It's already June of 2018, and I still haven't made but one other post this year. I really had hoped to be a better Blogger. Sorry to my legions of listeners out in the world.
Now that I've gotten my Pitty Party out of the way, I want to save something here so that I don't lose it again. I've recently received another recruit email totally unrelated to anything I've ever done, and I am debating on whether I should respond to this pathetic, resume-keyword-scraping "recruiter". Since I've ranted in the past about "recruiters" like this, I went looking for my old post and discovered that GoDaddy had moved their Lazy-Person's Page (or InstantPage). I thought I'd lost my rant, but was able to recover it. Since it's something near and dear to my heart (and I've actually been complemented on it by one of the legitimate recruiters I've spoken of), I figured I needed to re-post it somewhere that is less likely to disappear. So without further ado......
GoDaddy InstantPage for CodeFuMonkey.com, Advice To Recruiters.
NOTE: July 2015 - I was going to remove this, but the last several months have shown that this paragraph is still just as relevant now as it was when I first wrote it. The number of recruiters that I have worked with has increased, but so have the number of purely BAD recruiters who don't even take the time to bother figuring out who I am before they shotgun-approach me for some irrelevant position. You people are doing a HUGE disservice to your profession. Do your shady practices really work? Get with the program. Please.
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I like recruiters. I've had mostly good experiences working with them. All of my contract gigs were through a recruiter. My last two permanent positions were due to recruiter placement. I tell you this because I don't want you to think I have a bad opinion of recruiters. I don't. But I am annoyed with some of you right now. So I have some advice for recruiters from an IT professional.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE actually take some time to read my resume before sending me an email telling me what a great candidate I am for a Senior-Level Developer position in a language that I have done a single project in many years ago. Or even worse, that I'm the Director of Nursing that you've been looking for, as a recent recruiter messaged me.
I know that a lot of these emails are automated. I know a lot of the candidate flagging is done by keyword scanning. You may think this saves you time, but more often than not, it doesn't. What it does do very effectively is alienate you. It makes me not want to work with you. If you can't take the time to understand what it is that I do or have done, how can you be a good advocate for me? You can't.
I don't mind if you flag my resume through a keyword search. I understand why you have to do that. I'm sure that there are thousands upon thousands of resumes that you hunt through every day. It would be impractical to manually look at them all for even a single position. But when you do get a hit on my resume, take a minute to read it before you send me a form letter about how perfect I am for the position you're trying to fill. Trust me when I say that, for something like this, a targeted approach is much more valuable than a shotgun approach. Not only will you be more likely to get a response, but you'll be working to better the reputation of recruiters everywhere.
IT people can be finicky. We have long memories and, more importantly, we talk to each other. It behooves you to make a good impression on us. And it can really hurt if you become known as someone who spams us for unrelated jobs.
And to those recruiters out there who have been doing a good job for us, who have taken the time to find out who we are and what we do before trying to place us, who take the time to check in with us every now and then to see how we're doing, I offer a sincere thank you.
Shawn
Thank you!
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