Dear Recruiters

[wikwocket]

...by the way, if you find any recruiters offering a 200k job with 6 weeks vacation and a signing bonus, where you can telecommute from anywhere, but darnit they require Windows or PHP work now and again... drop me a line! ;)

[AUmrysh]

I'd be willing to write in brainfuck exclusively for 200k. This guy has it good, doubt he'll ever find a job with that kind of attitude. He could be ol' Don Knuth, still wouldn't get a job from anyone worth working for.

Although, with that guy's track record, maybe he knows being a cocky asshole is just the way to get a good job in software, I don't know.

edit: after thinking about it more, I think this may be a parody of the sort of unrealistic expectations recruiters have for 'talent'.

[gearoidoc]

Considering we're in something of an IT bubble at the moment, I sometimes wonder if we'll look back on stuff like this in a few years and think "Wow, we had it good".

[rco8786]

Almost undoubtedly, I would think.

[sheri]

Why talk down to people like so, almost treating the recruiters like they were little children who need to be lectured about how to behave. Recruiters are human beings too, who are just trying to do their job.

[ianstallings]

Who's being disrespected when our time is wasted because a recruiter can't read a simple profile and has zero understanding of the technologies they are recruiting for? That's where the treatment comes from. Recruiters as a whole seem to be transient bunch that never intended to become a recruiter or care about what we do in the first place. Some of us have devoted our entire lives to this field. So when you come at us with "I Need something insanely stupid because I couldn't be bothered to READ", well you're wasting our time. Who likes to have their time wasted?

[mavrck]

This is no worse than the 10 word message I get offering me an opportunity that's "perfect" for me.

If a large chunk of the recruiters weren't so lazy, there'd be no need for this.

[TylerE]

Try posting a public resume on Monster sometime, and wait for the multiple e-mails about a perfect opportunity, and then if you follow up on them it's a 3 month contract in Lower Bumfark, Kansas.

[amorphid]

As a recruiter I find the post refreshing. It has a bit of a negative streak in it, but I understand where that's coming from.

[kordless]

The word is pompous. Nobody deserves to have a bunch of 'you' assumptions thrown their way without ever speaking to them.

That said, I've had a few recruiters irritate me before.

[huhtenberg]

  Minimum offer

   ...

  Pony: 1+

There are certain social behavioral norms and breaking them makes you look cocky and unprofessional, even if in reality you are not. This would be an example of that.

[typicalrunt]

I love it. Very succinct and to the point. I don't agree with some comments saying that it is naïve because it is not beating around the bush.

If I am a recruiter or any potential employer, I can now instantly see what this applicant wants and expects in the form of compensation, and it is now my job to exceed that compensation and entice this person to come work for me.

If I don't want to meet his target salary, then so be it, I go my own way and he goes his with no love lost. I find this type of discourse very refreshing.

[revbuddylove]

Why am I reading about someone's slick way to solicit recruiters while pretending he is happy with his great job?

[alttab]

If I was his manager reading this, I would bring him in for a 1:1 to determine what truly motivated him to write such a worded diatribe. Best case scenario he doesn't understand how multiple audiences would react to it and assumed only developers that agree with him would see it. This is never the case with the Internet so I'd then have to question his capacity to understand the field he is in.

At the very least it reflects poorly on his current employer, as I wouldn't join in fear of having to work with him.

In this world you must assume that everything you write on your blog, Facebook, etc will end up in front of your grandma, your parents, and your boss. Assuming otherwise is a risk, or at least a demonstration of thoughtlessness.

[ErikAugust]

I looked at his minimum offer first and thought he was a professional football player. But no... he's a LAMP developer.

[justinsteele]

Disclosure: I have worked with Ken.

I'm not sure you are aware what LAMP means. He prefers (for good reason) nginx, as it states in the post. Ken is someone who gets shit done, for lack of a better expression. He is well worth whatever he is paid at DotCloud, and I would venture to say he is worth his "Minimum Offer".

[magsafe]

His LinkedIn profile has an alphabet soup of technologies and programming languages. Even if a recruiter did read it, like he requests, they would have no idea what this guy's real focus is. It even mentions Windows, as well as Xcode and iPhone development when he is clearly a server engineer.

Maybe he needs to revise or shorten his resume before lashing out at recruiters for not reading it. I'm not a recruiter, I'm a developer who makes $225k, has unlimited vacation and lives In San Francisco. As a developer, I feel that guys like him give us all a bad name and make us look arrogant, inflexible and hard to work with. Maybe this attitude is why he still doesn't make his ideal salary of 200k.

After this blog post I doubt he's going to get any other job, let alone one that meets his minbar.

[kyllo]

So why are you even on LinkedIn? If you're trying to deter recruiters, what desirable functionality are you getting out of the site that keeps you from just deleting your profile?

Or do you actually enjoy the attention and are you just pretending to be annoyed by it as a way of bragging?

[KenCochrane]

I don't use Facebook, so I use linkedin as a way to stay connected with people I have worked with in the past. As people move on, phone numbers and emails change, but linkedin lets me stay connected to them even if I no longer have their email or phone number.

Once again, I'm not against getting sent relevant job openings, I'm just tired of people who just spamming everyone without even bothering to read the profiles.

[ianstallings]

Maybe he's looking for others to help him with his current work. That's why I'm on there at this moment. Maybe in the future that will change. It's for networking to others in my field. Not just job hunting. I can do that on dice.com. Do you take your profile down when you're not looking for work?

[edem]

It is rather arrogant I think.

[tych0]

Why? He's being honest about his expectations. If a recruiter thinks they're unreasonable, the recruiter is free not to contact him. Sure, he may not be worth that much so nobody will contact him, but he's not really looking anyway, so he doesn't waste time deleting useless emails. Recruiters don't waste their time contacting him. Seems like a win-win in my book.

[mavrck]

How's so? Is it arrogant to set ground rules for a response to a voice mail? to physical mail?

It's not like he's out there promoting himself. This is for the blast-everything style recruiters that bug me as well.

[feralchimp]

And yet, an order of magnitude less arrogant than the recruiting attitude that led to its authorship.

[gaustin]

How is it arrogant to state your minimum requirements up front? To me it shows respect for everyone's time and attention.

[donretag]

I agree, especially the deal breakers section. No Microsoft Windows? At all? I use whatever gets the job done, as any good technologist would.

[xenophonf]

I don't think it's arrogant - it's direct. I would think a recruiter would want to know about these kinds of preferences, if only to save them the time spent contacting someone who wouldn't be a fit for an opening.

[Ralz]

Yes especially the dealbreakers section. I don't know why a lot of developers are so compelled to only work with a specific programming language (i.e ruby/python). Does it really matter that much what the underlying codebase is when you know the fundamentals of computer science. I pick up new languages if the job requires it but I wouldn't toss out a job offer for 200K because the company uses a certain stack that I had a bad experience with in the past.

[wikwocket]

It does come off as a little condescending, but hopefully we can take that to mean that he is really really in love with his current job!

[ghurlman]

These days, I reply to recruiters with what they can realistically expect in the market, job description vs. expect pay rate. More often than not, the pay they're offering is way, way too low for the market at large, never mind myself.

Sometimes I get a reply, sometimes not, but I get the feeling that by & large the terms are out of their hands, and I doubt the recruiter sending the emails/making contacts is the same person that got the req from the hiring manager/company. It's that person, the person accepting the req, that needs to know the market and work with the hiring entity to put together a realistic job package. It's that person you should be frustrated with.

[scottmagdalein]

I love Portland, Maine. I don't blame you for not wanting to leave.

[BudVVeezer]

I'm shocked how many telecommuters live here in Maine; and dismayed at the number of companies who think we actually want to move to the Valley.

[jwmoz]

Sounds like you have the same experience with recruiters as I do!

[KenCochrane]

I wish linkedin would allow you to add this stuff to your profile. Ideally the search/spam feature of linkedin that recruiters use, would have to pass your filter before getting sent to you. This way if you get notified at least it passed your filter and you would be OK with it.

That would be a feature I would pay for.

[btilly]

What I want is even simpler.

On LinkedIn I told you that due to family circumstances I am not available for full time work until the summer of 2014. Is it 2014? Do you have a part time contract? No and no? Then why are you contacting me?

[onemorepassword]

I really don't mind recruiters badgering me by email or any form of non-disruptive communication. Keeps me nicely updated on the market, and tells me who to avoid should I actively be looking for something.

[speeder]

Heh, I wish this sort of stuff happened to me.

I don't receive recruitment messages, not even the spammy ones.

[znmeb]

This guy will change his tune when he gets fired for being an asshole.