I realize that, in writing this post, I may be shooting myself in the foot – but I think it needs to be stated, as I’ve not seen it anywhere else. There have been a few articles written elsewhere about what’s wrong with the recruitment industry: lack of caring, target-oriented, numbers game, that sort of thing. I understand the reasons why it happens, and it is fairly regrettable – but at the same time, I acknowledge that it was probably inevitable. When an industry booms, all sorts of people flock to it – both good and bad.
In the past I’ve worked with several good recruiters. I worked with an excellent firm to get my current position, and my company still uses them for placements. But for all the good ones, there are plenty more that are.. well, not very good. I remember an incident a little more than half a year ago where a staffer was spamming multiple developer lists with job posts, and when someone called him out, he defended himself with sexual epithets. This is clearly the exception and not the rule, but I doubt it’s an isolated incident.
Generally speaking, I’m fine with a recruiter messaging me on LinkedIn, or sending an email to my account. But recently they’ve started crossing lines by contacting me at my current place of work. The other day I was in a meeting, and when I came out, I was told that a recruiter had called the office and asked to speak to me directly. I then checked my personal email and saw that the same recruiter had sent me a note on LinkedIn. Aside from conveying a mild stalkerish feeling, that’s just in very poor taste. Why would you contact someone at their current job? I’ve also received a few emails from recruiters on my work email address – which is not publicly available. I don’t even know how they got that address. The sad thing is, I know I’m not the only person to which this has happened.
Overall I’m glad that there are recruiters out there, and I know that most do their jobs well. But there are enough bad apples in the bunch and they’ve gotten bad enough to the point where I – and other people – are getting somewhat bothered with it.
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