Complaint Review: Tunarez

It is clear that Tunarez did their job in trying to find Firas a job and he fail all on his own.

We can't tell you how much we wished this had a different outcome and tried to make it happen.  We did speak with Firas 30 days before the guarantee was to kick in.  (This is not something clients usually request but he seemed particularly lost.  This was 1.5 hour coaching session.) In that conversation, we discovered that Firas was mostly relying the job boards to deliver interview opportunities.  We explained that since 80% of jobs are never advertised the job boards aren't a successful as they were 5 years ago.  We also coached him to keep his profile current every 1-2 weeks.  From this discussion, it did not sound like Firas had done much in terms of the Hidden Market game plan he'd created with his Job Search Coach.  It is through these activities that most clients/job seekers find new jobs.  We never, ever blame clients, however, we do need to tell them the truth - that's why they hire us.

We did try to contact Firas a number of times and eventually discover we had called the wrong number because we were not able to clearly understand the voice mail he had left.

We were able to connect with him on 7/8 to discuss his situation.  He stated that he simply wanted a refund.  When we asked about his follow-through from his coaching session the previous month he stated that he had "done some networking in LinkedIn", "looked at a couple sites" we'd recommended and "contacted a FEW employers".  We explained that this wasn't enough effort for this job market.  He simply restated that he wanted the refund.  We discussed his location, which has a small number of engineering firms and possible discrimination issues (even alerting him to this possibility seemed to upset him).  We explained that a refund really didn't help his job search and told him in situations like his we could work with him to create a specific game plan for targeting the 40+ firms in his area.  He argued that since the tactics we suggested in the previous month hadn't worked he did believe any advice we'd give.

After our discussion with Firas we checked his postings to the job boards and discovered a number of issues that would impact his online response.

1) We were unable to find any of his job board listings that had been updated since 4/12.  This means that 3 months of candidates are now listed before him.  His listings have effectively been "aged out" of employers searches.

2) He posted his job board profile confidentially (as is his right, however it does tend to impact response) but loaded up his complete name and contact information on his resume.  When employers see this mistake it's considered a lack of attention and most employers tend to move to the next candidate.

3) Firas vehemently stated he was seeking Software Engineering positions and not IT. However, his job board postings indicate he's looking for jobs in IT. Again, employers will not take the time to address this confusion and will move on to the next candidate. Additionally, it does not correctly target his job search, so Engineering employers are less likely to find him. 

4) Finally, we found that he noted himself as a Mid-Senior level candidate in his job board listings; he has at most 2 years experience as a Software Engineer. This too is a serious mistake that can alienate Hiring Managers.

Most people would understand that contacting "a few employers" in this market is not enough activity to generate interviews with any certainty.  TunaRez fulfilled our agreement with Firas: we created a strong resume for him (which he accepted), the resume posting service correctly posted his profile and resume as he specified to each of the required job boards, Firas had 2 1.5-hour Coaching Sessions to provide instruction in generating interviews via the hidden market.  We truly wish we could provide jobs to clients but all any firm can do is provide advice, tools and direction - the job seeker must execute the plan.  TheLadders.com (a competitor) just announced a similar program for $2500, which also is guaranteed only "for those who follow the program".