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Poll: Do you get spammed by tech recruiters?

24 points by whather ↗ HN
Hey guys, I'm writing an article on tech recruiting and wanted to get your opinion on the value they provide. I personally receive around five spammy recruiter emails per day. Do you find their contact methods helpful or annoying?

51 comments

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mgkimsal
I wanted to choose the second option, but chose the third because overall, they're terrible.

http://michaelkimsal.com/blog/dear-consultant/

95% of the stuff I get is untargeted and useless. The few people that actually read my resume online - http://michaelkimsal.com/resume - know when I'm available, and know what my terms are (no, I won't relocate to Colorado for a $45k/year job - don't send me junk or call me for this sort of stuff).

I don't really mind the emails too much, because I just delete the ones that make it past the spam filter.

On rare occasions, I'll get an email or call from a recruiter who has actually read my resume and notes, and indicates as much, and asks me for people I may know. The people who sound intelligent and have taken the time to read about me, call me up, and can pronounce my name - hey, I give them a few minutes of help. But almost no one is that professional.

joshu
As a hiring manager, I agree. I just get spammed. They aren't recruiting, they are headhunting - just finding people on linkedin and asking if they want new jobs.

What's worse is that they feel the need to CALL MY NUMBER, which they appear to be getting from our domain registration (which is used only for that!)

sgnome
I get spammed by them all the time and they never send jobs relevant to what I've posted on LinkedIn, etc.
notphilatall
What amazes me the most is that recruiters today are largely as awkward and ineffective as they were ten years ago. Maybe it's just that the worst recruiters are also the noisiest, but I would think that enough recruiters would have learned that building relationships is far more valuable than mass-emailing.

As a developer, if you're in my rolodex as a recruiter / talent agent with a clue, I'll likely reach out when I'm considering career options -- even if it's several years down the road. As a recruiter, once you gather enough developers into that relationship, you should have your bonus-based salary covered... right?

Edit: I wrote a quick one-pager that I routinely send to recruiters who are particularly bad at their supposed job, http://notphil.com/recruiter_tips.html

Someone
"I would think that enough recruiters would have learned that building relationships is far more valuable than mass-emailing"

Is it? Let's play devil's advocate. I think the following are at least somewhat true statements:

1) most vacancies are for run-of-the-mill jobs. Hence, the average recruiter has more of those vacancies than those that would help "building a relationship". Chances are even that most recruiters have only run-of-the-mill jobs on offer. Given that, they cannot afford to spend much time aiming precisely. So, they use buckshot instead.

2) if a recruiter finds you a job you like, you should be off the market for years (freelancing excluded). If a recruiter needs to land x jobs per year, and people stay in those jobs for y years on average, he needs a) x good vacancies per year, and b) relationships with about x times y good developers. I do not know what are realistic values for x and y, but I guess x cannot be much smaller than 25 (otherwise, one could easily run for a month without placing somebody anywhere. That probably would upset his boss, or worry the self-employed recruiter), and y probably would be around 5 years or more. So, a 'good' recruiter would need a relationship with over 100 people. Once one knows those people, that is doable (working full time, that is about two hours a month per person to keep up with LinkedIn profiles, blogs, whatever), but finding them in the first place will be a challenge.

3) it may be more profitable to get a good relationship with employers than with developers because those employers will bring in the vacancies without which you cannot do anything.

4) pay for typical recruiters may be too low to attract people with the combination of technical and social skills needed to do the job well.

georgieporgie
I voted the 3rd option, though I really wanted a fourth, "I avoid all but a very few recruiters." I can think of two or three recruiters who have contacted me with actual relevant jobs. Once, I was actually shocked at how accurately I fit the position's requirements.

I have been placed in a few jobs by recruiters.

I rarely, if ever, call a recruiter back. And I never return any contact if they say something like, "we'll see if we have anything that fits," or especially if they want me to come by in person (those are the sleaziest).

kaffeinecoma
I get this "let's meet in person" come-on by recruiters all the time, and find it really creepy. When I ask why, they say something like "I like to form a personal relationship with all my potential clients" or some BS like that.

What are they really trying to do? Is this some way for them to have "dibs" on you, in case you somehow manage to get an interview with one of their client companies independently?

Evgeny
My guess would be that they want to see if a candidate is cleanly shaved, neatly dressed and can communicate in person?
DarkShikari
"I like to form a personal relationship with all my potential clients"

And dishonest as well. You're not the client; you're the product.

saraid216
For me at least, it's harder to pick apart what someone says out loud, but if you write it down and hand it to me, I can re-read it at leisure and tell you in minute detail all the idiocies.

Spoken word coding would kill me.

ultrasaurus
For low-quality recruiters it's about their value maximizing function (odds you'll take job * odds they'll take you): - visiting them in person shows willingness to accept arbitrary tasks (or desperation, either way it shows that you're likely to accept a non-ideal job) - they want to see that you won't embarras them (since all they know about you is buzzwords on your resume and that you're the kind of person who responds to unsolicited recruiting)
georgieporgie
I was warned years and years ago that these calls and visits are a waste of time by a friend. A few years ago, though, I got such a call and decided to give it a shot. I figured, sure, maybe they just want to make sure you're presentable in person. They said they had several positions they wanted to discuss with me.

So I went to their office in SF. I had to wait around for awhile before finally being led back by what I can only describe as a bimbo recruiter. I sat at her desk among a see of other recruiters (most on phones) as she plodded through my resume and did God knows what on her computer. Basically, she completely failed to comprehend anything about my skill set and, in person, did that recruiter thing where they repeatedly mention jobs wholly unrelated to anything in your past.

Then they wanted references. Without any job having even been specified. I refused, stating that I only give references when an offer is on the table. They kept prying, saying they needed to vet me before presenting me (again, to no job that had been mentioned). Basically, I think they were just trying to pump me for contact.

Eventually, they gave up and went on to ask about past salary. As a matter of principle, I refuse to give this out. If you don't know what I'm worth, you shouldn't be in the business. They continued to pry, for some reason refusing to take "none of your business" for an answer. Finally, she asked if I could meet with some other guy.

So I sit in another room for ten minutes until this guy finally walks in. Turns out he's just there to try and break me for salary info. I keep telling him various version of, "I have a policy of never discussing past salary," to no avail. Finally he says, "look, I understand if you were underpaid," (I wasn't), "but you can either tell us, or there's nothing more we can do here." I said, "okay," and walked out.

A week later I got an email from the same idiots about another position completely unrelated to my skillset. I responded, telling them that I thought they were downright creepy and not to contact me again. He emailed me back to "disagree". I blacklisted their domain in my email client.

So, basically, my impression is that at best you are dealing with someone who values their time above yours, and more likely someone who is trying to pump you for information.

kd0amg
I think if I ever get that suggestion, my response will be something like, "Ok. I can generally be found at the following location during working hours: ...." (which wouldn't be too difficult for them to find out if they really cared to).
ja27
I get about 1 every other day. I ignore them. They generally are so clueless that they're not worth my time. If I ever wanted one, I know a couple recruiters that know what they're doing.
moomin
Do what I do: set up gmail rules to delete the email and send a canned reply. If enough people do this, the spam recruiters will be effectively DDoSing themselves.
jon914
I get mostly relevant opportunities, but they never acknowledge that I'm already running my own company, even when contacting me via LinkedIn where that's pretty obvious.

These aren't exactly no-name companies or recruiting firms but the actual companies themselves - we're talking about Zynga, Playdom, ngmoco, etc.

Is this something other founders have found?

binarymax
My standard response is I charge £300 per hour. They tell me they'll keep me on file and disconnect pretty quickly.
ehynds
Nothing pisses me off more than when a recruiter calls my work line to pitch their openings, which they seem to be doing more and more lately. For that reason I vote #3.
kaffeinecoma
I also get about 5 per day, and more than that if I've tweaked my profile on LinkedIn or similar sites recently.

Dear recruiters: adding "Urgent requirement!!!" to the subject line, or a "X-MSMail-Priority: High" header really does not make the offering more interesting to me.

Apreche
I get a lot. The problem is that almost all of them are not offering realistic opportunities. They are all start-ups that are offering not enough money, expect you to work more than 40 hours a week, and forget vacation days and benefits.

Don't call me unless you are offering a huge pile of cash and/or 30+ vacation days.

SomeCallMeTim
Amen. :)

In my case they almost all want me to work in Silicon Valley. I live in Boulder, and it would take a lot to convince me to leave.

I've had offers of VP-level equity, but what I want at this point is founder-level equity. So I'm doing my own thing.

fennecfoxen
I get the occasional recruiter email, and mostly I don't mind it, except for the one doofus recruiter at Meru. I specifically call him a doofus because:

- I told him politely exactly what he was doing wrong and why I wasn't interested (including that he was recruiting me to the wrong team with the wrong programming language experience)

- He sent me the exact same pitch a few months later

- I replied again, mocking him and his company openly, telling him "feel free to contact me like this again in the future; I'll tell all my buddies in engineering about it and we'll all laugh at you (and recruiters in general)."

- In response he said "We should grab a coffee and talk more in detail about your advice."

Uh-huh.

tovmeod
I don't mind so much but it is because I am looking for a job right now. Lets see if they continue to spam me after I get a job
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veyron
I deleted my linkedin account thanks to the glut of recruiters trying to grab me.
dredmorbius
I've thinned mine very markedly. Seems to help. Deletion would be a next step.
rhnet
I'm still in school and only do internships/co-ops but I still get bombarded with calls and emails for fulltime. I have a canned response for the emails now.

I wish recruiters would spend a little more time looking at my resume to see that all my past jobs have intern in the title and that I don't graduate for a while. The 'Senior Hadoop Engineer' position doesn't really fit me...

eridius
I just got an email today from a recruiter advertising a contracting position... at the company I already work for (full-time).
tlrobinson
I know someone who was contacted for a job he had recently quit.

I've also had multiple recruiters contact me for the same job after telling them I wasn't interested.

quartzmo
Why are recruiters so convinced that my inevitable destiny is to move to the Bay Area?
samsoffes
Because there are a lot of awesome jobs here :)
quinndupont
Usually I find them rather annoying, but I do like the smug sense of "I'm so in demand!" Then, they inevitably say something suggesting that I'm like, the 1000th person they have contacted today.
dkastner
I read your Hacker News post and was very impressed by your skills. I would like to talk to you about a career opportunity that I'm sure you would find very interesting. Please contact me if you are interested.
badclient
Even funnier are seemingly personalized emails I get from Valley M&A firms for a start-up of mine that died two years ago. They are all very interested in its M&A potential. Ha.
noodle
I get a lot. And I've seen both sides of it, both as someone who was referred to a job by a good recruiter and as someone who has interviewed a lot of people referred by various recruiters.

I don't mind the ones that know the tech industry and actually make effort pairing people with positions that fit them. There aren't many of those out there, but they tend to produce higher quality candidates and consequently, get their people hired.

I do mind the ones that are spammers or more predatory. Just wastes my time, both as a job seeker and as someone with a hand in the hiring process.

dustingetz
i think, the better the seeker's skills, the less helpful a recruiter is. recruiters want to fill positions quickly, the employers that use recruiters want to fill positions quickly. as such they are more worried about getting someone at "market salary" than a rockstar. "market salary" can mean a lot of things, but in the contexts I usually see it, it means something between "our business requires competent, experienced non-experts" and "warm bodies please, we bill by the hour". disclaimer: I make a market salary.
damncabbage
It's a nice problem to have people contacting you with positions; my print designer partner would love to be in a similar spot. :(

Having said that, though, I receive a lot of phone calls from recruiters who've found my LinkedIn profile... But not the big notice that says I'm not looking for any PHP-related positions. I feel like every profile I have needs to have a "No PHP, no contracting, no moving to Canberra" notice stuck at the top.

There are some great recruiters (http://stevegilles.com/ is one such guy in Sydney), but it's unfortunate that there are just so many dropkicks that don't even do the bare minimum before contacting you.