Phantom Jobs

This job has appeared on the UK job site JobServe like clockwork every two weeks for about the last two months. The description is always the same and it’s always the same agent (Mani Suri at Aston Carter).

The job spec says “You will provide general development and testing using Perl, T-SQL and Unix Shell Scripting” and “Your main duties will be development of a feed system from supplied specifications, unit and integration testing of develop code and maintenance of feed documentation.” This is pretty much a description of what I’ve spent most of the last eight years doing so I expect that I’d be a good bet for at least an interview for the role. If it existed.

So I’ve emailed the agent about five times about he job and have never had a response. I know I should follow-up with a phone call, but it’s become a bit of a challenge to see if I can get any kind of a response just from emails. Even a response explaining why I’m not being considered for the role would be better than nothing.

I’ve become convinced that the job doesn’t exist. I’m sure that it’s just a honeypot that’s used to attract CVs. I’m starting to wonder if Mani Suri is a real person or whether it’s just an address that Aston Carter use to collect CVs.

My blog postings seem to get surprisingly high Google rankings, so I’m hoping that by mentioning Aston Carter and Mani Suri enough times in this entry then people searching for them in the future will find this entry and think twice before working with them.

Bitter? Me?

4 comments

  1. Funny thing you say that, I’ve been looking for a Support IT job, and have applied for about 6 so far, and not one of them has replied to me, I only phoned to day, and the company said it is waiting on the company to get back to them, The guy I spoke to did not even know what I was talking about. He now has all my details, I’m very worried about what these agenices do with my info…I’m glad I’m not the only one this is happning to..Peter

  2. Another google searcher that saw a job advertised by Aston Carter and thought twice about sending his CV. Nice work, thanks

  3. Its a year and a half after you entered this on your blog but nothing seems to have changed.
    An acquaintance of mine did actually get a job through Aston Carter and he said the agent was looking for CVs.
    I got through to her on my second attempt, duly sent off my CV with their cover sheet and have heard nothing in the week since then.
    Next week I might try phoning again.

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