8 ms·

So, you want to hire me? My response to recruiter spam.

34 points by jazzychad 13y ago

dmor 13y ago
Like mamma always said, "well you're certainly not going to get it if you don't ask for it".
- Alex3917 13y ago
  While true, that doesn't mean that it's always a good idea to ask.
sarreph 13y ago
Can't wait to use this as anti-LinkedIn-recruiter ammo.
jaggederest 13y ago
I usually simply explain to them the cost of living differential between where I live and SF/NYC, and then they balk at what that means in actual dollars. 175% raise? Don't mind if I do.
beambot 13y ago
$1 Million base, 10%/yr guaranteed perf bonus, whatever hours I want, AND 10% equity as first employee. Sold. I'll take that job too.
metal 13y ago
What does a flippant response like this accomplish? Nothing but wasting one's time emailing a recruiter mill. May as well send thought-provoking replies to your email spam.
300bps 13y ago
I read things like this and it makes me concerned that it's a sign of the party ending for developers. I'm sure OP was doing this tongue-in-cheek but the fact that it was written at all is a sign of hubris caused by an apparent software engineering work bubble. I've been in IT for 20 years now and the last few I've been making unbelievable money, fully expecting it to end any minute now. Stuff like this makes me fear it is going to end soon.
- optimusclimb 13y ago
  Serious question: How does something like this you perceive as hubris indicate that the end is coming?
  - kpapke 13y ago
    Cause pride comes before the Fall.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    I felt the same way as the OP right before the dot com bust. Then all the startups went out of business and the only way to get a decent job was to know a recruiter for a big company.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris#Modern_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris#Modern_use
optimusclimb 13y ago
Why not just put a comment on your profile that says you're not looking? This does cut down on the emails you get. You'll still get some, but I'm willing to bet you get an equal, if not greater amount of emails from various retailers you've purchased from. From these, just hit delete, or not interested. The only thing I find annoying about LinkedIn "spam" is that while apparently good engineers are hard to find, the laws of supply and demand seem to cap out around a certain compensation level. I always wonder if I were in sales or finance, would recruiters that really want to fill a role try and lure me to leave by mentioning the free candy bars? or tell me they'll pay me ___ % more than I'm making now? Anyway, given the situation for most people in the country, certainly getting spammed by people with job offers isn't the worst problem in the world, nor is it that hard to cope with. ymmv.
pmagnowski 13y ago
great answer man! Some time ago I creates a linked in group called "Bad recruiters" where shame job spammers offering me "sizzling hot" £23k PHP roles. Please join up and help getting the quality of IT recruitment up to the standard it should be.
laureny 13y ago
Or you could not be a douche and just ignore that email.
llamataboot 13y ago
Just don't forget what a privilege it is to be turning down work offers. I have a Master's Degree in my field from what is consistently ranked the best school for that field and haven't been able to find a job in that field for over a year, and the last job I was offered, that required a Master's and experience, was for $27k a year.
- seivan 13y ago
  What field is that? Notice how I did it bring up a bunch of fields as examples.
  - llamataboot 13y ago
    Social Work, with an emphasis on research and macro-level policy work, but some teaching jobs would certainly apply as well. Still want to solve hard social problems, but have decided there is too much friction in the traditional human services fields and NGOs to make much headway that way, as well as a burnout trap. So at the moment I am just doing IT consulting for small non-profits, heading to a programming bootcamp this fall, maybe another one over the winter, hoping to eventually work on interesting social problems from a coding angle. Or work a bit on something not so interesting, enough to pay the bills, and become time-rich to work on interesting and fulfilling projects pro-bono.
    - briandear 13y ago
      I'm sure you knew that Social Work is low paid before you invested in such a degree. While it's a valuable field hypothetically, who actually hires a social work master degree person -- no company that actually expects a profit. As a result the market doesn't value such qualifications. Just sayin'. With software, engineers are hired to add value to a company which means they can make more money, which is kind of the point of a company in the first place. There's also a supply and demand issue. Low demand for Social Work and an oversupply. Social Work is almost as low-valued as an English literature degree. I'm not hating on Social Work, but your plight is certainly no surprise and elicits little sympathy as social work has never been a high demand profession but folks still spend tens of thousands of dollars in schooling and wonder why they aren't getting hired.
rdouble 13y ago
I quit LinkedIn and now receive almost no recruiter spam. Recruiters seem to only exist on LinkedIn now, so if you really want to avoid them just delete your account.
Flavius 13y ago
While this is an interesting concept that I used to think about in the past, you should never bother doing it. There is no chance that a random recruiter will ever have those resources to hire you. It's easier for both of you if you just say that you're not interested in a job or you just completely ignore the message/email etc.
wittysense 13y ago
Recruiters are bots, gophers; treat them as such. Many of you are resistent with anxiety to career hacking, why ? You want to disrupt everything else.
lotharbot 13y ago
For those who didn't catch the Brown M&Ms reference [0]: the rock group Van Halen had a provision in their standard contract that there had to be M&Ms backstage, but all the brown ones had to be removed. Sometimes it was interpreted as them just being "spoiled rock stars", but it had a purpose. Much of the contract specified technical details like how much weight the stage could hold, power capacity, and other things that if done wrong could completely wreck a show. As David Lee Roth said, "if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl... well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract." In this case, it's not clear whether the writer is trying to evoke the "spoiled rocker" persona or the "make sure you read the contract" one. [0] http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp
OoTheNigerian 13y ago
Perhaps "I am not currently looking for a job" will suffice? Or maybe ignore the mail? I am working with a startup and the office is in a large shopping complex. As a result, almost every other day you have someone coming to pitch you stuff or give you a flyer. So I was in the office one day and a person came in. One of the employees was quite dismissive. The others did not bother to look up. I picked the flyer from the person, had a quick chat and the person was on his way. The ridiculously funny thing is that we were billed to hand out flyers THAT same week for an event we were organizing. So after the "interloper" left, I asked if they would be happy if they were treated the way they treated the salesperson when we go out for our own unsolicited pitch. Of course they said no. Suffice to say, since then they have treated such people much better since then. My short story aside, if you have been identified as someone worthy to be recruited, why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? What is wrong is saying thanks but no thanks? I am definitely sure there was a time in your life when you would were grateful for such opportunity. Now you may have passed that level, be humble about it Of course, always remember it is a human not a machine that is going to read your reply [1] [1] http://sivers.org/real http://sivers.org/real
- pandaman 13y ago
  >My short story aside, if you have been identified as someone worthy to be recruited, why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? I don't know any other way to read these emails than "your job is worse than what we are offering!". Since I've chosen this job myself and happen to like it very much it appears quite insulting, especially when the offered job is objectively worse (i.e. less pay, less fun, less prestige).
- tehwebguy 13y ago
  > why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? They are probably not offended by job offers at all, but rather recruiter emails that are not truly offers but invitations to apply
larsberg 13y ago
If he were actually interested in a change in employer for great financial gain, something more like a $250-500k base with "uncapped bonus" might result in real inquiries. Particularly if his experience included a decent amount of machine learning and big data, as I've noticed that quite a few Chicago and NY area finance firms -- especially those who have bowed out of the HFT arms race -- are currently willing to pay well for folks with those skills.
MaxScheiber 13y ago
I see strong parallels between this and the Linus Torvalds discussion on being polite as an engineer. I get a fair amount of email (maybe one every week or two) from people with technical co-founder offers or engineering interview offers. I have no interest for various reasons, some of which line up with yours I'm sure. Here's my standard response: "Hey John, Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, I'm still a full-time student, and I won't have time to take on another part-time obligation next semester. Best of luck filling the position." Sure, I might laugh with my friends about how positively stupid that businessman's email was. However, I'll be nothing but cordial to the person's face. I try to be cordial to everyone. You never know when your paths might cross next in life. Moreover, an email like yours perpetuates the stereotype that engineers are socially awkward and hard to work with. As someone doubling in engineering and finance, I hear this all of the time in my business classes. It's something that annoys me to no end.
fecak 13y ago
Many comments here mentioned the bubble, and posts like this being a sign. I started recruiting software pros in 1998, and didnt have the benefit of LinkedIn or any web tech beyond doing searches on old search engines and résumé boards. Some candidates were nice about moot wanting jobs, and others were rude. If the approach by the recruiter is not respectful, thought out, or at all relevant or personalized, by all means thrash away. But if the approach is a legitimate "hey, I've got a job that appears to fit your skill set, and if you're interested I'd like to discuss it with you and learn more about what interests you", then a response should be polite - or just don't respond at all. I can tell you that many of the people that were nasty to me during the boom were begging for me to even look at their résumé during the bust. I think recruiters do have too much influence on the hiring market in tech, but keep in mind that there will be down times for most in the industry, and recruiters will remember who was respectful and who wasn't. It's mostly junior recruiters making mistakes it seems, and they do learn by being shamed, so I do accept treating pure spam as it should be, but please (for everyone's sake) differentiate between legitimate polite contact and spam.
lotsofcows 13y ago
My response to recruiter spam: hit the "junk" button.
DrinkWater 13y ago
This "response" is not funny, smart or anything. Why does it even got posted here?

34 points by jazzychad 13y ago

dmor 13y ago

Like mamma always said, "well you're certainly not going to get it if you don't ask for it".

Alex3917 13y ago
While true, that doesn't mean that it's always a good idea to ask.

sarreph 13y ago

Can't wait to use this as anti-LinkedIn-recruiter ammo.

jaggederest 13y ago

I usually simply explain to them the cost of living differential between where I live and SF/NYC, and then they balk at what that means in actual dollars. 175% raise? Don't mind if I do.

beambot 13y ago

$1 Million base, 10%/yr guaranteed perf bonus, whatever hours I want, AND 10% equity as first employee. Sold. I'll take that job too.

metal 13y ago

What does a flippant response like this accomplish? Nothing but wasting one's time emailing a recruiter mill. May as well send thought-provoking replies to your email spam.

300bps 13y ago

I read things like this and it makes me concerned that it's a sign of the party ending for developers. I'm sure OP was doing this tongue-in-cheek but the fact that it was written at all is a sign of hubris caused by an apparent software engineering work bubble. I've been in IT for 20 years now and the last few I've been making unbelievable money, fully expecting it to end any minute now. Stuff like this makes me fear it is going to end soon.

optimusclimb 13y ago
Serious question: How does something like this you perceive as hubris indicate that the end is coming?
- kpapke 13y ago
  Cause pride comes before the Fall.
- rdouble 13y ago
  I felt the same way as the OP right before the dot com bust. Then all the startups went out of business and the only way to get a decent job was to know a recruiter for a big company.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris#Modern_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris#Modern_use

optimusclimb 13y ago

Why not just put a comment on your profile that says you're not looking? This does cut down on the emails you get. You'll still get some, but I'm willing to bet you get an equal, if not greater amount of emails from various retailers you've purchased from. From these, just hit delete, or not interested. The only thing I find annoying about LinkedIn "spam" is that while apparently good engineers are hard to find, the laws of supply and demand seem to cap out around a certain compensation level. I always wonder if I were in sales or finance, would recruiters that really want to fill a role try and lure me to leave by mentioning the free candy bars? or tell me they'll pay me ___ % more than I'm making now? Anyway, given the situation for most people in the country, certainly getting spammed by people with job offers isn't the worst problem in the world, nor is it that hard to cope with. ymmv.

pmagnowski 13y ago

great answer man! Some time ago I creates a linked in group called "Bad recruiters" where shame job spammers offering me "sizzling hot" £23k PHP roles. Please join up and help getting the quality of IT recruitment up to the standard it should be.

laureny 13y ago

Or you could not be a douche and just ignore that email.

llamataboot 13y ago

Just don't forget what a privilege it is to be turning down work offers. I have a Master's Degree in my field from what is consistently ranked the best school for that field and haven't been able to find a job in that field for over a year, and the last job I was offered, that required a Master's and experience, was for $27k a year.

seivan 13y ago
What field is that? Notice how I did it bring up a bunch of fields as examples.
- llamataboot 13y ago
  Social Work, with an emphasis on research and macro-level policy work, but some teaching jobs would certainly apply as well. Still want to solve hard social problems, but have decided there is too much friction in the traditional human services fields and NGOs to make much headway that way, as well as a burnout trap. So at the moment I am just doing IT consulting for small non-profits, heading to a programming bootcamp this fall, maybe another one over the winter, hoping to eventually work on interesting social problems from a coding angle. Or work a bit on something not so interesting, enough to pay the bills, and become time-rich to work on interesting and fulfilling projects pro-bono.
  - briandear 13y ago
    I'm sure you knew that Social Work is low paid before you invested in such a degree. While it's a valuable field hypothetically, who actually hires a social work master degree person -- no company that actually expects a profit. As a result the market doesn't value such qualifications. Just sayin'. With software, engineers are hired to add value to a company which means they can make more money, which is kind of the point of a company in the first place. There's also a supply and demand issue. Low demand for Social Work and an oversupply. Social Work is almost as low-valued as an English literature degree. I'm not hating on Social Work, but your plight is certainly no surprise and elicits little sympathy as social work has never been a high demand profession but folks still spend tens of thousands of dollars in schooling and wonder why they aren't getting hired.

rdouble 13y ago

I quit LinkedIn and now receive almost no recruiter spam. Recruiters seem to only exist on LinkedIn now, so if you really want to avoid them just delete your account.

Flavius 13y ago

While this is an interesting concept that I used to think about in the past, you should never bother doing it. There is no chance that a random recruiter will ever have those resources to hire you. It's easier for both of you if you just say that you're not interested in a job or you just completely ignore the message/email etc.

wittysense 13y ago

Recruiters are bots, gophers; treat them as such. Many of you are resistent with anxiety to career hacking, why ? You want to disrupt everything else.

lotharbot 13y ago

For those who didn't catch the Brown M&Ms reference [0]: the rock group Van Halen had a provision in their standard contract that there had to be M&Ms backstage, but all the brown ones had to be removed. Sometimes it was interpreted as them just being "spoiled rock stars", but it had a purpose. Much of the contract specified technical details like how much weight the stage could hold, power capacity, and other things that if done wrong could completely wreck a show. As David Lee Roth said, "if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl... well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract." In this case, it's not clear whether the writer is trying to evoke the "spoiled rocker" persona or the "make sure you read the contract" one. [0] http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

OoTheNigerian 13y ago

Perhaps "I am not currently looking for a job" will suffice? Or maybe ignore the mail? I am working with a startup and the office is in a large shopping complex. As a result, almost every other day you have someone coming to pitch you stuff or give you a flyer. So I was in the office one day and a person came in. One of the employees was quite dismissive. The others did not bother to look up. I picked the flyer from the person, had a quick chat and the person was on his way. The ridiculously funny thing is that we were billed to hand out flyers THAT same week for an event we were organizing. So after the "interloper" left, I asked if they would be happy if they were treated the way they treated the salesperson when we go out for our own unsolicited pitch. Of course they said no. Suffice to say, since then they have treated such people much better since then. My short story aside, if you have been identified as someone worthy to be recruited, why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? What is wrong is saying thanks but no thanks? I am definitely sure there was a time in your life when you would were grateful for such opportunity. Now you may have passed that level, be humble about it Of course, always remember it is a human not a machine that is going to read your reply [1] [1] http://sivers.org/real http://sivers.org/real

pandaman 13y ago
>My short story aside, if you have been identified as someone worthy to be recruited, why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? I don't know any other way to read these emails than "your job is worse than what we are offering!". Since I've chosen this job myself and happen to like it very much it appears quite insulting, especially when the offered job is objectively worse (i.e. less pay, less fun, less prestige).
tehwebguy 13y ago
> why do a lot of people on HN find it so offensive? They are probably not offended by job offers at all, but rather recruiter emails that are not truly offers but invitations to apply

larsberg 13y ago

If he were actually interested in a change in employer for great financial gain, something more like a $250-500k base with "uncapped bonus" might result in real inquiries. Particularly if his experience included a decent amount of machine learning and big data, as I've noticed that quite a few Chicago and NY area finance firms -- especially those who have bowed out of the HFT arms race -- are currently willing to pay well for folks with those skills.

MaxScheiber 13y ago

I see strong parallels between this and the Linus Torvalds discussion on being polite as an engineer. I get a fair amount of email (maybe one every week or two) from people with technical co-founder offers or engineering interview offers. I have no interest for various reasons, some of which line up with yours I'm sure. Here's my standard response: "Hey John, Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, I'm still a full-time student, and I won't have time to take on another part-time obligation next semester. Best of luck filling the position." Sure, I might laugh with my friends about how positively stupid that businessman's email was. However, I'll be nothing but cordial to the person's face. I try to be cordial to everyone. You never know when your paths might cross next in life. Moreover, an email like yours perpetuates the stereotype that engineers are socially awkward and hard to work with. As someone doubling in engineering and finance, I hear this all of the time in my business classes. It's something that annoys me to no end.

fecak 13y ago

Many comments here mentioned the bubble, and posts like this being a sign. I started recruiting software pros in 1998, and didnt have the benefit of LinkedIn or any web tech beyond doing searches on old search engines and résumé boards. Some candidates were nice about moot wanting jobs, and others were rude. If the approach by the recruiter is not respectful, thought out, or at all relevant or personalized, by all means thrash away. But if the approach is a legitimate "hey, I've got a job that appears to fit your skill set, and if you're interested I'd like to discuss it with you and learn more about what interests you", then a response should be polite - or just don't respond at all. I can tell you that many of the people that were nasty to me during the boom were begging for me to even look at their résumé during the bust. I think recruiters do have too much influence on the hiring market in tech, but keep in mind that there will be down times for most in the industry, and recruiters will remember who was respectful and who wasn't. It's mostly junior recruiters making mistakes it seems, and they do learn by being shamed, so I do accept treating pure spam as it should be, but please (for everyone's sake) differentiate between legitimate polite contact and spam.

lotsofcows 13y ago

My response to recruiter spam: hit the "junk" button.

DrinkWater 13y ago

This "response" is not funny, smart or anything. Why does it even got posted here?