I am still making kind of research of the relations between recruiters and candidates. Here are 8 things that make me sick in recruitment letters.
And what bothers you in the emails with job proposals?
- My name is not {first name}.
- I am not willing to answer the letter that has "urgent" in the topic. That's not only unpolite, but also weird. Like I'd write them back: URGENT RELEASE PLEASE HELP FIND DEVELOPERS.
- Recruiters worry about me and my health (not true at all). That's why they all start their letters with "I hope you are doing well". Why they disappear when I am really sick and need some lemon? :D
- "Opportunities" everywhere. Almost all of them are unique.
- I am not a rockstar.
- Not a ninja.
- No, not even a jedi.
- And more important: Java and JavaScript ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
Remember my review of the tool called Reply.id? Still use it and my personal bot. Still works pretty well for me (and it's free, not like Chatfuel that I used before).
Latest comments (32)
Right now, since I have a LinkedIn Premium trial, my biggest grievance is the recruiters who start it off like we're bffs and have been in contact for ages.
This is a message from someone I never had contact with, who sent it via InMail:
This just has scammy spam written all over it with how terribly generic it is. There are a lot of words but no information.
"I have a role that looks like a perfect fit for you..."
Based on what? Not based on my CV or my LinkedIn profile, that's for sure.
Your database is broke, mate.
"I see you were in the same room as a Java developer, once, six years ago. How would you like to head up a team of 40 Java developers?"
Flattering, I think? But, err... no thank you.
I dislike when the recruiter gets their creep on.
Hit me up on LinkedIn with a message? That's cool, though I'm not likely to reply unless you have a compelling reason for me to do so, based on what my history has been.
If that's followed up by a friend request on LinkedIn, nope, sorry we're done here. In what world would it make sense for me, the currently employed candidate, to accept a public friend request from a recruiter? I like my job, I don't know you, and this could make people think I feel the opposite. just no.
I've had that followed up with an email to my personal work email (they guessed the format; not that hard). My jaw dropped, it's like you were smart enough to guess the email address but ignorant or uncaring enough to respect my current employment...get bent.
Sometimes they can get my number, which is listed in a few discrete places. They'll give me a call up like we're old buddies. This one time, they had me going for a few minutes thinking we worked together; until they generalized something and I caught on. I said please hold, and got in my car and took an hour drive with my phone on and the radio jamming. I think they lasted 15 minutes before giving up.
So where does it go from there? Am I going to be blocked from walking into my office because the recruiter is there waiting for me? will they be at my house when i get home?
It boils down to respect, some recruiters just have none and are trying to make their quota. The few that I have worked with, when looking for my previous position, we're great. They were informed about the position, the qualifications, my experience, and did not try to use pressure to force me to make decisions.
I can't stand when recruiters assume that my non-answer is because I am very busy or must not have seen it. It's very passive aggressive and entitled when they title it "I assume you've been busy since I haven't heard back from you."
Can you not? Thanks.
When they say: I saw you github profile so you are probably interested in angular or drupal.
But I never developed with that technologies.
I hate a lot because seems that they try to see that they are not n00b in tech but show how much they are
facepalm
and this happen quite often
The whole recruitment industry is so bad I cant even.
Not even half the emails I get even contain a salary ballpark so why on earth am I going to waste my time with it.
It's almost worse when they do something like
WTF. What am I supposed to do with that information?
While I'm not looking right now, here are some from my job search earlier this year:
Sending out emails that don't match the skill set of the recipient. For example, sending a DBA emails about front end dev jobs.
Asking for advanced degrees when it obviously isn't necessary for the job (this means this is a low paying contract job specifically for a H1B contractor).
Asking about visa status (another H1B contract job tell).
Asking for private information like passport or social security numbers up front (no, just no).
Buzzword bingo recruiting ("Java ninja", "TDD Rockstar", etc)
Asking for unlikely combos of experience, such as someone who is an expert in Oracle, embedded systems and web front ends.
Asking for unrealistic experience, such as someone who has 5+ years experience in a framework or technology that was released less than 5 years ago.
The worst though are recruiters who do send you well targeted emails that you respond to but they ignore you and keep sending you more job listings.
On the flipside I feel so blessed that we literally have people offering us jobs left and right. Count your blessings and don't be rude to these people who are just trying to make a living.
Any sense of urgency is a red flag for me. Last time I saw the word "ASAP" in the message I asked why is that, he never replied :))
For more info you have to contact "X". This is another big issue, if you cannot answer basic questions why do you bother me? You are a bot (human or not) :/
Not mentioning onsite or relocation bonus (or lack of). This means that is only natural for them for employees all around the world to just move to a new country with their families, for their company.
Not reading my profile - I stopped responding to these, if the message is irrelevant to me.
Most of the times there are just bots anyway, or they do not care and treat us like sheeps that just play nice for money :(