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The Tenacity of Tech Recruiters
- brad_matheson 11y agoThey missed some my favorite cliches: "Rockstar", "Full-stack", "Startup mentality", "Outside-the-box thinking" and "Customer focused" Very funny and completely true
- spyspy 11y ago"Startup culture" is just one big bag of cliches these days.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 11y agoBrilliant. But it's missing one detail: Recruiters just about never "send" emails; they always "shoot" them. They put an email in the chamber, and they pull the fucking trigger. BLAM!
- ascendantlogic 11y agoI appreciate the Penny Arcade/Pokemon reference.
- HerpDerpLerp 11y agoList of required technologies is too short!
- andhess 11y agoThe worst recruiter I dealt with sent an email like this to 4 of my email addresses and tried to add me as a connection on LinkedIn twice (she had 2 profiles). All within 1 minute.
- dudul 11y agoMy worst experience was a recruiter who would send me an email every day and call me 5 minutes after sending it. Literally every day. Even though I never took her call she would try again the next day. It went on for 2 full weeks before I lost it and finally replied to one of her emails with a simple "Stop calling/emailing me" and it stopped.
- gregjwild 11y agoheh. And here I am feeling guilty when I will occasionally send a single follow up now and then.
- gmjosack 11y agoI usually contact the company directly to let them know when this happens. In all cases a hiring manager has thanked me because they were unaware of these tactics and were happy to get rid of this contract.
- chubalub 11y ago"Reaching out to ya"
- inglor 11y agoThey're always about "touching bases". What does that even mean in this context? No, I don't want your completely irrelevant position. When I tell you that I don't think your company should hire me to the role because you'd be overpaying me for something I'm overqualified for I mean it.
- ljk 11y agoIs it ok if I "ping" you later? On second thought, I'm calling you now
- baturay 11y agoFRESHMAN
- Jemaclus 11y agoSpot on.
- SchizoDuckie 11y agoContains too much detailed information about the company and too little spelling errors.
- spyspy 11y agoNot enough uses of coding ninja, -guru or -rockstar.
- joshribakoff 11y agoThey always ask you to rate yourself on different skills from 1-5. One time, I had to rate myself on "SQL Injection". I felt like it was comparable to someone asking an architect interviewing to build a skyscraper to rate himself on "earthquakes".
- rcurry 11y agoOn SQL Injection, I usually rate myself a "5;DROP TABLE USERS;"
- c0un7d0wn 11y agooh little bobby tables we call him...
- redblacktree 11y agoI thought I was done laughing and took a drink of my beer. I now have beer in my nose.
- zeroxfe 11y agoI lost it at Cdim7.
- imissmyjuno 11y agoI did at "Data"
- codekiln 11y agoThey had me at Cdim7
- rekwah 11y agoI've been known to put fake skills in my LinkedIn profile in hopes of catching scripted recruiter emails that include these amusing keywords. >>> "With your underwater basket-weaving chops, the Cloud Fabric Services team will surpass its goal of exceeding 100M users by 2015."
- cargo8 11y agoEpic PS: Pro-tip, add a middle initial to your LinkedIn - the guys using auto-fill without even looking are an easy filter since it is part of your first name.
- moron4hire 11y agoMost of the time I just shunt everything that has the word "unsubscribe" in it to the trash.
- rspeer 11y agoI'll combine both of your suggestions and tell LinkedIn my middle name is "Unsubscribe".
- iamwithnail 11y agoHahaha I had one of those yesterday. My profile lists my company I started for side projects, then my role as a specialist at my actual employer. I got an email trying to find out if I was interested in more jobs like {{founded_company + specialist_role + employer_name}} all run together.
- moron4hire 11y agoThese days, I am judicious about marking people like this as spam. Because they are. I'm hoping they will hopefully eventually get blacklisted.
- troebr 11y agoI have an é in my first name, many automated systems still choke on this, and the email looks something like: "Hi Name<GarbledCharacter>EndOfName"
- frobware 11y agoLooks like you got the same email as I just did. How weird is that!
- reustle 11y agoKnowing how these recruiters work, I'm not surprised at all.
- aerovistae 11y agoPersonally, I make the most of it. I try to see how far I can push the recruiters while still having them respond to me. Here's one such exchange. (I went all-caps because for some reason he emailed me in all-caps. He went back to normal but I decided to stick with it.) Recruiter: ------------ Hey Aerovistae, THIS IS A GREAT POSITION FOR YOU IF YOU WANT TO GET IN THE FIELD OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. take a look please! I am a technical recruiter and have a great job opening in Waltham that I was wondering if you would be interested in! Ive included some details on the position below, drop me a line if you have any interest! Thanks ---------- Me: I WOULD LOVE TO GET INTO THE FIELD OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT -------- Recruiter: Hey Aerovistae, Would you like to speak over the phone this evening sometime? -Eric --------- Me: I DO NOT HAVE A PHONE --------- Recruiter: Hey Aerovistae, My phone recently broke also, so I feel your pain, but will you have access to a phone in the near future? --------- I HAVE RECENTLY ARRIVED IN SRI LANKA AND THE BROADBAND INTERNET HERE IS VERY GOOD BUT THE PHONE IS VERY EXPENSIVE, CAN YOU ACCEPT COLLECT CALLS? ---------- After that he finally stopped responding. I have a whole folder of these. I think my favorite one is the time I tried to get the recruiter to do a CAPTCHA to prove he was a real person and not an automated bot.
- solutionyogi 11y agoThat is AWESOME. I wish I had your sense of humor. You should start a Tumblr with these emails.
- iraphael 11y ago> I have a whole folder of these. PLEASE SHARE I WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY FOR LAUGHTER
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aerovistae 11y agoThis is one of my very favorites. Recruiter: --------- [Long email from "Steve" looking for Rails dev for a place called CustomInk] ------ Me: I only work for companies who recycle 100% of their paper and plastic and who have plans to run on solar power by 2017, could you tell me CustomInk's stance on these matters? ----------- Recruiter: Unfortunately, I do not have this information. It is a fantastic company to work for, though. ----------- Me: Okay, I might make an exception if it is really so fantastic. Could you please let me know whether there is a tactical obstacle course on the company grounds? I am used to having this available for exercise to break up coding. ------------ Recruiter: Aerovistae, There is not. S ----------- Me: This is sounding less fantastic by the minute, Steve. --------- Recruiter: I wish you all the best in finding an employer that offers you everything you require. --------- Me: Steve, don't take that tone with me. ---------- After which he stopped responding.
- noipv4 11y agoYou have given all the budding recruiters the perfect email template to work with.
- fecak 11y agoRecruiter here, and one who is publicly critical of this kind of behavior in the industry. I write about career topics frequently and try to expose recruiter bad behavior. (1) I completely understand frustration about being contacted for jobs requiring skills that are far out-of-date or that you don't have, the laundry lists of technologies, etc. On behalf of some in my industry, I apologize. Although criticism of recruiters and their approaches are frequent, I don't see nearly as much guidance that might help recruiters in what information to share in an introduction. If you don't want to hear from recruiters at all, mentioning that on a LinkedIn/GitHub profile might prevent some of these unwanted contacts. The signal to noise ratio from recruiters is terrible, and it makes it incredibly difficult for recruiters with a targeted and applicable message to get heard. I enjoyed the days post dot com bust and in the recession when inexperienced or ineffective recruiters had to leave the industry. Instead of parody, I'd like to seem someone write something that they think would be appropriate. What type of approach might get you to reply to a recruiter? What would get your attention? (1) http://jobtipsforgeeks.com http://jobtipsforgeeks.com has multiple pieces exposing recruiting tactics.
- sarciszewski 11y agoDoes this help? https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruiter-misery https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruit...
- fecak 11y agoUnless I missed something, no. You can't go too far (on HN, Reddit, etc.) without seeing some recruiter shaming and explanations of what not to do, but how often do you see a post that says "I just received the most interesting introduction from a helpful and highly knowledgeable recruiter, and here it is"? What you linked isn't so different from OP's post. We highlight the bad, but have you shown recruiters what they should be doing instead? The only thing I see in your piece that is potentially constructive is "treat me like a human being" with local jobs and applicable technologies. If we're not complaining about relevant tech and geography, it's the list of too many skills (or not enough). Or it's not enough information on the company (OP's link is way more info than most recruiters would give, and the more common complaint is lack of info). So we can agree that location and tech need to be relevant. Does that make for a good intro? "You look like a good fit for $COMPANY, now hiring $LANGUAGE developers for positions in $CITY. Let's discuss." Is that going to catch your eye?
- allworknoplay 11y agoYou forgot "N years of experience in something that's only existed for N - 2 years"
- misiti3780 11y agoI personally respond to every recruiter email i get with the following: Hi, I am currently only available for consulting. My bill rate is $1000/hour, with a minimum commitment of 20 hours. I rarely get a response email.
- sarciszewski 11y agoMake it $8000/day, with a minimum commitment of 3 days, and you might make tptacek smile.
- xiaoma 11y ago>"You would work with our high-octane, driven, talented engineering team very closely - literally. They all share a single folding table." This one is a bit painful since it's so hard to escape this mentality.
- amyjess 11y agoWorst recruiter ever, for me: He sent me an email for an 8-month contract on the other side of the country. This despite my profile on every job site saying "full-time only" and "I am not willing to relocate". I ignore it. Later that day (or maybe the next day), he calls me. I tell him no, and I make it abundantly clear I'm not interested in any kind of contract position. He starts arguing with me, and he starts going into how it's more like a full-time job since the contract is long term. I say "don't call me again" while loudly speaking over him, and then I hang up without waiting a response. A week later, he sends me another email for the same position. I reply with a strongly-worded email telling him to cease and desist from ever contacting me again and that I will never work with him or his firm. An hour later, he calls me again. I chewed him out and hung up on him right away. I planned on calling his recruiting firm's HR department and reporting his extremely inappropriate behavior, but I never got around to it. And if I'd had the money, I would've hired a lawyer to properly C&D him. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is a spammer. I've dealt with dozens of recruiters offering contract and/or out-of-town positions, but none of them have been as pushy as him. With everyone else, I just ignore their emails without reply, and they never call me or send a follow-up email. Other terrible recruiters include the legion of people who insist on asking for me by my old name, despite me having legally changed my name (first, middle, and last) well over a year ago. And just for fun, I saw a recruiter link his LinkedIn profile by posting the URL that takes you to editing your own profile.
- drinchev 11y agoBut this kind of e-mail irony is equally true for any cold-calling sales guy, right? I think the whole industry on the topic of "let's spam everyone and see who will get our bite" seems absurd.