6 ms·

Striking Back At Recruiter Spam

87 points by loganfrederick 12y ago

Pxtl 12y ago
If legal, they should make recordings of the reactions.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  "this call is being recorded for quality purposes" Not sure this allows the recordings to be divulged, though
  - ryen 12y ago
    "This call is being recorded for quality purposes and may be used for marketing or other purposes at our discretion."
mfkp 12y ago
Called the number - surprisingly real sounding, nice execution. Still, seems like a jerk-move. I can see this backfiring in some way or another.
ryguytilidie 12y ago
"Ughhhhhhhhhh people keep emailing me to offer high paying jobs and I have to click archive."-The most first world problem in the history of the universe.
- jackowayed 12y ago
  They're actually dealing with recruiter spam on the other side. "I see you need people, I have 'great candidates' for the roles that I would love to setup for interviews." And they said some go to the lengths of calling the mobile number of every engineer at their company. So basically the recruiter is just an extremely persistent salesperson who distracts the entire company in hopes that they'll find a way to sell their product.
  - paulgb 12y ago
    When entrepreneurs do that, HN calls it "hustle"
- Gracana 12y ago
  That's not what's happening here. The recruiter is contacting 42floors to try to get them to hire their candidates.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  "people keep emailing me to offer high paying jobs and I have to click archive."-The most first world problem in the history of the universe." I agree 100% However, he has the opposite issue, he has job openings and he's getting spam from recruiters proposing candidates. OTOH, there's one type of recruiter spam that annoys me: the ones that spam with openings where I explicitly say I'm not authorized to work, so, surprise surprise, if you're incompetent to see that, I don't trust you (It's the "no brown M&Ms of recruiting")
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- eloisant 12y ago
  1. The recruiter is not contacting him to help him get a job, he's contacting him to provide candidates and get paid if 42floors hires them. It's the other way around. 2. A recruiter never emails you to offer you a job, he's asking you to apply for some position. There's no guarantee you'll get the job. If he's a good recruiter, he studied your profile and knows you're a good match. That's pretty rare. Most of the time, recruiters are just spamming a list of emails addresses of people working in the general field when just a quick look at the linkedin profile would be enough to see that it would be a very bad match.
  - collyw 12y ago
    >If he's a good recruiter, he studied your profile and knows you're a good match. Even studying your CV, they can only match up two words. They have no idea that the concepts of RDBMS are SQL pretty synonymous.
- gk1 12y ago
  These aren't job offers, but offers from recruiters to find candidates for the positions which OP posted. Just clarifying. Also, the "First World Problem" meme is so tired by now. A problem doesn't need to be as bad as starvation to be worth solving.
  - the_watcher 12y ago
    Agreed. Yes, it's a problem probably unique to the first world. However, 42Floors is operating in the first world, and it's dumb to dismiss problems simply because they happen in the first world, especially when that's the world you live in.
- vcherubini 12y ago
  This isn't about developers getting recruiter spam.
- crisnoble 12y ago
  "Grr, someone posted something that I don't want to read at all but feel like trashing in the comments." -the second most first world problem. I mean seriously, as everyone as pointed out this post is not about that problem in the first place. If you actually read the post you would see that they made a pretty cool little hack. Try calling the number, (415) 534-6560, for yourself. It sounds surprisingly real.
jackowayed 12y ago
I hope they're keeping statistics on how long people are on the line before hanging up.
vcherubini 12y ago
I rather like Atlassian's take on the issue: https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters
- mccolin 12y ago
  That's a great policy. It doesn't completely remove time or energy from the HR/hiring manager at Atlassian, but it clearly outlines objectives of working with recruiters with a very real, tangible penalty for spamming. Nice.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
benihana 12y ago
This makes me sad. It's petty vindictiveness and it doesn't help our industry. Rather than accepting that recruiters have wasted his time, and moving on, the author decides to waste even more time to get back at them. And for what? Does anyone think that the recruiter who wasted the author's time is going to reflect deeply on this and change his ways? Rather than striking back with some ego-stroking revenge, maybe educating the recruiter on why his behavior was shitty might help more? Maybe making a general page that you could easily refer him to that explains why his tactics are disrespectful so that he can learn from this, rather than just having his time wasted? You could also refer other pushy recruiters to that page. This isn't my company though, so the author is free to do what he wants. I'm wondering if people look at this and think "that's awesome, I can relate! I want to work there," or if they look at this and think "that guy has no problem spending time being mean to people he thinks deserve it, I might stay away."
- ryen 12y ago
  You obviously don't have a lot of experience working with recruiters. They know exactly what they're doing and know which things they do are scummy. Their tactic is to fish for as many people in an organization until somebody bites. I think the idea is great - it needs to be extended to other, configurable, phone numbers. There should also be a version for recruiters calling potential candidates.
- changdizzle 12y ago
  I think it's assumed from the article (and the screenshot of the Gmail trail) that the team members have explicitly stated that they don't want to be bothered and don't work with recruiting agencies, this is a total last ditch effort. At our ~20-person startup, we have a few recs open and I still see multiple people get calls on their mobile phones from recruiters over and over, and in the majority of these cases they don't even know how the recruiter got their number.
  - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
    The job postings on the 42floors website don't have any information indicating that recruiter/agency submissions will not be considered. While the unprofessionally aggressive won't let "We do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or agencies" deter them, not every recruiter is unprofessionally aggressive. A lot of them are persistent but capable of understanding "no" if it's delivered firmly and professionally. Frankly, I find it amusing that the OP would take the time to set up a fake phone number but couldn't take the time to add a simple sentence to his company's job postings.
ianstallings 12y ago
This is a waste of time and money.
nsxwolf 12y ago
I admire the execution of this and simultaneously condemn it for its douchebaggery.
neil_s 12y ago
Is that a fixed recording of someone reading out 5 random job descriptions, or are you dynamically getting 5 fresh descriptions and using text-to-voice? Its probably the former, but if not, that is amazing text-to-voice, and I'd love to know where its available!
Varlski 12y ago
As much as i agree that recruiters can be annoying getting the right recruitment/recruiter help can be the most amazing leverage tool for your startup and to be honest this comes across really childish. That said recruitment is ripe for disruption.

Pxtl 12y ago

If legal, they should make recordings of the reactions.

raverbashing 12y ago
"this call is being recorded for quality purposes" Not sure this allows the recordings to be divulged, though
- ryen 12y ago
  "This call is being recorded for quality purposes and may be used for marketing or other purposes at our discretion."

mfkp 12y ago

Called the number - surprisingly real sounding, nice execution. Still, seems like a jerk-move. I can see this backfiring in some way or another.

ryguytilidie 12y ago

"Ughhhhhhhhhh people keep emailing me to offer high paying jobs and I have to click archive."-The most first world problem in the history of the universe.

jackowayed 12y ago
They're actually dealing with recruiter spam on the other side. "I see you need people, I have 'great candidates' for the roles that I would love to setup for interviews." And they said some go to the lengths of calling the mobile number of every engineer at their company. So basically the recruiter is just an extremely persistent salesperson who distracts the entire company in hopes that they'll find a way to sell their product.
- paulgb 12y ago
  When entrepreneurs do that, HN calls it "hustle"
Gracana 12y ago
That's not what's happening here. The recruiter is contacting 42floors to try to get them to hire their candidates.
raverbashing 12y ago
"people keep emailing me to offer high paying jobs and I have to click archive."-The most first world problem in the history of the universe." I agree 100% However, he has the opposite issue, he has job openings and he's getting spam from recruiters proposing candidates. OTOH, there's one type of recruiter spam that annoys me: the ones that spam with openings where I explicitly say I'm not authorized to work, so, surprise surprise, if you're incompetent to see that, I don't trust you (It's the "no brown M&Ms of recruiting")
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
eloisant 12y ago
1. The recruiter is not contacting him to help him get a job, he's contacting him to provide candidates and get paid if 42floors hires them. It's the other way around. 2. A recruiter never emails you to offer you a job, he's asking you to apply for some position. There's no guarantee you'll get the job. If he's a good recruiter, he studied your profile and knows you're a good match. That's pretty rare. Most of the time, recruiters are just spamming a list of emails addresses of people working in the general field when just a quick look at the linkedin profile would be enough to see that it would be a very bad match.
- collyw 12y ago
  >If he's a good recruiter, he studied your profile and knows you're a good match. Even studying your CV, they can only match up two words. They have no idea that the concepts of RDBMS are SQL pretty synonymous.
gk1 12y ago
These aren't job offers, but offers from recruiters to find candidates for the positions which OP posted. Just clarifying. Also, the "First World Problem" meme is so tired by now. A problem doesn't need to be as bad as starvation to be worth solving.
- the_watcher 12y ago
  Agreed. Yes, it's a problem probably unique to the first world. However, 42Floors is operating in the first world, and it's dumb to dismiss problems simply because they happen in the first world, especially when that's the world you live in.
vcherubini 12y ago
This isn't about developers getting recruiter spam.
crisnoble 12y ago
"Grr, someone posted something that I don't want to read at all but feel like trashing in the comments." -the second most first world problem. I mean seriously, as everyone as pointed out this post is not about that problem in the first place. If you actually read the post you would see that they made a pretty cool little hack. Try calling the number, (415) 534-6560, for yourself. It sounds surprisingly real.

jackowayed 12y ago

I hope they're keeping statistics on how long people are on the line before hanging up.

vcherubini 12y ago

I rather like Atlassian's take on the issue: https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters

mccolin 12y ago
That's a great policy. It doesn't completely remove time or energy from the HR/hiring manager at Atlassian, but it clearly outlines objectives of working with recruiters with a very real, tangible penalty for spamming. Nice.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

benihana 12y ago

This makes me sad. It's petty vindictiveness and it doesn't help our industry. Rather than accepting that recruiters have wasted his time, and moving on, the author decides to waste even more time to get back at them. And for what? Does anyone think that the recruiter who wasted the author's time is going to reflect deeply on this and change his ways? Rather than striking back with some ego-stroking revenge, maybe educating the recruiter on why his behavior was shitty might help more? Maybe making a general page that you could easily refer him to that explains why his tactics are disrespectful so that he can learn from this, rather than just having his time wasted? You could also refer other pushy recruiters to that page. This isn't my company though, so the author is free to do what he wants. I'm wondering if people look at this and think "that's awesome, I can relate! I want to work there," or if they look at this and think "that guy has no problem spending time being mean to people he thinks deserve it, I might stay away."

ryen 12y ago
You obviously don't have a lot of experience working with recruiters. They know exactly what they're doing and know which things they do are scummy. Their tactic is to fish for as many people in an organization until somebody bites. I think the idea is great - it needs to be extended to other, configurable, phone numbers. There should also be a version for recruiters calling potential candidates.
changdizzle 12y ago
I think it's assumed from the article (and the screenshot of the Gmail trail) that the team members have explicitly stated that they don't want to be bothered and don't work with recruiting agencies, this is a total last ditch effort. At our ~20-person startup, we have a few recs open and I still see multiple people get calls on their mobile phones from recruiters over and over, and in the majority of these cases they don't even know how the recruiter got their number.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  The job postings on the 42floors website don't have any information indicating that recruiter/agency submissions will not be considered. While the unprofessionally aggressive won't let "We do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or agencies" deter them, not every recruiter is unprofessionally aggressive. A lot of them are persistent but capable of understanding "no" if it's delivered firmly and professionally. Frankly, I find it amusing that the OP would take the time to set up a fake phone number but couldn't take the time to add a simple sentence to his company's job postings.

ianstallings 12y ago

This is a waste of time and money.

nsxwolf 12y ago

I admire the execution of this and simultaneously condemn it for its douchebaggery.

neil_s 12y ago

Is that a fixed recording of someone reading out 5 random job descriptions, or are you dynamically getting 5 fresh descriptions and using text-to-voice? Its probably the former, but if not, that is amazing text-to-voice, and I'd love to know where its available!

Varlski 12y ago

As much as i agree that recruiters can be annoying getting the right recruitment/recruiter help can be the most amazing leverage tool for your startup and to be honest this comes across really childish. That said recruitment is ripe for disruption.