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> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and then hands my response off to a recruiter? Or did the recruiter send the email on behalf of the CEO? I'm not even sure what's going on, but it's incredibly misleading. And then when I respond and politely decline to proceed further, the recruiter tries to set me up with a phone call with yet another person that isn't the original CEO. What part of this makes sense? What happened to the original, informal face-to-face chat? You totally blew it, dude. YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me. Would you do this bait-and-switch to your biggest customer? If the answer is yes, you probably don't need to be CEO. And if not, then why would you treat a potential team member worse than you would treat your best customer? C'mon. Be smart about this recruiting thing.

SilasX 12y ago
Interesting! This may explain what happened to me recently. I got an recruitment email that looked to be from the CTO of a startup. From their site, it appeared to be a ~50-150-person operation, so not a case of "everyone does everything". I was planning to respond something like, "Whoa, you're the CTO and you're recruiting people yourself? That's pretty hardcore!" (Or something less goofy, I don't know.) I didn't, but based on your experience, it was probably some kind of trick like that.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  I generally don't respond to recruiters because they usually don't know what the hell they're talking about. They see the word "Javascript" on my LinkedIn profile and then pitch me Front-End Development positions (despite the fact that the last time I held that title was in 2008) and ignore the fact that my primary skills in the last 6 years have been back-end related. Frustrating. So I generally don't reply. This email from "the CEO" was well written and actually took into account my most recent activity. The combination of appearing that it came from the CEO and that they actually did some research suggested that they actually wanted me, and weren't just flooding everyone with recruitment letters. But then there was the whole bait-and-switch thing, so... I'm really frustrated right now.
- danbmil99 12y ago
  It could have been me. We're a 10-person startup with initial traction, but our site makes it look like a 50-person startup with extended traction. This cold recruiting shit is hard. There's a really amazing opportunity here that I can't seem to sell. Guess that's why I'm the CTO, not the CEO.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    Well, do you recognize my email address as bein one you contacted? You don't have a profile here, and your username looks unrelated to the person who contacted me.
    - danbmil99 12y ago
      I was using indeed.com, it doesn't seem to be possible to review the emails I sent. If you are interested in a serious, post-seed, pre-A startup opportunity please contact me at dan.miller at orgstars.com And if that doesn't work, we can still discuss the (intellectually dishonest) libertarian arguments against the carbon tax. I actually care about stuff like that.
gdb 12y ago
Oof that's rough. I guess a sixth point is "follow through on your commitment" — baiting and switching is a lot worse than having never sent the email in the first place.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Agreed. It gives me a bad impression, which means I'm less likely to want to actually meet up with them, and that puts me in the awkward position of having agreed to meet for coffee and then now declining further invitations. I don't want to burn any bridges, but at the same time, I'm not interested in working with someone who'll do the bait-and-switch. It puts me in a very difficult situation. Argh.
Ologn 12y ago
> YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me. Yes. I get contacted by a headhunter that says they know of a company looking for engineers. I go on an interview and someone at the company asks me very officiously, "Why do you want to work for this company?" I respond, "I don't know that I do want to work here. I have a job. The headhunter called me and told me there was an opportunity here so I came to check it out". The interviewer didn't say anything, but their expression was slightly shocked. I guess I was supposed to launch into a pitch about how it was always my dream to work at that company. I think you put your finger on it. They present it to you as the CEO begging you to come work at the company. Then you start finding out it is a bait and switch, they want you to play the role of a desperate job seeker, begging some low-level manager for an opportunity to work at the company. It's a power thing. We see CEO's here and in the tech news complain that they can't find good technical talent. Yet every part of the job process is designed to demonstrate they have the power in the relationship from the offset. They want references - before you have a job offer often, they want you to ask a favor from two to three people to sing your praises to them. If you tell them you won't give them references until it's the last step before a job offer they look surprised. Or they just hand you a form to fill out, which will be incomplete if you don't put references. They want you to come interview for hours in the middle of your work day. Often you get there and they tell you some important person who has to interview you to get the job is not there, and you have to come back again. You also have to go through the indignity of not being candid - if you want the job offer. When they ask you why you left your last company, that your boss was a jerk is not an acceptable answer. If they ask you about unit tests at your current job, and you say you have asked management to allow time for putting in unit tests but they refused - it becomes your fault that your management told you no. And on and on and on. That I have to ask for a favor from 2-3 former coworkers or bosses that they give me a reference every time I apply for a job is probably the most annoying part. Who wants to go through all of this? It's why a lot of my jobs are at companies my friends work for. At least I know the score before I go in.
- x0x0 12y ago
  That's happened to me too. My response is "I don't" and then I shut up. To overgeneralize, though not by much, SF startups suck ass at recruiting; the standard assumption is the whole world is chomping at the bit to work there, and it's a privilege to do so. (Though I do wonder how they get that worldview to comport with endless bitching about the lack of engineers.) And you hit the nail on the head with the lack of consideration of recruitees' time. Take linkedin. I interviewed there a couple years ago when I was living in sf. They wanted me to come in 10 - 3, so basically an entire day of vacation (read ~$300-$400 I won't get paid out when I quit.) So I had a nontrivial amount of skin in the game. I also had to borrow a car to drive there, since I didn't own one. The interviews went really well, and they where pushy about continuing -- I was privileged to be able to come in a second day between 10 and 1, ie a second 1/2 day of vacation and go rent a car again! Fuck that; I bounced. But no doubt they're telling congress they just can't hire locally and need more h1b allotment.
notahacker 12y ago
You can of course achieve the same "the top guys at this growing company are sufficiently interested in me for this not to be an HR-lead timewaste" effect with a senior non-recruiter email that's actually honest, more along the lines of My colleague Bob was impressed by your [personalised details]. I've asked Bob to look for people with X and our stack is based entirely on Y which I understand you're very familiar with. If you're interested in working on Z in future perhaps you and Bob could grab a quick coffee, and if that works out I'd love to have the chance to learn more about [personalised detail] for myself at some point.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Yes! This would have been a much better way to go.
blazespin 12y ago
You should call the CEO directly and ask him when he'd like to meet for the coffee he wanted to have. CEO's can be interesting to talk with, they have unique and fascinating perspectives.
- beat 12y ago
  Yeah, this. If I were to do a dumb dick move like this, I'd much rather have the candidate call me out on it than blow me off. I'd be really excited to meet a candidate whose first real interaction with me is to tell me I'm being an asshole and be right about it.
  - Jemaclus 12y ago
    I actually CC'd the CEO on my reply, wherein I basically implied that the previous email was misleading and that I was expecting a less formal mode of communication. But like someone else said, I don't think the CEO actually sent that first email. I suspect the recruiter sent it on his behalf.
    - beat 12y ago
      Good to cc the CEO then. If the recruiter is doing this without the CEO's knowledge, the CEO should know - and know the impact.
jusben1369 12y ago
I suspect that they're using the CEO to get your attention. I'd be very surprised if the original email came from him. As can be seen here it's kind of nuts to do all this work only to pass off ot someone else when there is a bite.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Yep, that's what I suspect as well.
eshvk 12y ago
> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I had the complete opposite thing happen. There is a dude I went to school with, I know him personally. We are connections on linkedin. He started a company a few years back. I get an email from a recruiter telling me the founders at Company X (his company) felt that I would be a good fit for their team. I am convinced that she just searched for some skill sets and made this form letter up just to make it sound fancy.
- mathattack 12y ago
  I've frequently had headhunters try to introduce me to people that I already know. It goes with the territory - at least it tells me they're on the right track. :-)
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  Ha. I've had recruiters try to set me up with companies that I've already interviewed with, and once I had a recruiter try and set me up with a company I'd already received an offer from (but declined for various reasons). It's not really their fault, though. They can't know the details of my personal network and history. Still, it makes for funny stories...
  - lzecon 12y ago
    It's totally company's fault in that case, although not the recruiter's. If you get contacted by a company who previously gave you an offer, that means the company isn't investing their recruiting function by taking the simple step of buying a decent applicant tracking system. There's poor communication between the executives and the people they hire or contract, and they have zero HR.
  - jacalata 12y ago
    Not the OP, but I got contacted on LinkedIn by a recruiter who appeared to completely miss my LinkedIn connection to the CEO of the company he was recruiting me for. That seemed like completely his fault.
ryguytilidie 12y ago
Recruiter here. Sending emails as the CEO is standard practice at a ton of companies. That being said, where I work, we do not do this because, if you think about it logically, the only reason to do these reachouts is if the CEO actually wants to/has the time to speak with the person. If they do, they can send these emails. But to send them as the CEO and then magically turn into a recruiter when I get a response is super sketchy and weird so I don't do it.

SilasX 12y ago

Interesting! This may explain what happened to me recently. I got an recruitment email that looked to be from the CTO of a startup. From their site, it appeared to be a ~50-150-person operation, so not a case of "everyone does everything". I was planning to respond something like, "Whoa, you're the CTO and you're recruiting people yourself? That's pretty hardcore!" (Or something less goofy, I don't know.) I didn't, but based on your experience, it was probably some kind of trick like that.

Jemaclus 12y ago
I generally don't respond to recruiters because they usually don't know what the hell they're talking about. They see the word "Javascript" on my LinkedIn profile and then pitch me Front-End Development positions (despite the fact that the last time I held that title was in 2008) and ignore the fact that my primary skills in the last 6 years have been back-end related. Frustrating. So I generally don't reply. This email from "the CEO" was well written and actually took into account my most recent activity. The combination of appearing that it came from the CEO and that they actually did some research suggested that they actually wanted me, and weren't just flooding everyone with recruitment letters. But then there was the whole bait-and-switch thing, so... I'm really frustrated right now.
danbmil99 12y ago
It could have been me. We're a 10-person startup with initial traction, but our site makes it look like a 50-person startup with extended traction. This cold recruiting shit is hard. There's a really amazing opportunity here that I can't seem to sell. Guess that's why I'm the CTO, not the CEO.
- SilasX 12y ago
  Well, do you recognize my email address as bein one you contacted? You don't have a profile here, and your username looks unrelated to the person who contacted me.
  - danbmil99 12y ago
    I was using indeed.com, it doesn't seem to be possible to review the emails I sent. If you are interested in a serious, post-seed, pre-A startup opportunity please contact me at dan.miller at orgstars.com And if that doesn't work, we can still discuss the (intellectually dishonest) libertarian arguments against the carbon tax. I actually care about stuff like that.

gdb 12y ago

Oof that's rough. I guess a sixth point is "follow through on your commitment" — baiting and switching is a lot worse than having never sent the email in the first place.

Jemaclus 12y ago
Agreed. It gives me a bad impression, which means I'm less likely to want to actually meet up with them, and that puts me in the awkward position of having agreed to meet for coffee and then now declining further invitations. I don't want to burn any bridges, but at the same time, I'm not interested in working with someone who'll do the bait-and-switch. It puts me in a very difficult situation. Argh.

Ologn 12y ago

> YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me. Yes. I get contacted by a headhunter that says they know of a company looking for engineers. I go on an interview and someone at the company asks me very officiously, "Why do you want to work for this company?" I respond, "I don't know that I do want to work here. I have a job. The headhunter called me and told me there was an opportunity here so I came to check it out". The interviewer didn't say anything, but their expression was slightly shocked. I guess I was supposed to launch into a pitch about how it was always my dream to work at that company. I think you put your finger on it. They present it to you as the CEO begging you to come work at the company. Then you start finding out it is a bait and switch, they want you to play the role of a desperate job seeker, begging some low-level manager for an opportunity to work at the company. It's a power thing. We see CEO's here and in the tech news complain that they can't find good technical talent. Yet every part of the job process is designed to demonstrate they have the power in the relationship from the offset. They want references - before you have a job offer often, they want you to ask a favor from two to three people to sing your praises to them. If you tell them you won't give them references until it's the last step before a job offer they look surprised. Or they just hand you a form to fill out, which will be incomplete if you don't put references. They want you to come interview for hours in the middle of your work day. Often you get there and they tell you some important person who has to interview you to get the job is not there, and you have to come back again. You also have to go through the indignity of not being candid - if you want the job offer. When they ask you why you left your last company, that your boss was a jerk is not an acceptable answer. If they ask you about unit tests at your current job, and you say you have asked management to allow time for putting in unit tests but they refused - it becomes your fault that your management told you no. And on and on and on. That I have to ask for a favor from 2-3 former coworkers or bosses that they give me a reference every time I apply for a job is probably the most annoying part. Who wants to go through all of this? It's why a lot of my jobs are at companies my friends work for. At least I know the score before I go in.

x0x0 12y ago
That's happened to me too. My response is "I don't" and then I shut up. To overgeneralize, though not by much, SF startups suck ass at recruiting; the standard assumption is the whole world is chomping at the bit to work there, and it's a privilege to do so. (Though I do wonder how they get that worldview to comport with endless bitching about the lack of engineers.) And you hit the nail on the head with the lack of consideration of recruitees' time. Take linkedin. I interviewed there a couple years ago when I was living in sf. They wanted me to come in 10 - 3, so basically an entire day of vacation (read ~$300-$400 I won't get paid out when I quit.) So I had a nontrivial amount of skin in the game. I also had to borrow a car to drive there, since I didn't own one. The interviews went really well, and they where pushy about continuing -- I was privileged to be able to come in a second day between 10 and 1, ie a second 1/2 day of vacation and go rent a car again! Fuck that; I bounced. But no doubt they're telling congress they just can't hire locally and need more h1b allotment.

notahacker 12y ago

You can of course achieve the same "the top guys at this growing company are sufficiently interested in me for this not to be an HR-lead timewaste" effect with a senior non-recruiter email that's actually honest, more along the lines of My colleague Bob was impressed by your [personalised details]. I've asked Bob to look for people with X and our stack is based entirely on Y which I understand you're very familiar with. If you're interested in working on Z in future perhaps you and Bob could grab a quick coffee, and if that works out I'd love to have the chance to learn more about [personalised detail] for myself at some point.

Jemaclus 12y ago
Yes! This would have been a much better way to go.

blazespin 12y ago

You should call the CEO directly and ask him when he'd like to meet for the coffee he wanted to have. CEO's can be interesting to talk with, they have unique and fascinating perspectives.

beat 12y ago
Yeah, this. If I were to do a dumb dick move like this, I'd much rather have the candidate call me out on it than blow me off. I'd be really excited to meet a candidate whose first real interaction with me is to tell me I'm being an asshole and be right about it.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  I actually CC'd the CEO on my reply, wherein I basically implied that the previous email was misleading and that I was expecting a less formal mode of communication. But like someone else said, I don't think the CEO actually sent that first email. I suspect the recruiter sent it on his behalf.
  - beat 12y ago
    Good to cc the CEO then. If the recruiter is doing this without the CEO's knowledge, the CEO should know - and know the impact.

jusben1369 12y ago

I suspect that they're using the CEO to get your attention. I'd be very surprised if the original email came from him. As can be seen here it's kind of nuts to do all this work only to pass off ot someone else when there is a bite.

Jemaclus 12y ago
Yep, that's what I suspect as well.

eshvk 12y ago

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I had the complete opposite thing happen. There is a dude I went to school with, I know him personally. We are connections on linkedin. He started a company a few years back. I get an email from a recruiter telling me the founders at Company X (his company) felt that I would be a good fit for their team. I am convinced that she just searched for some skill sets and made this form letter up just to make it sound fancy.

mathattack 12y ago
I've frequently had headhunters try to introduce me to people that I already know. It goes with the territory - at least it tells me they're on the right track. :-)
Jemaclus 12y ago
Ha. I've had recruiters try to set me up with companies that I've already interviewed with, and once I had a recruiter try and set me up with a company I'd already received an offer from (but declined for various reasons). It's not really their fault, though. They can't know the details of my personal network and history. Still, it makes for funny stories...
- lzecon 12y ago
  It's totally company's fault in that case, although not the recruiter's. If you get contacted by a company who previously gave you an offer, that means the company isn't investing their recruiting function by taking the simple step of buying a decent applicant tracking system. There's poor communication between the executives and the people they hire or contract, and they have zero HR.
- jacalata 12y ago
  Not the OP, but I got contacted on LinkedIn by a recruiter who appeared to completely miss my LinkedIn connection to the CEO of the company he was recruiting me for. That seemed like completely his fault.

ryguytilidie 12y ago

Recruiter here. Sending emails as the CEO is standard practice at a ton of companies. That being said, where I work, we do not do this because, if you think about it logically, the only reason to do these reachouts is if the CEO actually wants to/has the time to speak with the person. If they do, they can send these emails. But to send them as the CEO and then magically turn into a recruiter when I get a response is super sketchy and weird so I don't do it.