top | item 6519822

Gah, recruiters, LinkedIn, and a good problem to have

17 points| mattbillenstein | 12 years ago |vazor.com | reply

38 comments

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[+] Peroni|12 years ago|reply
What an incredibly self-righteous and unnecessary response.

Everyone hates recruiters, fine, I get that. It doesn't change the fact that like you, they are also trying to make a living. They also have friends and family that give a shit about them and despite the fact that they may be exceptionally annoying at times, responses like this are simply rude and unprofessional.

6 or 7 no replies is "I'm not interested" in normal person speak.

Wrong. 1 reply of "I'm not interested, please don't contact me again." is normal speak.

Sorry Matt but your response does you no favours and it certainly doesn't educate the recruiter in question.

[+] eshvk|12 years ago|reply
Dude, I get where you are coming from but seriously, the word No doesn't get processed by a salesperson the way normal people process it.

My Linkedin profile explicitly says "No third party recruiters". I have explicitly responded to multiple third party recruiters telling them I do not want my resume in their hand, I don't want to be considered for any position from whatever shitty stealth startup they are working with. Nope. Nothing. I still get emails; GUESS WHAT? THEY ARE FROM THE SAME FUCKING RECRUITER(S).

[+] philwelch|12 years ago|reply
"I'm just trying to make a living for my family" is the last refuge of telemarketers, car dealers, and the assholes who ship me junk mail every week that goes straight from the mailbox to the recycle bin.
[+] Isofarro|12 years ago|reply
"Wrong. 1 reply of "I'm not interested, please don't contact me again." is normal speak."

No. This is no different to spam, it is an unsolicited email for commercial gain for the sender. What you are advocating is that a recipient opts out of an unsolicited contact. That doesn't scale. It places the onus on clearing up the mess on the recipient.

The presence of an email address on the web doesn't confer the right to reply for the sender. It cannot be considered opting into anything. And as such, it should not require a recipient to opt-out.

Don't assume silence means consent.

[+] mattbillenstein|12 years ago|reply
And you thought nothing that they've completely taken the human part out of it and the fact that that email was sent by a machine? It's spam - a conversation isn't one way and if she wanted to have one I'd appreciate the email actually being sent by a human, not a form letter from a machine - so you can see why I don't reply in the first place and how six or seven emails gets annoying...
[+] bradgessler|12 years ago|reply
Peroni, I notice you're a recruiter. Shouldn't you be distancing yourself from clearly bad recruiting practices?
[+] cowls|12 years ago|reply
Yes, it seems being contacted by a lot of recruiters has really gone to this guys head.

This is incredibly unprofessional, a simple polite, "Im not currently looking" would be suffice.

The recruiter doesnt need his life story.

[+] morgante|12 years ago|reply
I honestly don't understand why everyone hates recruiters so much.

Yes, you say they're a "good problem" to have but how are they a problem at all? How much effort does it take to delete an email/message, especially if you automate it?

I just don't understand the fuss. If anything, I enjoy the little ego boost every time I log in to LinkedIn and see another recruiter knocking. It's nice to be wanted.

[+] michaelt|12 years ago|reply
People who are old enough will remember the same argument about e-mail spam; it only takes a second to delete, so what's the problem?

Me, I still don't like spam.

[+] k__|12 years ago|reply
Most of them just seem kinda dumb.

They write mails to me where they tell me stuff about how they read my profile and think I'm the perfect fit for the position they want to fill, because of reasons that aren't in my profile.

I put stuff about ux-design, software engineering and JavaScript in and get mails about embedded systems...

[+] reidrac|12 years ago|reply
You're probably right but I can't help thinking that when the time comes and I need a new job they're not going to be THAT useful because most of them are really inefficient/incompetent.

I've been collecting a list of "good recruiters" that really look like they know what they're doing and "get" my interests (OSS + Python ideally), and so far the list is depressingly short.

TL;DR: recruiting attention is OK, but quantity without quality is just annoying and useless.

[+] ovb|12 years ago|reply
Looks like I'm now up to 8 emails from this same recruiter over the past year. She must have quite the list -- a friend also receives messages from her.
[+] mattbillenstein|12 years ago|reply
All a little over a month apart and the last several sent around the same time of day? Within a dozen seconds or so?
[+] pmiller2|12 years ago|reply
How do I get this problem? :)
[+] mattbillenstein|12 years ago|reply
1. Get a LinkedIn account 2. Put web tech buzzwords in it - extra points for Ruby, Rails, social, mobile, or big data 3. Profit
[+] conroy|12 years ago|reply
My usual response to recruiters (if I respond) is a short and polite "Not interested, happy where I am". However, Skyrocket Ventures is different. I've received several calls from them over the last year, all from blocked numbers (Note that I use Google Voice, so it's possible that is the cause).
[+] blackdogie|12 years ago|reply
Surely it's much easier to hit DELETE than to do a reply like this (plus I doubt that the said recruiter will take note, or even read it). By replying you are only serving to waste your time even further.
[+] mattbillenstein|12 years ago|reply
I'm sure she reads every reply, that's how this works you know... She can't place me in that dream job if she doesn't read my reply.

And I was venting - maybe at least she'll stop emailing me.