29 March 2006

Recruitment Agency - ProJob21

I quit my job at Swire Coca-Cola Hong Kong on 06 December 2005.

It was not a bold decision, because I really have had enough with Kenneth Leung, or my then immediate supervisor. He acted as if he was a nice guy, but everyone in the department knew that he was just a great pretender. Sales dropped significantly since his arrival in November 2004. He attributed the poor results to the bad working attitude of the team heads. However, he’s the department head and he's in charge. Shouldn’t he be the one accountable for the morale of the department? He was just full of non-sense.

Let bygones be bygones.

This was not the first time I resigned from a company. In the last 10 years, I’ve basically worked for more than 15 companies. I’ve learned that the size of company doesn’t really matter. What matters most is your relationship with your immediate supervisor. Even if the company sucks, you can still get job satisfaction as long as your boss appreciates your efforts and supports you all the way.

That’s People Touchpoint!

I didn’t have a job before my resignation. It’s a very risky decision, because I’d end up jobless after my resignation. In fact, that was the case - I was jobless for two months. During these two months, I started to run my own business. I met a lot of business people from both software and training industries, and I learned a lot from our discussions.

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.”

Life without a job is always tough, but somehow I managed to survive. I may not be the fittest, but I just somehow survived.

Still, it’s always to have a job than none, especially when I got no income from the newly start-up business. From friend’s referral, I got my current job with PCCW, a leading telecommunications company in Hong Kong, as a training consultant.

Having been a sales and marketing person for more than 10 years, switching to a totally different field is not easy, but again I managed to survive.

During the jobless days, I contacted a number of recruitment agencies in Hong Kong – ProJob 21, Bo Le, Michael Page, Drake, Robert Walters, and quite a few more. No recruitment agency could offer any useful assistance when I needed them the most. I got the PCCW job not with their help but a referral from a friend.

After I secured the job with PCCW, ProJob 21 and Bo Le called and said they got some good jobs for me.

I usually won’t reject any interesting opportunities. ProJob 21 referred me to interview with AC Nielsen, as an Associate Director.

I passed the first round of interview, with support from ProJob 21. The consultant named Victoria was very helpful in the initial stage, but her attitude changed completely in the second round of the interview, which required me to do a presentation. I emailed my presentation to Victoria for comments. But she never replied, which was within expectation. After all, what do you expect those consultants to do? It’s lucky that they remember you, call you, and ask you if you are interested in blah blah blah… Then after the presentation interview, I waited and waited and waited for the final round.

No calls thereafter.

I called to follow up and they didn’t return call.

They care about you most when they need to submit applications to their clients. When the screening process is done, and some brilliant candidates are being short-listed, then the abandoned candidates are brutally ignored even if they take the initiative to follow up with the interviewing results.

ProJob 21. Victoria. Thank you for giving me hope.

This is one of the worst People Touchpoints I’ve ever had with recruitment agency.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I know your experience with Coca Cola wasn't ideal, but I'm interested to work for them. I'm a logistics/SCM professional do you know of anyone I can contact? I would rather contact a senior decision making person rather than the HR dept..appreciate any help or advice you can offer.