enough period of time they eventually assume that it's the status quo.  This is the disability of the narrow mind within the context of employment.  Note that racism, elitism and other societal 'isms are similar in that all effectively cripple higher reasoning.

Thus we see the initial stages of the "dominos of disaster" when practitioners of the mediocrity standard run headlong into more engaged individuals.   

When confronted with a potential threat to the status quo of mediocrity, the disability becomes readily apparent.  It surfaces in confrontational behaviors and rejection of information not contained within their narrow focus even when compatible with stated organizational goals. 

In effect, the inability to think "outside the box" regardless of how beneficial the outcome will prevent the afflicted individual from acting reasonably.

If it sounds like a medical or psychological condition it is.  In fact it's pathological in an organizational sense.

This is the dilemma that the long term and formerly self employed face when interviewing with afflicted organizations.  Candidates with such a backgrounds are considered inferior and suspect regardless of experience, accomplishments or evidence to the contrary.

Take the example of the former self-employed consultant now interviewing for a regular full time position.  In this case the candidate may get through HR and lower level managers but find opposition from senior management.  Even before the first handshake is extended the candidate is already in a diminished position.

Overcoming the condition is virtually impossible as any concession the candidate asserts is assumed to be suspect if not disingenuous.   The only recourse for the candidate is to try to frame their qualifications within the narrow context of the organizational pathology.

At this point it's usually a pointless exercise to proceed any further since the organizational dysfunction curtails higher reasoning and shortens attention spans.  This is most blatantly evidenced by repeated questioning about the same topic, yawning and in some cases snoring.

Unfortunately, most organizations suffer the affliction and have even elevated it to a de facto mission statement.  It's a common pathogen meaning you're going to encounter a lot of it in the corporate world regardless of your job function. 

If you do encounter such an organization (and you will) and still  wish to persist in your efforts to join it you can employ the following tactics.  Note that they will likely be unsuccessful but more productive than attempting to alert the afflicted to their condition.

• ·         Lie -  You can hope they won't check your background and enter the organization with stealth if not outright deception.  With the easy access to information and most organizations requiring a formal background check it's likely you won't succeed past the first interview.  If the organization is dysfunctional enough, however, they may respond well to a cleverly crafted deception. 
• ·         Debate- This tactic will likely have even less of a chance of success than deception but at least you'll be comforted in the knowledge that you were completely truthful.  The tactic involves countering objections to your qualifications by crafting your responses to fit the narrow focus of the afflicted organization.  For example, when confronted with a concern about work ethic especially if your career consists primarily of self employment try this.  Assert the merits of personal responsibility and client satisfaction necessary to run a successful small business.  It also wouldn't hurt to mention that you're a firm believer in trickle-down economics and would jump at the chance to be standing on the bottom rung with awaiting arms outstretched.  Keep in mind, however, that afflicted organizations and their management have limited capability to engage in higher reasoning so keep your responses short and at roughly the 6th grade level.
• ·         Violence - Only useful if the prospects of arrest and incarceration hold no fear for you. 
• ·         Submission - In short, be an apologist for your entire career and essentially "throw yourself on the mercy of the court."  In a severely afflicted organization with candidates less qualified than yourself this may be the most effective tactic.  Be aware, however, that should you secure the position you will likely find it unfulfilling.  Still, the knowledge that mediocre performance is the status quo may eventually make your stay more tolerable.  Beware the danger of becoming infected with the Disability of the Narrow mind, however, as it will alter you on a cellular level.  Then again, once infected you will likely become anesthetized to its ill effects and become blissfully unaware of it.  This is especially true if  the position offers a good prescription drug program.
• ·         Defiance - This is similar to the Violence option above except the authorities aren't involved.  It's not so much a display of emotional outbursts as an attempt to make the hiring manager feel stupid.  The desired outcome of this tactic is to temporarily shock management out of their disability by forcing undeniable logic on them.  Your ultimate goal is to convince the hiring manager that you are the change needed to further organizational goals.  Unfortunately, this tactic has only been shown to work in the movie Office Space.

In short, afflicted organizations should be avoided if at all possible.  Otherwise damage to your career and possibly your psyche could result.

More fun with an I.T. Job Search

I've been going through sent emails again...

You know, the ones that I send to recruiters who shotgun phony job descriptions hoping to pad their stack of "candidates."

I suppose they get their training in outbound sales making cold calls.  Just like Spam and junk email the perpetrators figure it's worth it for the 1 in 100,000,000 odds of actually cashing in.  What I hate is the laziness. 

These bottom feeders don't even want to cultivate their own leads.  Instead they send out spam and stick a "If you know anyone forward this to them" tag line at the end.  

This one was for a spam job posting  from an outsourced Indian recruiting sweatshop.  They demanded I answer a list of questions for them before they even got my first response so I obliged.  

By the way,  I don't dismiss "opportunities" easily but when the email is addressed to: "Undisclosed Recipients", well they're just asking for it...


Top Technical skills: Windows System Administration, networking, Hardware

Strengths: Troubleshooting, planning, communication, attention to detail

Years of Experience: In what? That's a very personal question....

Industry experience: Legal, Computer Software, Pharmaceutical, others

Education/Certificates: BS/BIS, AA/Electronics, MCP, CCNA, PHD in BS

Currently employed (contract/full time): Not Full Time currently

Current Location : United States

Here's where it gets fun...

Why looking: Because it’s such a joy.

Open to contract, contract to hire or direct hire: Contract 1st others considered

What do you like about your current/last position? That it’s over

What do you dislike about you current/last position? That it went on so long.

The above questions about likes and dislikes are meaningless, You’ll never get a truthful answer and have little to nothing to do with placement of a candidate and you’re fully aware of it.

Work authorization: Citizen

Third party info: I didn’t have the first or second party yet.

Current salary/rate: Guess.

Desired salary/rate: No less than $60K/day

Availability: Available but I'm not a cheap date

Vacations planned: I could use one but can’t afford it

Drug and background check: No issues but you may cause that to change

Travel: None, I don’t travel for a job unless the booze is free.

Communication Skills: Speak Write English, obviously better than you...

Any Special Circumstances: Low tolerance for BS, like your SPAM emails

Linkedin check: As though I’d put anything I didn't want you to see, come on now...

Messages to a resume stacker

I get a lot of email messages.

Since I'm in the job market I get most of them from recruiters.
In this economy you'd think that was a good thing but it isn't always.

I work with a few decent recruiters who know better than to waste my time but it seems they are in the minority.  What I get most of the time is fly by night operators usually a day late and a dollar short making empty promises.

These are the "Resume Stackers"  or recuriters that collect a large quantity of resumes to try to fool a potential employer into thinking they're offering something they don't really have.  Most just scan monster.com job listings for promising openings and dig up the phone number to HR.

The first tip-off to a "stacker" is jobs that don't match your background and that nobody in their right mind would even consider you for.  They usually have a tag line at the end that says something like:

"If you or someone you know would be a good fit please send us your information"

That means they didn't pay the recuriter fee to be able to access candiate information for DICE, Monster or Careerbuilder, They have no idea who you are as they can only see publicly accessible information likely provided to them in the same manner as those services that provide sales leads for specific zip codes.

I suppose it could be fun to be submitted for a CEO's job if you were a landscaper but not likely to be productive.  That and your chances would be better by just sending your resume on your own.

It's the reason why you see so many job listings that say "No agency referrals"  That means they've been buried by the "Stackers" and got sick of it.

I've taken to doing more than just adding them to my junk email filter.  I encourage them to seek alternate career paths.  Here's a recent email response to a job I had absolutely no qualification for...

Feel free to use my response at the end as a form email response, just replace Resume Stacker with the stacker's name. It's constructed as a form email for both candidate and employer use.

Excerpt of Email I received:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

My name is "Resume Stacker" and I'm a Staffing Specialist at Resume Stacker Intl., a Global IT Services & Staffing Company. We are constantly on the lookout for professionals to fulfil the staffing needs of our clients, and we currently have an Opportunity that I thought may interest you. Enclosed below are the details:

Client: We really don't care inc.

Job Title: MS Infrastructure Manager

Location: Somewhere at least 1000 miles from where we are.

Type: Direct Placement

Job Description

SUMMARY STATEMENT:

As a member of the Enterprise Infrastructure leadership team, the Manager, Windows Administration/Engineering plays an important role in helping to define the direction for the team and enabling the technology demands of the business. Drives and manages platform and/or service lifecycles in alignment with We really don't care inc. vision and strategy with a service-oriented, solutions-focused, and progressive approach. Manages the development, deployment and management of enterprise-level Windows operating systems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Response:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resume Stacker, you sir/madam are what we in the consulting business call a resume stacker. What that means is that you collect dozens of resumes after getting wind of a possible opening somewhere then shotgun them at the HR department of your target company. The most contact you have with the client is an email and you could give a damn less about the people you submit.

I can prove that from this very email. You've simply scraped my resume/job listing off Monster.com looking for keywords without even reviewing my qualifications/reruirements. In short, you're not qualified to represent me or anyone else to this company/candidate. By the way, this very job was posted a month ago, I watch job listings too. It’s old information and I really don't appreciate being lied to. Yes Resume Stacker, even a half truth makes one a liar.

In fact, Resume Stacker,  I get so many email messages like yours every week seeking to waste my time that I think I should go into the recruiting business myself. It’s apparent that there are far too many unqualified individuals like yourself out there further complicating an already complicated process.

Now I'm going to add you to my junk email filter confident that the only thing I'm missing out on by ignoring any further communication from you is disappointment and rage focused in your general direction.

Try to have a good day, Resume Stacker and please consider another career, you're not helping anyone in this one.