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Ask HN: How do you handle rude/aggressive recruiters?

4 points by anonymuse ↗ HN
http://pastebin.com/n3cGvi4E

I haven't received a truly aggressive recruiter response in some time, so it prompted me to wonder how other people handle these sorts of approaches. I'm mostly interested in limiting the harm they'll do to anyone else in their search, as this sort of dialog doesn't bother me too much.

How have you all handled this effectively in the past?

Thanks!

16 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] thread
opless
I hang up on them after telling them that I'm not interested in talking to them.

Reasons include "I'm onsite, so can't talk, sorry"/"I'm about to go into a meeting"/"I'm not interested in your role"/"Please remove my details from your system"/"Stop harassing me, otherwise I'm calling the police"

I've only had one particularly aggressive recruiter around 2000 wanting me to work at Yahoo. I was quite happy with being at my start up and he threatened me with not working through his agency, ever. I agreed with him I'd not want to work with his agency. Hasn't affected my workload then or now. Though I was terribly paranoid about it at the time.

90% of my work over the past 5 years has been repeat business through prior clients once they're outside the compete clauses.

Someone1234
Your reply was also rude. I'm not going to take sides since I dislike both.

PS - Including their email address (and name) but not yours seems extremely petty. Like this thread/negative exposure is effectively your way of getting back at them.

notahacker
Agreed... the whole conversation reads like parody: self-centred and inane recruiter pitch followed by smug, obtuse developer reply followed by recruiter amusingly taking umbrage at the reply and still trying to pitch the job.
anonymuse
Really? I spent a small amount of time trying to craft a suggestion that I honestly felt would help this person do their job better. I can see how it could appear potentially condescending, but how are we able to give people constructive advice if there's an effort at a concise, polite response and it's perceived as obtuse?

Using words such as "recommend", "advice", "friendly" in my mind conveys only transparency. I would genuinely like to know how this email could be re-written in a more helpful tone. Or is any response doomed to snarkiness?

brd
Disregarding the entire content of his email while simultaneously nitpicking his email etiquette is never going to come across as "friendly".

As its written, you just seem like you're dismissive and passive aggressive. If you had actually responded to the email and then added an aside about his email subject it would have come across much differently.

anonymuse
Thanks for the feedback. I'll consider that in the future. It's probably naive to think drive-by-criticism can be constructive in this setting.
joezydeco
You simultaneously tell the guy:

1) Email headers in all caps don't get seen by me.

2) I saw your email.

So, of course, the recruiter switches from spam-intake mode to "just cut the crap and tell me if you're interested or not, since you are responding". His job is to feed the hopper with resumes.

loco5niner
rude reply or not, he was correct.
helen842000
It looks awful but capitalized, asterisk filled subject lines do get a better response. I have A/B tested a lot of open rates.
jf22
New Filter->From: recruiter@gmail.com->Send to Trash, Mark as Read

Problem solved.

joezydeco
"I'm mostly interested in limiting the harm they'll do to anyone else in their search"

Can you elaborate? This recruiter's email is spam, literally. Most people hit delete and move on. I'm curious where the harm is coming from.

DanBC
i) don't reply to spammers

ii) mark it as spam

It's obviously pushed some buttons - you replied and you started a thread here. It's probably best to just mark it as spam and ignore it.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
MalcolmDiggs
I usually just try to hammer home:

* What kind of work I actually do (specific skillset)

* What kind of work I'm actually interested in (contract, full-time, etc)

You're not gonna stop the recruiters...you're just not... the best you can hope for is that they start to get to know you better and bring you better / more-targeted opportunities.

mb_72
My public Linked In profile mentions in the first line that recruiters are NOT to contact me for any reason; if they do so, then I feel no remorse in responding rudely. 99% of IT-type recruiters are untalented jerks making a living from the skills of others and are too used to spamming or using dirty techniques to do their jobs.

That said, I can't see what you can do to 'protect' others, just delete their emails, set a spam filter appropriately and move on.