Slashdot Mirror
Shutting Down Annoying Recruiters?
An anonymous reader writes "My company is under attack by the leeches and bottom-feeders of the IT recruiting world. They call into our company phone directory constantly — hundreds of calls per day — trolling for names, hawking their job candidates, and refusing to hang up or stop calling, even if we curse their mothers. Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal: there is no 'do not call' list for US corporations, and it's not harassment. Through education, we've gotten our engineering group to stop answering the calls or hang up, but I was wondering if the Slashdot community has any ideas for more creative solutions to make this stop, either through technology, US law, trickery, etc."
Ask if you can call them back... get their number.
Post on /.
All interested slashdotters should then call this company asking about possible job and recruiting opportunities.
And that's that when you need someone to call and offer you a job or at least give you an interview, they don't return your calls. But when you don't want to hear from them, they don't go away?
Tell them you're looking for work and want an interview/offer and they'll stop calling for sure.
i am a soviet space shuttle
and block their phone numbers?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
At one point I worked in IT support for a telemarketer. AFAIK, from what they told me, if a company tells them to stop calling, they're supposed to add you to their own DNC list and they are not to call you anymore for fear of fines. The laws could vary from state to state, so YMMV.
My blog
Call the main number for the company harassing you and ask them if they're interested in purchasing 'x' number of units of whatever product your company supplies... keep this up until they stop.
If your employees are still being poached, then hey, you deserve it for underpaying them.
More likely, the recruiters will stop calling your employees. (But they might ask for a job themselves.)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Joe Smith
IT Director
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Tell them you're interested, but need to get off the call on your other line (or some excuse to put them on hold, set the phone down). Then put them on hold until they hang up themselves. It will take up their time so they at least can't make as many calls. When they start wising up to that, keep a bull horn next to your phone and just try to deafen them.
Tell them you're looking for a "make up the engineering position" and to send resumes to a specific address. When they start asking why candidates aren't suitable, string them along further. If they get testy, tell them you really aren't interested and just want to waste their time so they stop bothering you.
Airhorn into the phone? Nah, too harsh...
Have somebody ask for an interview. And go to it. And explain the situation to the company the leeches are shilling for, and that because they are using such an annoying headhunter, neither they nor anyone else in the company would ever consider working for them. Then just walk out.
> there is no 'do not call' list for US corporations, and it's not harassment.
Correct, there is no Federal Do Not Call list. It's also irrelevant -- if they are told to stop calling, they must stop calling -- period. Anything else is harrassment. If you're a big company, just ring up your legal department, tell them the problem, and they'll craft a nice Cease and Desist letter. They live for that sort of thing.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Recruiters make money by getting candidates hired. Eat up their time, pass them back and forth. They are just like telemarketers. If they can't sell, they don't eat.
It's been successful where I work.
I am pretty sure that if you ask them to not call you back and get the company name that you can stop then from calling.
When they call they are using company resources so they are a cost to you. A simple nastygram from your lawyer should telling them to stop or accept that you will charge them by the hour for the time they waste should work.
Or hire someone for minimum wage to waste their time. When ever they call just forward them to the min wage worker and have them just eat up as much of their time as possible. Summer is coming up so I bet some employee at your company has a teen that would like a summer job.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I dunno, as someone who lived through and managed to stay employed in IT in the early 2000s after the dot bomb, it's nice to be back in a position where job offers are coming to look for me rather than the other way around. I still remember how incredibly easy I got my position in 1999 when things were insane and then how hard it was to get the next job after that place folded in 2001...
Maybe there are worse things than being called by recruiters? (not saying they're not annoying, of course)
Act completely insane, or just meow. Works for me. Acting... yes, just acting..
Use number recognition.
.....
With this you can block them,
Or send all calls through to a person/ tape that just says aha, yes and then waits till they hangup.
Or if you are mean, post the phone number on a dating site as a female blond looking for a good
If they don't give the number, tell you are interested but can't talk now, and if they have a number you can call back to later.
Greets
Sure you can hang up on them... Or you can waste thier time. Put them on hold. TELEMARKETER: Hi, I'm Calling From ---- Me: --- I'm So sorry, can i just put you on hold for like 2 minutes. TELEMARKETER: Uhh... Then you just see how long they are willing to wait.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
If it's a woman, start talking about how bad you want to drill her ass. Be very explicit. If it's a man, same thing. Just come up with the most vile stuff you can think of. If that doesn't work, bring some animals into your verbal fantasies. Try to make a game of it within the office to see who can come up with the most disgusting stuff or who can get the headhunter on the other end of the phone line to break down and start screaming.
..the calls to your operation in India...
1) Put a paper bag containing dog shit on their door step, light it on fire, ring door bell and RUN! ...
2)
3) Profit!
Air horn.
press 1 now.
If your thinking about blocking based on caller ID or not picking up when a particular person calls, here is some food for thought:
I work in an IT department for a large I.T. recruiting firm. We have our own PBX, so I can pretty much set my (and when desired, our recruiters) caller ID to whatever I want. Occasionally I call my friends as the Devil, 666.
I dont think anyone here is harassing people, but what do I know, Im just the IT guy. I do know requests to change peoples caller IDs happen seldomly. Perhaps once a month.
I imagine a PBX like asterisk would let you block incoming calls from any particular numbers, assuming the caller ID info is provided.
I'm surprised this isn't legally harassment. They're unsolicited calls costing you time, and therefore money. What if they were to fill up your lines so no one else could call into your company? Is a phone DDOS attack legal?
How about putting up a short message to all callers that you have the right to bill for phone time. Don't bill your customers but bill these recruiters for thousands of dollars an hour.
Developers: We can use your help.
Get everyone at your company to call them back two times a day each, maybe 10 if you are very annoyed. They soon will stop doing the same to you.
Act interested, put them on hold for 5 minutes. Act interested again, put them on hold for another 5 minutes. Act interested again, put them on hold for another 5 minutes. Then tell them they are suckers and they just wasted 15 minuted of their life on a fruitless venture.
It is fun, rewarding, and it hurts their bottom line.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
At a certain large veteran's hospital, telephone solicitors used to call every phone in the building, one after another, trying to sell stuff to the patients.
As it happens, the local sysadmin looked after quite a number of machines which updated each other via uucp, so he added an aggressive contact schedule for the number the telephone solicitors were calling from.
After a few hours of autodialing by a pool of uupcds, he commented out the new number and called them by voice, to see if they would now agree not to call the patients.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Recruiters are clients of the companies they are trying to hire for. Ask them about the job, then get the company its for. Call that company's HR department and complain and tell them the recruiters they use are harassers. Ideally, if you expose these bottom feeders as being bottom feeders most rational people would drop them. What kind of candidates are they trying to get by using this method? Probably not very good ones.
These recruiters are incredible. I used a few a few years back and I STILL get a phone call 3 or 4x a month from a breathless desperate guy who really needs to fill soem shit 2-week temp contract. I also submitted a resume or two fairly recently only to find they went through a recruiter who told me that job doesnt exist anymore and offered me to interview for some temp job. Bait and switch?
The industry really needs to take a good look at recruiters in general. I cant see them being more efficient than in-house hiring.
forever, if you have 2nd line.
"...and refusing to hang up..."
That's only a problem when YOU refuse to hang up, but I see that you've "trained" your guys to hang up. Problem solved.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
...to Exit by Hypnoskull.
They'll never call back again.
Not sure about recruiters, I usually had good luck with demanding swag before I would talk to vendors. Telling them to stop calling wouldn't work, but telling them they had to send me pens and coffee mugs with their corporate logo before I would talk to them usually did.
If they are calling from a central location like a business, it most likely has a "LDN" or listed directory number. Have your PBX check the ANI of incoming calls and route the offending LDN to a dead end "ring no answer" point, or to a message telling them to jump in a lake. You could also match on part of the number, ex: re-route calls that match 904-358-52xx
If the calls are coming from a host of individual numbers you could do the same, but it would involve harvesting the numbers as they are identified. This is the simplest and closest to the source way of blocking these types of calls.
Good luck!
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Why do they keep calling? Non-different from a telemarketer: if they're calls aren't fruitful they'd have no reason to call.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
don't go back. For grins time how long they wait. Waste their time.
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy
Since your attorney appears to know not of which he speaks. It can qualify as harrassment, file for ROs prohibiting phone calls from the recruiting companies.
Give their candidates fake appointments to fake addresses.
It's perfectly legal and their clients are going to stop dealing with them after a few trips to a vacant lot at 9am sharp (it sucks having to make their clients suffer, but they're the ones dealing with these jerks, it'll be a life lesson in karma).
You can't take the sky from me...
block the assholes at the PBX.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Wouldn't continued phone calls be considered harassment of sorts after you asked them to quit calling?
Enjoy Every Sandwich
... respond in Chinese (or any other foreign/fake language).
Ask them their company, and then tell them that if they wish, you will be happy to fporward their name to HR to be put on the list... of vendors who were banned from ever dealing with your company again.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
You've gotten your engineering team to block their calls. This is about all you can do, sadly. The first time you get a call, kindly re-direct them to your HR recruiter. Second call, do the same and tell them that if they directly call someone that's not an HR recruiter, you'll blacklist their number and block it. After the third time, block it, and flat out refuse any candidates from that agency. Legitimate agencies will play by the rules, whereas the shady / spammings ones will find themselves blacklisted.
The best way to get them to stop is to pay your employees what they are worth and treat them well. They'll stop calling once they realize no one wants to leave your company because they are fat and happy.
I guess it depends on your phone system's capabilities, but I set up a call-blocking system for one of my customers (using Asterisk) where, if an unwanted caller calls in, they can hit a key combination and the system flags the call as not-acceptable. In the future, if any calls come in from that number, they get sent to a generic message telling them that they have been added to a "reject call" list, and giving them instructions on how to be removed from that list (i.e. send a letter explaining why you should be allowed to call) in case of false positives.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
you must be working in an interesting environment there ...
Read radical news here
Set up a small little Asterisk server in your place and transfer them into hell http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Telema rketer+Torture
Infiltrated dot Net
The practice of recruiting aligns positions more closely with skillsets. They also assist employees in getting fair market value and job satisfaction. The aggressive recruiting practice that is spoken of is a sign that market conditions are 'correcting' for employees. Further correcting in the job market will eventually make this practice too costly.
That will only encourage them.
Here is what to do. Tell them in no uncertain terms that they are not welcome to call. Now, if you have an ISDN PRI or similar system, you may be able to get the ANI (like the caller ID but not blockable). Then set up an asterisk box to do prefiltering. Have it recognize calls from that ANI, and route into an indefinite hold queue.
Let them have tit for tat and pay back lesing for lies.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
>>...just ring up your legal department, tell them the problem, and they'll craft a nice Cease and Desist letter
Right, that's precisely why they're there. However, OP said "Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal" which leads me to believe the company attorney is the one who should be looking for new employment!
As you said, Harassment is illegal, and making many, many telephone calls which interrupt business after being told to stop is the very definition. This headhunting company has been instructed, verbally I presume, to stop contacting your company. It is time to put this in writing and start building an evidence chain so they can sue the pants off of the caller for lost productivity, misuse of resources and harassment. I'm sure a competent attorney can think of other charges to bring. But first OP needs to find one. IMO, the current attorney doesn't sound like he's earning his retainer.
I've been there but my previous head of dept used to encourage it and make it worse, absolutely never tell these tele-spammers that someone is unavailable because then they'll keep harassing you. If you (or your boss) is foolish enough, it'll begin interfering with your work.
The solutions are simple, either leave voice mail on and only respond to valid calls or unplug the phones. If spam carries on the way it's going we'll all have whitelist-only email too.
Also demand illogical requirements that any candidate will see as ludicrous. Skills in chmod, ASCII and INTERCAL, or 5 years experience in some technology that's less than 5 years old.
Ask for the person name, call back number, and whatever else they will give you, then ask to talk to there supervisor, and give them the 1-2 over the phone...
Those "leaches" saved my arse during the Great Tech Recession (2001-2004). They did the digging and embellishment better than I could or wanted to. Yes, they are slimey, but when you are desparate, you love those phoney little slugs like family. He'll, they probably kept my family together. Hug a Leach! (Just make sure to take weekly pay instead of monthly when contracting, because often your last paycheck goes into a black hole.)
Table-ized A.I.
At our company we have a special extension we use for all suspected marketing calls, known affectionately as extension 101.
:o)
This extension is hooked up to a CD player and is programmed to auto answer incoming calls. One of our audio guys has mixed up a CD containing endless "on hold" muzack and promotional messages for our company and this is left to play repeatedly in the CD player.
End result - all unsolicited calls get responded with a "I'll just connect you to the person responsible for that department" and are then transferred to extension 101 where they remain until they hang up. The best bit is that a red LED lights up on the line the marketer has called in on (indicating line in use), making it possible to time how long they spend listening to the 101 CD before disconnecting. The record so far is just over 18 minutes
I suppose if you wanted to be even more devious you could set extension 101 to divert to a premium rate number and make a bit of extra cash for every minute the dumb marketer stays listening to the 101 CD - this is probably illegal though (as most fun things are)...
1. Your company directory is automated (you know, "Please spell out the name of the person you wish to call on the keypad...")
2. It's on a seperate number than your front door. (This is what you should be doing...)
First off, change the telephone number that the company directory is on and keep it unlisted. Ensure employees know that it is not a public number. It's obviously been compromised somewhere along the line, and these -hats will continue to abuse it. Second, add a disclaimer to the message that is used on it. Something like "The company directory may only be used for authorized business, the following activities are prohibited: soliciting, debt collection, yadda yadda." Check with legal on what you should say. Third, awareness is more than hanging up. Teach your employees to get name, company, contact info, and have them write down how much time they spent handling it (probably a minute or so). This way, you can take it up the chain as a time waster and justify FIXING it. Better yet, make it a web application... :). Additionally, you now know what companies you can prosecute once you've done #1 and #2.
Lastly, get yourself a better lawyer. This joker sounds like he should be chasing ambulances. "We have no options, there's no such thing as a Do Not Call list for companies." There is ALWAYS a legal recourse, but it requires you to be attentive, up front, and document everything. Any responsible lawyer working for a corporation knows that, so get this slacker off your payroll.
You'll probably have problems with the -hats who keep records, and you may need to change your extension system. Once they are in, they will be in for a while.
StickyWidget AKA, Gizmo Glue
Here's an oldschool fax machine DOS prank that should at least inconvenience them as much as they have you. There's a good chance the company has a fax machine, and since they're a business you should be able to get ahold of that number very easily. Worst case someone may need to pose as a prospective IT hire and get the fax number in order to "send in your resume".
:)
Once you have the fax number just put together about 6 or 7 pages of whatever you like within reason and the bounds of law (i.e. don't send death threats or pornographic images), usually something inane and anonymous, perhaps lolcatz pictures. Tape all the sheets together end-to-end then insert into your fax machine, once the first part of the now super-length page comes through, loop the top around and tape it together, forming a nice infinite paper loop in the fax machine. Let this send all day if you like. On their end it will either eat all their paper, toner, or at the very least render the fax machine unusable!
Important! You obviously want to remain anonymous with this "fax" so be sure to prepend *67 to the fax number, this is the command to block caller ID.
Enjoy!
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
The theme of this Ask /. question is that the marketer is exceeding the bounds of etiquette. It also assumes they have been asked to stop.
Harlan Ellison had a better answer to this type of problem than the one above.
Locate a dead gopher from a highway. Send it to the offending place, with a recipe for Dead Gopher Stew.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
First, get caller ID at your incoming switchboard so you can log the numbers for all incoming calls. Second, contact the phone company and ask them if they can start blocking a list of phone numbers that you give them. (Everything should be available for a price.) Failing that, have your IT folks find a way to setup your own switchboard for incoming calls, and have it block calls from the offending locations. Any phone calls with caller ID blocked could be either blocked automatically, sent to a recording, or automatically redirected to a secretary who filters them.
I have never worked with such systems, but in the era of IP phones and other such solutions, there has to be a way to have a customized software featureset on a switchboard if these features are not already commercially available.
The folks on the phone have their marching orders. They make the calls on their list. That's their job. Arguing with/swearing at them might feel good, but it's a waste of time.
If they're hawking services/staffing, find out what firm they represent. Then find out who their VP of sales/business development is (googling is a good tool here). Call the VP of business development, and let them know, nicely, that if they want to be considered as a potential partner for your future staffing needs, the cold calling needs to stop, as does the poaching of your staff. If they're willing to work with you, you'll contact them when you have need for contract staff. If they can't agreee to those terms, then you will take all your staffing business going forward to their competetors, and they will have cost themselves any possible future business. And that you won't give favorable reviews of working with them to others who ask.
Deal with someone who understands and is empowered to maintain a positive business relationship with you. Staffing companies aren't stupid, at least not at the higher end of the spectrum.
I was getting anywhere between 3-10 calls (+ emails) per day from recruiters. I specifically listed the 2 cities that I was willing to work, and the technologies that I work with (linux/bash/perl/php/mysql/oracle/etc.), yet 1/5 of most of the calls were for .NET related jobs (which I have no interest or background in), and 98% of the time, the jobs were far from the cities that I specifically stated I'd work in. 2/5 of the time, the jobs were out of state.
Recruiters are the leeches of the IT world, no doubt!
I've met perhaps 3 (out of about 50, over the years) that actually took the time to understand the differences in the technologies and job descriptions that they are recruiting for. I've been sent on wild-goose-chase interviews, and have endured verbal harassment in a few cases by a few IRATE/over-caffeinated recruiters who would be far better off working in a used car lot.
One recruiter from Manpower Professional (I don't remember his name, but that company I won't forget), called me about 2-3 times a day, for 3 days straight. He left 1 message each day, and by the 3rd day, he was yelling and cursing my voice mail for me not calling him back. I'm sorry, but that's just pathetic. Get a new job, buddy.
Since removing my resume from Dice.com, I now receive perhaps 2-5 offers/week (but still don't fit the criteria I'm looking for), and I've since given-up trying to find a new job (for now).
Good riddance, psycho over-caffeinated dice recruiters! Good luck!
*lose my #, plz. thx*
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Our voip phone system allows me to add in "blacklisted" phone numbers. that dump them to a generic mailbox. they cant access anything but the leave a message function. If your phone system cant do that, I strongly suggest upgrading as it's a function that is worth it's weight in gold.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Hi, you're from where? Oh, sorry, you're not on our preferred vendor list, yeah, I couldn't work with you even if I wanted to until you are. Call (sourcing/purchasing/whatever) and see if you can get set up." And then walk down to purchasing and tell them in no uncertain terms that, whatever criteria they need to not put them onto the list of approved vendors, they fail somehow.
The definition of telemarketing in 16 CFR 310 says "..induce the purchase of goods or services.."
Recruiters are not telemarketers, and are therefore not subject to the "do not call" regulations.
You need to get more creative.
I would first ask "why is this a problem"? Do your employees just find the calls annoying, or have you lost any employees to the recruiters. If you have lost employees, then I would say the recruiters are performing a valid service of helping people find jobs that they are more satisfied with. In this case, you need to address the problems that encourage your people to leave. Doubling their salaries might be a good start.
If your employees just find the calls annoying, and not a single employee has said anything encouraging to the recruiters, one has to wonder why they keep calling. You would think that if nobody ever talks to them, provides a resume, takes an interview, or moves to a new job, they would eventually move on to greener pastures.
How about holding a contest? Encourage your employees to record the calls and curse the recruiters in the most explicit language possible. Play back the recordings in your next company-wide meeting, and give cash rewards to the employees who are most insulting to the recruiters.
I was getting hangup robodialed calls about 10x per day, all hours. Sometimes it would fail over to a recorded message with an 800 number. Once when I was home during the call, I picked up and someone asked for a person with my first initial and last name. Different first name. I was so mad I had my modem dial every 60 seconds for a week while I was out of town. It made me feel good.
Now that robodialers are becoming more and more of a nuisance, I want to enhance my counterattack. Anyone know of a free app that'll dial the offending number and play an audio file of me ranting? Maybe I can robodial every member of congress nonstop until they pass legislation banning robodialers!
Man, you really need that seminar!
>>Eat up their time, pass them back and forth. They are just like telemarketers. If they can't sell, they don't eat.
It might be effective, but why should your employer pay you and your colleagues just to convince a telemarketer to piss off? How much is it costing your company to deal with these jerks? Hundreds a day? Thousands?? At $40 or so per hour, it doesn't take long for the figures to add up! A large employer might not notice, but a small shop would definitely feel the pinch of paying salaries in exchange for no real work product.
The caller is at fault here. They've been told to stop. Bring in a competent lawyer and dash off a letter or two. If that doesn't stop the calls post haste, sue them for damages and recoup the legal expenses and lost productivity.
All calls from agencies get redirected to one person who manages an approved short list of agencies. The list gets populated through a tender process.
/dev/null as soon as they call. It completely wrong foots them when they phone.
We used to get tons of these, now they simply get pushed off to
Assuming the phone charges won't hurt, if it's a call from the recruiters, have it go right back out and call *them*. So the more they call you, the more they call themselves.
"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere -- like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. 'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say.
"Now where were we? Oh yeah -- the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Ask for their fax number to send over some information. That night, send an infinite fax. Just take like 5 sheets of black construction paper and tape the ends together. Start faxing after business hours. Once the first page comes through, tape it to the last page. When they come in the next morning, their fax machine will be out of paper/toner.
Get some lowly paid interns to act interested and just simply waste their time making them repeat everything they say atleast twice.
Then half an hour later, tell them you are not interested.
It may waste a bit of your time but hey, its called multitasking
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
What's even better than asking for their number? Asking them questions! This is pure gold when it comes to social engineering. Pretend to be open and helpful, but interrupt their script with questions, any kind of questions! Have you ever wanted to ask someone an embarrasing question, but was too afraid to ask? This is the chance. You have their time. Its NOT considered RUDE to interrupt with questions. This shows interest, even if off topic and devious. Ask questions on crack. Take notes, compile the best, and compare with others. Research the physical call center and who runs it. Posting online to your favorite forum of choice is evil and I would never suggest doing such a thing....unless you want the most popular thread of the week! Give them the attention they crave. Stop them cold.
Telemarketers can be fun. I've identified several, got a few shut down, and got retaliated against one (who happened to be the phone company forcing their employees to cold call during idle time.)
So you can say anything you want. I like to start breathing heavy, and saying "say that again, but faster... yeah, that's it. say it again, oh yeah..."
I had a problem like this once. My ex-Bitch and her boyfriend used my name on a whole shitload of stuff a few years back. I was getting calls from creditors and other scum all the fucking time. I walked in one day and there was a 56 call on my answering machine from the fuckers. Straw, meet camel.
A few minutes of research and I came up with some free call management software, fifteen minutes after that I had my computer screening my calls. Basically what I did was run the phone line to the caller id modem on my box. The call screening software would compare the incoming number against a white/black list. White list and the computer would ring, I turned the ringer off on the phone. Black list and the computer would just simply drop the call. Not on ether and the computer would not ring but let the call through for the answering machine to pick up.
I rigged this thing up in 15 mins. If I can do it that time a retarded monkey should be able to in half that. I used it for a number of years till I just had the phone disconnected. I don't have any links for you but a google search should find you everthing you need.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Ask out for lunch/dinner (depending on your sexual orientation)
If you just don't want the hassle at all, determine the number they are calling from and contact the telco to arrange call blocking for that number.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Hire someone in India to take these calls. Give him a nice title and put his phone number on your website. Pay the Indian guy by the number of hours he keeps the caller on the phone.
You could always ask them what they're wearing. You can ask if they wears boxers or briefs (applicable to female callers too). Cotton or lace. Hell, use your imagination. :)
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's always worked for me. Somebody calls trying to recruit me, I tell them "Can you find me a job paying this much that doesn't require me to wear a necktie?" Wonder of wonders, they never call back.
That's pretty sad, now that I think about it... tells you just how much recruiters think (or companies believe) a tie is worth compared to competency.
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
Why not just blackhole the numbers in your PBX?
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
After I switched my cell phone from Cingular to Virgin Mobile last year, I continued to get spam text messages and automated calls reminding me to "buy a new phone and pay up my account or lose my number" due to their impending termination of AT&T Wireless' old TDMA network.
Eventually it was enough that I called Cingular to bitch at them, since it had been months since I was their customer, and I had no intention of switching back to them.
After chatting with her supervisor, the service rep I talked to told me to put my number on the national Do Not Call list and wait six weeks for it to take effect. I asked to be put on their internal Do Not Call list right away, and I was told they no longer had one.
* Don't forget, Cingular is now the new AT&T. Same shit, different name.
** Virgin Mobile sends me text mail spam, but I don't mind as much because the prices and convenience are much better.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I hate to be a paranoid, but I wonder if this could be a call from an internally-hired agency... you know, just calling up key people to see if anyone is disloyal? If the employee volunteers information or acts interested in a new job, they are mysteriously dismissed a few days later.
I had heard of this tactic being used prior to the IT Tech Boom but not recently. [IIRC, it was the brainchild of the VP of a certain large database software company and also occurred at a large company which writes OSes and application software. The idea was to remove anyone who wasn't loyal. The result was a huge number of very qualified people were dismissed and morale was crushed. But I'm sure the VPs got a nice bonus anyway.]
In this case, it might explain why the company attorney isn't too responsive, when they're normally over-eager to fire off letters of reprimand.
The Telecrapper 2000 Telemarketer Interception System! See this flash example of it in operation.
As several people have suggested, try to blacklist numbers to either not allow them through or put them on permanent hold. For those that do get through, issue a policy that any of these annoying telemarketers should be forwarded to a certain extension number, which is the permanent hold queue I mentioned before. For added hell - have an announcement every minute or so, such as "your call is important to us..."
:-)
As another alternative, make some money out of it. Tell them to call you back on another number which happens to be premium rate - the longer they talk, the more your make!
1. Get Information
I would suggest playing along for a while and trying to get people's names, phone numbers, addresses, etc... Ask for the name of the person calling. Ask for their business' name, their address, their boss's name, their phone #. What company or person are they hiring for?
Accumulate as much information as possible. Keep on asking for stuff (social security #'s? Credit Card #'s?) until they won't give anymore.
2. Get Mobilized
If the company calling you is local, great! Otherwise -- find some friends in the city where these people work or live. Go to their place of business and get to work.
I suggest:
3. Win
Oh -- two more hints:
1. Call the Better Business Bureau on these people (not sure if it would help)
2. Try calling up your state legislature and asking them to make it illegal to harass businesses over the phone. This harassment is hurting your business, which in turn hurts the economy of your state, so I feel like they would have an interest in stopping this kind of flagrant pestering...
coding is life
When I was a young, mischievous programmer, I had an excellent way to deal with the more pushy, unethical sort of recruiters. I said, "Hey, that sounds like an excellent opportunity! How about we talk about it over lunch?" I picked my favorite nearby (expensive) seafood restaurant, and we went out and grabbed a meal. The recruiter would then proceed to lavish me with praise, and tell me about all the great opportunities out there for me, while I was busy enjoying the rich, saffron-infused Portuguese fisherman's stew. Then, I would go back to my office, and ignore all contact from that recruiter for the next month.
Sometimes, you could even get the same recruiter to take you to lunch more than once. "Oh, I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you. I've been SUPER busy. Hey, but this new opportunity sounds really interesting. Can we talk about it over lunch?"
"City Morgue: You Kill 'Em, We Chill 'Em!"
Have affected staff announce rates to the nuisance callers, log all time spent on calls, then generate invoices for the billable hours. (You are not forcing them to call you; they can stop running up their bill any time they choose.) Wait 90 days or whatever the law requires, then turn over to a collection agency.
"Time is an abstract concept devised by carbon-based lifeforms to monitor their ongoing decay." - Thundercleese
These folks are creeps! Treat them as such!
And when they try to indirectly insult your intelligence (like, "well, the way it's done is ...) it's a red flag that they're an asshole crook!
Watch out my friends! I've been burned a few times and by a few different methods by these smooth talking assholes.
When in doubt, a recruiter is a lier until proven innocent. Sorry, but that's what you have to do to protect yourself.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Our company phone system offers a different ring when the call is from the outside. When I answer the outside line, I simply say "Hello", like I would answer my home phone. There is typcially an awkward pause but eventually the caller with either indentify themselves or at least ask for me or someone by name. If the person does not know my name, there is a 99% chance, it is a cold call that I do not want and I will not offer ANY further information. Some of the callers are very sneaky, they will ask for your name and then call someone else and claim they got the number from me. "Oh, I was talking to John and he said you might be interested in blah blah blah.." If they can get someone you know but not really well like from a different or remote office then that person will typcially listen to the dribble. "Hey, I was talking to your co working in DC and he suggested I give you a call". Social engineering at the lowest levels.
I actually do field several calls from recruiters a week and all open positions they offer seem geared toward my position so I have no problem with the calls. I've given them my name and what I am interested in and that is all they call me for. If dude were calling everyday at random, I'd be frustrated.
I can get away with the plain "Hello" greeting because I an a network engineer, not a salesman, a manager, or a support rep. The only calls I should get from the outside are from friends, vendors or companies calling me back and they know my name before hand.
They are very unscrupulous people. They use all kinds of tricks like pretending to be other companies, pretending to be personal calls, or (one of their favourites) pretending to be doing surveys. You can ask them 10 times whether they are a recruitment agency and they will deny it 10 times, before the truth finally emerges. I used to work for a company with some very paranoid bosses and recruitment consultants forcefully trying to cold call individuals would end up causing a lot of stress and aggravation for everyone.
In the end we started to have fun with them. When they'd ask what we did, we'd just make up bizarre stuff like we hand knit wigs from Yak hair, or we make designer frying pans. After a few days of practice you don't feel at all awkward or embarrassed coming out with this sort of nonsense and it actually starts to make the calls more of a fun experience.
1) Get contact information for some of the candidates they are hawking.
2) Contact candidates, and cc recruiter, stating "Due to the unprofessional recruiting practice of XYZ recruiters, we are not accepting any candidates they represent."
3) XYZ will realize that they are not getting any hires, and may be losing resumes to push, and will have an incentive to leave you alone.
Some people thrive on meeting with hostility, so don't waste your time yelling at them.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
When poaching becomes a problem, this means the job market has shifted back to a "sellers market"!
Ka-ching!
Tell one recruiter that you are not interested, but you know some people who might be interested. Then give them the numbers for all of the other recruiters.
The problem here is that you're viewing these people as an annoyance, when you should be viewing them as an opportunity to take a short break from work and have a little fun. When one of these guys calls, have some fun with him. In the beginning, pretend that you're interested. He'll stay on the line because he thinks he has a prospect. Then, ever so slowly, allow the conversation to drift into the absurd. Think of how you can have fun with him by wasting as much of his time as possible, all the while entertaining yourself. The goal is to walk the fine line between believability and absurdity, so he isn't sure whether you're serious or just jerking him around, which will cause him to stay on the phone, just in case you're being serious. Eventually, the recruiting company will see that calling your company is so unproductive, they'll stop.
mrosenthal@conv.com
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Build a script to generate madlibs style random job specs.
Tell them you'd love to work with them. You have 20 positions open right now. Send 20 random specs over.
Pick ten random applicants for each position. Ask for the company to send them to all come for a day of interviews.
Have security explain why you were forced to take these measures. Escort them from the building.
Ask the company if they'd like to play this game some more.
You can always try paying your engineers well enough that they don't jump ship when offered a job. Those who complain about poachers act as if they have some sort of right to their employees. This is not feudalism, your employees are not bound to you, if they leave it is their right. If you underpay them, treat them like shit, or give them other reasons to go, you're getting what you deserve.
Personally, I'm glad that the recruiters are out there to remind me what I'm worth from time to time, even when I'm not actively looking for a job. These guys help keep wages and benefits high by giving managers something to fear. The annoyance is well worth it.
When they call up.
You usually have a secretary who answers.
She passes it to you. Have her tell the individual she is passing the caller to her manager, Billy Ray Cyrus.
You pick it up and constantly put the guy on hold making sure they know you are so interested in them. keep coming back every 5 minutes. Tell him you are a busy man with being a VP and all.
Then will stop calling when they keep getting Billy Ray Cyrus the VP of Troubleshooting.
They'll figure it out when they notice they're starving to death. Then the calls will stop.
They're spammers, right? What have we learned about dealing with spammers? Techniques that cost them resources are the most effective.
To that end, I like the idea earlier about having a college student who's job is to simply waste their time. Keep them on the line for as long as possible without actually achieving anything. This may spike the amount of calls for a few months, but I think you'll find that most companies won't waste the resources long term on an obvious blackhole.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
when i get calls like that at home i ask them if they can "hold on just a second" or "hold that thought please", and then i go back to what i was doing before.
when i come back(20 minutes later), they are gone.
not a problem.
We created a voice mail box just for that purpose. A phone-spam-quarantine, so to speak.
It's on everyone's extension list, so everyone knows to forward solicitors and recruiters to the 666 ext. (even some Ex's and Lawyers have been sent there)
Then, once a month, a script deletes the contents.
If it is really that bad, and you aren't interested in going down the lawsuit path, I would simply make it no longer worth their time.
You see, phone calls are CHEAP. But sifting through resumes and finding qualified people is more expensive.
Let them send you resumes. Tell them you want candidates with quality X, skill Y, and work experience Z. Then change your mind. Say you want to pay ridiculously low rates. Wait no, you have more in your budget now. But now you want a sys admin. But next week you want a programmer who know knows OS/2 like the back of his hand. The week after that you will only hire people that live within 5 miles of the office. Then when they really start narrowing it down, tell them the position filled up and that they should call back tomorrow for a new search. And perhaps after a few days of this, let them know that your company will never hire a single candidate that comes from them and that any candidate you ever speak to will be informed of this company-wide policy.
After a while, they'll realize they're wasting a LOT of time for no return at all.
I would avoid wasting a candidate's time, but if for some reason I ever ended up talking to one, I would tell them they are being misled by the recruiter because you've already told the recruiter you have no intentions of hiring from them.
If they're harassing you, the least you can do is make it EXPENSIVE for them to do so.
I tell you what, I've gotten rid of more tele-marketers that way. They stop their script dead in their tracks and usually hang up on me without so much as another word. Mission accomplished.
However, if they DON'T hang up after that, be very afraid.
More likely what will happen is out of work slashdot readers will call in asking if they have any jobs.
it was 2002 and it was hard as hell to find jobs? And remember when the recruiters were the only ones with the relationships with clients that could actually get interviews for people, while your resume sat in HR where Sally would glance for buzzwords on it between instant messages with her friends and happy hour planning? Take it easy on recruiters guys - hard times come back around, and your ass may be jobless and begging that a recruiter can actually get you in front of a hiring manager, as opposed to taking personalty tests with HR.
Hand out a whole bunch of those big whistles you see referees carry in sports games, and when people get one of these calls, have them take a good deep breath and blow.
My mother-in-law hasn't called the house in years, so I know it works!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
how about rerouting those calls (or transferring them manually) to a paid line, like one of those off-shore paid numbers, with pre-recorded message to keep them on hold as long as possible :)
Tell them you are going to transfer them but ask for their callback number in case of disconnection. Keep a list of these callback numbers.
When one of them calls, forward the call externally to the callback number of another.
Let them get a taste of their own medicine.
When I get "out of area" calls to my home office, I have an .mp3 of that high-pitched noise modem/fax machines make. Auto-dialers seem to hang-up instantly. Humans hate the sound and hang-up quickly. And my guess is that they remove the # from their dialing list, because using this technique for 2 weeks reduced my "out of area" calls more than adding my name to the Do-Not-Call list did!
Use this counter-script! I remember someone posting about this counter-script awhile back and it's been on my bookmarks every since!
It's pretty funny!
http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html
Piece of cake. New company policy: Forward all those calls to you (or, better yet, an intern) and ask the caller to meet you at some upscale restaurant with mandatory valet parking. "I'll meet you at the bar." Don't show up. They'll get stuck with at least the valet charge + tip. They'll probably have a drink or two at the bar. There's another $20.
Get their number and say, I'm really busy on a project right now, but I think that Joanna in one of our siste companies was looking for someone (take number and promice to call back)...
Now here is the interesting part:
* collect the numbers and names for half a dozen of these companies, call them *all* back and give them a random selection of each others contact information.
* smile knowing that they are wasting *each others* time now!!!
Put together a list of the recruiters, and their #s.
Have whoever administers your PBX set up a black hole for them.
And don't allow unidentified calls.
if they are "bottom-feeders" and they are calling your company, what does that say about your employees?
honestly, if you pay your employees well and keep them happy, this is nothing to worry about. if you really are worried, get rid of your electronic phone directory and hire a secretary to screen calls to the switchboard.
So the company lawyer says this is legal. Ask him if someone else performing a DoS attack against your company is legal, because that's what this is.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
it was 2002 and it was hard as hell to find jobs? And remember when the recruiters were the only ones with the relationships with clients that could actually get interviews for people, while your resume sat in some HR inbox for months being scanned for buzzwords? Take it easy on recruiters guys - hard times may come back around.
Hey, can you forward them to a pay-by-the-minute sex-chat or psychic hotline number, and have it appear on their bill -- not yours?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And say thank you.
You never know, you just might find a new job!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Funny, but in all seriousness this never works. At an old job I had an outgoing voicemail message that literally said, "If you are calling to follow up on an email you sent earlier, please hang up now." And still, damn near every single message I received was a cheerful person saying, "Hi, I was just calling to follow up on an email I sent you this morning..." Some of these people would call multiple times, again and again throughout the day. I know because I'd keep seeing their caller ID pop up on my phone. When it's somebody's job to try to reach you, that's what they'll do.
Breakfast served all day!
In a gruff, brooklyn-plumber style accent, tell him: "... Hey, you sound kinda cute!"
Privacy Statement: We value your privacy! It is very valuable. That's why we try to sell it whenever we can.
It's amazing how a little calm, forceful but clearly hostile response will cause them to remove you from their rolodex. This is a transcript of my latest victim:
http://synfin.net/sock_stream/archives/65
At one point when I was looking for work, the only way I could get interviews was through recruiters. All the job postings I applied to were postings from recruiters. That or they found my resume on monster, Dice, or some other way. A lot of the time I found that the postings were misrepresentative of what the job actually was or that I was being sent to interviews for positions which I was nowhere near qualified. So many times I'd go to find out that they also wouldn't be permanent, they'd be contract or temp only.
One situation I interviewed for a job as a PHP developer and the guy offered me a 30 day "trial". He said I would come in, work for 30 days and get paid as an employee, and after that we would revisit and see if I should be made permanent. He said I would have to absolutely commit to not looking for other jobs and focus 100% of my time with them. I ended up turning that down.
Another time I was hired for a job as a "Jr Programmer/Tech Support". Tech was in a terrible slump so for this position they offered me $26,000 a year. That's a damn insult but I needed work and experience so I took it. My first day, they tell me that i won't do any coding at first, only tech because I need "to learn the business" and "earn my wings" before I touch code. I found that horrific. I've never had a job where I had to learn the intricacies of the industry in order to write code for it. I've always been thrown in with explanations of what certain things are and learned what I needed along the way. Needless to say, the low salary and really crappy bait/switch with jobs left me pretty pissed and so I put no effort into the job. I ended up getting fired after two weeks and so I went to Best Buy as a tech and made about the same amount of money.
The absolute worst is the recruiters that call and email and say "we reviewed your resume and feel you have an excellent future in sales based on past experience... ". I sit there thinking to myself "where in my resume do I indicate any sales history or anything of that nature?".
I've only dealt with one recruiter that landed me a good job at a respectable salary. Everything from the position to the salary was what I was told. The recruiter even called me a few times in my first month to see how things were working out. Now that's quality, not a bottom-feeding scum like so many of them are. Actually, one other recruiter I dealt with was pretty good. He called me quite a few times for interviews. Even after the job didn't come through, he worked with me and found me interviews for positions I could fit in.
I've got it. Direct all the calls to this attorney of yours, I bet it turns into harassment really quick.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
I'd like to know what your VoIP provider was so I too can have such useful web based tools.
Yes I've had my fair share of annoying callers who just won't take NO for an answer...so I came up with the following: If the caller is trying to sell you a loan/mortgage, inform him that you have terminal cancer and only 6months to live...then ask "what's the biggest loan you think I can get?".... If the caller is trying to recruit you at your workplace, tell them that your boss lets you do him/her up the ass as a monthly bonus...would the new job have similiar perks? Speak in a fake foreign language as though you don't understand the caller...but "accidentally" insert sexual comments and swearwords every now and again...vi mon sa capablo large tits non dre vora moist lips te? etc...hehehe pretend to be a sex chat line and inform the caller they are being billed at $10 for the first minute and $5 for each additional....then get really creative!....welcome to the hot, fat % sweaty deformity line....etc try to talk the caller into joining your religion....have you ever thought about letting satan into your life? ask them to guess what your doing with your other hand...and if they think you'll get fired if you get caught! or as a final note..make up something really silly....tell them its against your religion to use the phone..leaving them to either say a) but you're lying and using the phone now (missing a sale) or b) hang up
Use an Air-Horn. works wonders. may not be legal in your state.
--AD
http://www.wedonotuse.com/
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.
There was a story in the UK papers quote a few years ago about a guy who kept getting woken up in the early hours of the morning by repeating computer modem calls. After contacting BT he traced the call to a local supermarket who had incorrectly entered his number in the list to call. Trouble was it only called his number after the first on the list was busy so it only happened a few times a week. He repeatedly contacted them asking them to fix it and after a month of them not doing so he had his mate with a computer hook it up to await the incoming call.
It turned out that the call was the supermarket's stock taking system trying to phone a central depot to order more stuff. Given the simplistic nature of the system the guy's mate fixed the stock levels for lots of items to zero and then told the system to call the next number on its list. The following day they drove past the supermarket to find loads of lorries there trying to deliver things they already had. The supermarket eventually figured out what happened and tried to sue. However, given the very primitive computer laws in force at the time the case was thrown out because the supermarket had initiated the call and so legally it was assumed that they wanted to talk to the computer on the other end. Needless to say the nuisance calls stopped!
Consider yourself lucky. Here in Phoenix half the time the solicitor on the other end of the phone only speaks Spanish.
aka greylisting? :)
Do you mean:
"Press 1 Meow..."
With some VOIP systems you can forward to 911 or 411. I wonder if that works on a landline/cell phone- I've only tried forwarding my line to 411 as a proof of concept- didn't dare do 911, but IIRC I think 911 would see the person calling you's info, not yours.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
I'm surprised nobody suggested an endless fax. That is assuming they have a fax machine. Take two pieces of paper, glue them together on the short side and feed through fax machine, once one piece has fed through glue the other side together and leave running. Works better if the pieces of paper are completely black and even better if done at night so that the fax machine is empty (paper and toner) every morning when they come in.
double penetration;
A small handheld airhorn, like the kind people use at sporting events. Try it. It works wonders on unwanted callers.
I have one that calls me about PeopleSoft consultants almost daily. She sounds really hot. I wonder if I can get in trouble for telling her I'll hire her consultants if she sends me pictures of her wearing nothing but Psoft CD's as pasties.
If you do it, and the company you "interview" with drops the headhunters as a result, the headhunters may sue you and/or your employer for tortuous interference with their business.
I'm not saying they would win, just that they are reasonably likely to try.
Billing uses ANI, not CID info -- so no.
Do what I do. Ask them to hold just a moment, then transfer their call to 202-762-1401.
Go back to work.
After a minute or so, pick up the phone and say "still there?" When they say yes, say "One more sec," and put the phone back down. This time, wait two minutes.
Repeat ad infinitum, each time extending the duration of each wait.
This works because it takes very little of your time, and wastes very much of theirs. When the person eventually hangs up, wait until they call back and harrangue them briefly for hanging up on you. Tell them you're not interested in working with someone who hangs up on you. Then leave them even longer.
and it's not harassment
Like hell it's not. The legal system may not recognize it as such, but it is nevertheless. As are paparazzi, and the protestors that illegally blocked the entrance to a local fur store enough to put it out of business because the city wouldn't enforce the law. It may be legal harassment, but it's harassment, *shouldn't* be legal and *should* be stopped.
Ok, this guy calls me, and asks me if I've got a minute. I respectfully tell him 'no', because I'm busy at the moment. He then proceeds to tell me that he's got a job opportunity. I tell him I just started a new position, and that I'm not looking for a new position. He then asks me if he can describe it to me. I respectfully decline, telling him 'no, I'm not interested.' Then he asks if he can email me a description of the job. I tell him, please not to email me with anything.
Two minutes later, my email pings and its Andy, not having listened to a word I've said. Now, how is this jerk supposed to represent me and my interests to a potential recruiter if he doesn't care one spit what I say or think?
This was unsolicited, and rude. As a service provider, I see this as a critical issue, because recruiter's role is to work with you to a mutually beneficial result for all parties. It also demonstrated a level of incompetents that I was personally offended by.
Andy Kyle
Internal Recruiting Specialist
Sai People Solutions, Inc.
"20 Years of Consultant Satisfaction"
Toll Free: 866 313 6849 x 740
Phone: 281 358 9411 x 740
Fax: 1-(801)-795-3026
Email: akyle@saipeople.com
Web: www.saipeople.com
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Probably too late (they have your real direct dial numbers ;>) but in the future, only publish numbers with a front end (like Grand Central http://www.grandcentral.com/howitworks/spam_and_bl ocked) where you can block calls from specific numbers or do a good job of screening ;>
"... in a few weeks. We won't be hiring anyone. Or buying anything. And if we do and you extend credit to us, lotsa luck collecting via the bankruptcy trustee."
It's a great line; works wonders. The telemarketer might as well take the phone number out of the database, since it will soon be disconnected (or so they think).
I'd be very surprised if you couldn't give them formal notice that they weren't welcome, and then have a summary judgement brought against them if they persisted. A good corporate attorney must be able to find a way of accomplishing this.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Recruiters are easy. When I told people that I worked for my company for 8 years, loved it, got to travel and was paid well and was doing what I loved and that I never planned on leaving, they'd virtually never call back.
For agencies trying to fill jobs at your business, which are very similar to recruiters, you have to give them something to make them not call back. If they believe you are being honest, that helps a lot.
I would tell them this when I worked for a small company, which was mostly true, and it worked very well:
"We are in a difficult financial situation and so we are not hiring anyone. This company has existed for 25 years and for the past 7 years they have not hired anyone and have, in fact, let a few people go. It's a small crew of the same people who have all been here from the beginning. The business and market are not changing, we've carved out a nice little niche and seem to be making it and that's about all we care about right now. We have no plan to hire anyone in the near term. If you call back in 1 year, there is a possibility that things might have changed enough to create an opening, and I'd love for you to keep in contact. But if you call back in less than 1 year there is no chance there will be any opening, I'm just trying to be honest with you, so please call me back then and we'll talk."
When you work for a large company, it's even easier, you just use a curt script of "I do not have authority to discuss this. Sorry, I'm not authorized to make requests for authorization to discuss this or pass on these requests to those in authority. I'd suggest you call the main switchboard and ask them [as if the receptionist isn't a pro at dumping these kinds of calls.]. Good day."
It helps if you tell them your job title is something very lowly, otherwise they won't believe you. "Just a programmer, one of many"
Politeness, large elements of honesty, respect, and a clear message that there is no prospect at this number works very well. I rarely get calls from anyone anymore, and I used to get dozens per week.
If you specifically tell someone not to call you and they do anyway it IS harassment. It is easy to enforce and any business lawyer would know this.
/.
So - think of something better next time you submit a fake story to
At my prior employer, we had a special extension for Telemarketers on our asterisk PBX.
We would "transfer to our supervisor" which would play hold music for 30 seconds, a female voice would say "Mr. Smith is just finishing a call. It will only be another moment." Then hold music for a minute and a half, then the sounds of screaming monkeys from the Asterisk-sounds package.
Perfect Slashdot Content. Torturing telemarketers with open source!
Ellie
This one is really easy... Instead of putting them on hold, just put the speakerphone on and turn down the volume giving an occasional yes or ok (in reply to the script). When the telemarketer asks a question like, "does this sound ok?", after talking for a good five minutes or so simply reply with, "I don't understand, can you please repeat everything you just said". Surefire way to get hung up on!
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
Anybody pesters me, they get lots of phony leads.
I have this buddy, Titus T. Tubesteak, who always seems to be looking for a job.
Another buddy, Smitty Jaegerwebermanjensen, is reserved for people who have trouble spelling.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I wonder who pays for all the calls on an 800 number. Anyone know?
What about a magnet that says I'm a wanker
"This call may be recorded for internet playback and ridicule."
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Surely someone in your office can put one of these together. http://www.pagerealm.com/tc2k/
Specs here... http://www.pagerealm.com/tc2k/
Just sit back, listen and try not to laugh out loud.
Or, if you don't want to hassle with building the Telecrapper hardware, just quickly go to this link and let the Governator do the talking for you... http://emuse.ebaumsworld.com/flash/play/1876/
You work for Dell Support Don't You?
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
that I used to work in. Hahaha... if I still worked in Greensboro I'd walk down there and say hello to the receptionist, tell them Tyrone King is seriously pissed off.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
be polite and tell them you are transferring the call to "Mr. Tone", then hang up. - great for laughs
Get your tagline off my lawn.
A pro, not just whoever the temp agency sends you.
A good operator can screen these weasels out with no problem.
Three Squirrels
Several calls were dropped before someone from Florida finally spoke to me - selling condos
I asked why my clearly expressed preferences and the UL law were being ignored.
I asked for their supervisor and was ignored
I was told they were US based and my laws didn't apply to them - I was sufficiently abusive (words about outlaws and assorted anglo-saxon) that they eventually insisted on my talking to their supervisor who tried to say it was illegal to treat their staff so.
I can see no normal justification, for that language, but until the US invites extra-nationals to vote on the behavior of their corporates :~) I can think of no other successful non-violent recourse.
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
Us bottom-feeders have to work to you know! Not everyone has a cushy IT job where they can read /. all day.
Answer, act interested, even forward a phony resume if need be, just do whatever you have to to get a lunch interview, then, once you're done with your food, stand up and walk out. See how many lunches the customer company buys before they realize the recruiters aren't providing quality people. Encourage your employees to do the same. Will it disuade the recruiters? Who cares? It's freaking free lunch.
Appoint everyone getting these as "recruiter evaluation specialists".
When they answer a call, they thank the recruiter for calling to use your service and get contact info. Then they say that they'll listen to the recruiter's pitch, uhhh, "presentation", evaluate it for efficacy, and send a report to the recruiter so they can see how well they're doing. The invoice for $500 will be sent to the contact info previously provided. To agree to these terms, just continue.
If they do, then they'll need to get an evaluation along with the invoice. But in my experience in doing this with telemarketers, there will be no takers. If their greed plugs up their ears and they continue anyway, and then don't pay, turn them over to a collection agency. Don't expect to see anything from it, but at least you know they'll be getting lots of calls themselves. It could also do a job on their credit rating.
As an alternative, build in throttling, such as appointing one person to do this and forwarding all such calls to them. If there are too many for that one person to handle, great, just don't let them work too fast.
At the very least, put together a honeypot phone mail hell, and immediately forward all such calls to it. As you collect phone numbers from the few who make it through the eleventy-seven layers to the voice mail recorder, use those same phone numbers in later recorded messages to provide to them as the proper numbers to call. This will get them calling each other.
I can't say as I agree with the "perfectly legal" part. Read the TCPA (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/tcpa.html) and see if you can get them this way. Note that the TCPA is written so that an individual can protect themselves by going through small claims court. Figure the odds that any of these people would show up to defend themselves, and you'd get summary judgement (unless you settle out instead). If you win and they don't pay, jump back up to the part on collection agencies.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If you wanna get back at them, just hook a modem set to auto-answer to the line, and change to an unlisted and different number. Let them call that original number all they want - they'll just get that anoying modem screech in their ears.
After a feew rounds of that, most telemarketers and such don't bother calling back - they don't like that SCREEEECH!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There's a big difference here. Unlike telemarketers, most everyone will need their service at some point. Tell them the job you want and the price it would take for you to leave your current position, and not to call until they get it. Next time they call you will welcome them with open arms. In all likelihood you will never hear from them again. Win-win!
Recruiters are your best friends when you are on the look out for a new job (Monster, HotJobs, etc. are mostly just a waste of my time). Sure they can be a little bit annoying once in a while. But unless you are planning to stay with the same job for the rest of your life I'd be polite but not a push over while talking to them. If you are at the moment not looking for a new opportunity simply tell them so and most will not bother you again for the next 6 month which is when they'll check up on you again. I find this quite convenient and every so often I actually take the time to listen them out to get a better feel for the job market and what's out there and most importantly what it pays.
Wait a little bit. The other
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I had a related situation.
Some rude obnoxious recruiters were calling my number at work asking for 'David'. After one recruiter accused me of lying when I explained that I was not David, I leaped to the assumption that this was a collection agency - they were that rude and demanding.
I am a contractor at IBM, and apparently David used to have this phone number. He posted his resume on monster.com with this work phone number. I would explain that IBM owned the phone number, David didn't work at IBM, and I had no idea how to find David.
After 7 months of the phone calls during the first week of each month, I asked my IBM manager for help. I forwarded one name, phonenumber, and recruiter company name to IBM Legal. I also contacted monster.com tech support and asked them to contact David and tell him that his skills were in demand, but recruiters were calling me instead of him. The phone calls magically stopped.
Isnt there some sort of law of harassment if you directly forbid them to contact you again but they dont stop?
There is in the private world, i would think the same thing would apply in the commercial world too.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Here's the perfect solution http://www.fansport24.de/Media/Shop/fanfahre.jpg
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
1) Are they asking for positions, or people? If positions, hang up. 2) If they know a person's name, first call that person or their secretary, and see if they call is legit before passing the caller along. There really should be a list to screen out known bad incoming calls.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Someone has a golden opportunity to be a billionaire...
Simply create a company which abuses obnoxious telemarketers, including the bottom of the head hunting barrel, and design it such that average businesses can contract to have a simple extension in their office redirected to the remote telemarketing abuse center.
Anytime a creep calls, he get's dumped into a special little hell, that keeps him on hold for days repeating the same Carpenters song over and over again...
I can imagine dozens of soul satifying scenarios to pay the jerks back with interest!
Bozo is on hold for 30 minutes at a stretch, every now and then a prerecorded voice picks up the phone, tells the offensive goof he's being connected with ever higher managers on the corporate totempole, and ultimately someone reporting to be the office cleaning lady informs him everyone went home. I mean you could get college kids to do this for free! Put the recorded conversation on a "for pay" site as entertainment. Like I said this is a billion dollar idea. Anybody wanna go halvesies?
- "Time heals all wounds, and vice versa..."
it so happens that I was looking for foss, oss, recruiting software today and ran across this.
http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?p=208
it's a very funny story from Eric Raymond about a MS recruiter.
I am a recruiter who only works off of word of mouth from friends and former consultants. no spam, no pesky telemarketing. As well I have been trying to develop a system for linuxrecruiting.org out of my own pocket (NFP). We recruiters are not all pimps and pests. some of us have a few skills and don't search buzz words and pester busy managers to turn the next trick.
I'd Tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
They call into our company phone directory constantly -- hundreds of calls per day -- trolling for names, hawking their job candidates, and refusing to hang up or stop calling,
Excuse me, but what is preventing those on the receiving end of the call from placing the phone back on the cradle?
Caller: So, whaddya say, want a new job?
Receiver: Go away.
C: Nope, I'm gonna stay on the line all day.
R: But I don't wanna talk to you.
C: So what? It's my job to talk on the phone.
R: I don't care!
C: I don't even get paid for this; it's my hobby.
R: Mommmmmeeeeee!
*sheesh*
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
SecureLogix has a product called Telewall what can do this and a lot more:
http://www.securelogix.com/telewall/
Add fake names to your phone directory (this might involve inventing a pretext about harassing phone calls or a possible industrial espionage operation). Bonus points for creative names.
Check the fake voicemail religiously.
If the recruiters call, make sure you call back.
Send a fake resume. Make it good.
When they call for an interview, recruit a homeless person of approximately the correct age and gender. Pay them fifty bucks to stand in for you at the interview. Obvious bonus points if the homeless person is seriously drunk or otherwise incapacitated for their interview.
Repeat as necessary.
If you don't want to drop the fifty bucks, show up for the interview yourself but make sure something is really wrong with you. Drunk is good. In bike clothes after a two-hour ride in the rain is also good.
No-shows at expensive restaurants, always with a good excuse like an auto accident, are also helpful.
which is?
#6495ED - cornflower blue
Have all calls answered by an Indian call center, with the legitimate ones rerouted to your real office in milliseconds and the recruiters placed on hold with Beach Boys tunes and the repeated reassurance that their call is important to you.
Seriously, why should the sleaze-balls be the only ones to take advantage of modern telecommunications and international outsourcing options?
Get the employees to log the calls. (Optional) Record a call where someone tells them "i'm going to have to invoice you for these calls at our standard rates" or similar. Or get your lawyer to draft a letter telling them of the rates for receiving phone calls from them, and send it to them with guaranteed delivery.
After that, for each call, invoice them at contractor rates for half an hour.
Send the invoice at the end of each month with a full itinery of phone calls received.
After a few months take them to court for non-payment of invoices, with full logs of the 'contractual phone call handling' you've undertaken for them, and the original recording as evidence that they knew they would be billed.
Half an hour for a 3 minute call? Yes. At least. A phone call in the office interrupts the person for 15 minutes afterwards apparently, because it is distracting. Most likely it will distract someone else nearby equally, possibly more. I think it is perfectly fair to invoice for all the lost productivity.
You never know, they might just have a 'pay all bills' type system where they never actually check the veracity of the bill. You might end up making an income.
Maybe you could just answer the phone, and transfer to the guy you dislike.
Googled it and got Time Voice Announcer at U.S. Naval Observatory:
http://www.usno.navy.mil/telephone.shtml/
For the love of God, it won't stop!
It's US Naval Observatory Time Voice Announcer. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=202-762-1401& btnG=Google+Search/
United States Government
Navy Department Of The
Master Clock Time Announcement
Washington, DC 20001
202-762-1401
Hire your own recruiters to do it back to them. Soon they want to stop annoying you.
The current time.
Make them believe you have Tourette syndrome. Talk to them as if you're interested and, as the conversation carries on, randomly blurt out bad words. If they ask to talk to someone else, transfer them to your buddy who has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and speaks very fast, commonly interrupting the caller before he/she finishes a sentence. If the caller asks to speak to someone else, transfer him/her to the next buddy who is a manic depressive, speaking in a low tone, sounding very sad. The list goes on... the next person the caller is transferred to can be bipolar, the next can have whatever, but in the end, you all will have fun. :-)
...but why not call it extension "404"?
Software and Games for Wii's Opera Browser
tell him that u want his (the recruiting person) job right then and right there...
our solution is at the end of the movie where Edgar says "I wouldn't answer that call.
It may be an old trick, but it's now an illegal trick. Fax spam is illegal, since unlike telephone spam and email spam, there are easy-to-quantify material costs associated with fax spam. Basically, you can't send unsolicited faxes. See
the FCC's rules on unwanted faxes.
While you can block caller-id of your fax machine and anonymize its identity info, if you're going to run the fax in a loop as described, it would be possible for the receiving business to notice what's going on and call the phone company to find out who you are. Not only are you doing something illegal, but you're clearly aware of it, because you're trying to hide your identity. From a legal perspective, this is called "bad faith", and makes it more likely that you can be successfully prosecuted.
So while this may have worked 20 years ago, doing this kind of thing in 2007 may be a bad idea.
One of my friends does a similar thing when he gets these calls, but with a twist. Every once in a while, he picks up the phone and says "Thank you for holding; your call is important to us! Please stay on the line, and Mr. [NAME REMOVED] will be with you as soon as he's available." You'd be amazed how often they stay on the line.
Just respond to the recruiter like this guy did to a telemarketer.
This is my favourite tactic with Telemarketers. "Ok hang on a sec I will go and get him/her...". Record is 5 minutes 12 seconds.
I also silently listen to them while they are "waiting", I find that some of them will talk to themselves.... hillarious listening. The funniest one was an indian caller that every 10 seconds would mutter under her breath "hellohellohellohello? hello? hellohellohellohellohellohello?"
I lost me sig.
You may be able to rig your phone system (at work) or buy/lease a new Phone system with a powerful Call Blocking Feature. First buy a list of nationwide headhunters from a Marketing List Broker (couple hundred bucks, probably - insist on getting the most freshly edited and compiled lists available - this occupation changes faces intensively frequently.) and feed in all the main phone numbers and even the NAMES of headhunters (those are for sale too) in the firms they are associated with - for automatic restriction - and simply prevent them from gaining phone access into your office. Another thing you need to do is at the very least have your phone lines become transparent to everyone, so names and numbers are all visible, by the users while calls come in - they should be interactively visible and on/operational. Again the idea is to quickly and simply IDENTIFY them so you and feed them into you caller restricted Database. Have managers pore over these lists of suspicious incoming callers and their phone numbers, and question these employees about them. Also, I'm sure your employees may be equally annoyed with this endless stream of aggressive, nosy morons trying to pry information out of them from their home or cells lines. You must toil now and really invest the time to make these seekers names and phone numbers completely transparent. Sleazy recruiters are likely to play dirty pool in their attempts to shake your agency down to it's roots, making many people feel highly unsettled and uncomfortable in the process, so you may very well be able to mobilize and otherwise solicit your employees to help rid them of this disease, by allowing them to identify to you, one at a time, all the those rogue phone numbers/AND names they're getting from these vapid recruiters, and simply stop them with some help from your own overwhelmed and exasperated people. You can announce an aggressive internal security program being put in place to address this crisis, letting these sleazebuckets as well as your own people to know that these outside recruiters are fighting a losing battle. Tell them you will, one phone line at a time, narrow down these callers and will simply suppressed them from being able to generally solicit anyone into your firm. See if you like this idea! If headhunters want to ply their trade and attack your ranks, let them do it at least off company time, and at significant tactical disadvantages.
Ask for fax number (to send you resume to), and fax them goatse, repeat.
I hate such organizations...Therefore, I think it's an excellent idea to add some correct data into their database. I am sure this is precisely in line with their expectations. ;-)
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During the dot bomb all of you were THRILLED to get a call from a recruiter. Now you're copping an uppity attitude because you think your job is safe.
In 2002, I kept getting answering machine messages from a modem or fax machine. It went on for a few months (~9), in spurts. I just erased them. Then one day, I was home when the calls started up. So I had my computer answer the phone (modem days). It turned out to be test results from a local diagnostic lab. They had been faxing blood-work reports to me instead of some doctor. So I called the doctor listed on the fax and informed him of the error by the diagnostic company. Scary that the company had been faxing this sort of stuff to me for *months* without ever realizing their error...
Ask them to send you an email! From there, you can choose to junk it or open it. Mine usually filter down to the bottom of my inbox. Important mail gets sorted into folders. I've had to let people ring to voicemail before who call over and over again - t's a good way to dodge them. Most of them are offering IT contracting services (gee who do you think you are talking to? bitches!), or some new phone system or other tech. Usually they get the point but if you do have to talk to them, as long as you act like you have something else to do, and be professional, just ask them to send you their company and contact info and get them off the phone.
This is my United States of whatever.
Before I was in the computer field I was a telemarketer... so I know how to torture telemarketers.....
Tell them you're very interested and then ask them to hold on.... don't put them on hold, mute them and see how long they will stay on the phone.
It's a fun game that you can play all day long.
check out www.ColdCallComedy.com Some of them are hilarious
President ISES
(International Society for Elimination of Sigs)
http://www.coldcallcomedy.com/AFD2005.php :o)
President ISES
(International Society for Elimination of Sigs)
Even better, get them transferred to 216-333-1810
:)
(it's fiction - before you ask - part of the NIN ARG
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
the only solution is to give a competitive pay.. then employees(assets) who even get calls will no longer leave your company... Then u can ignore who calls and who they would be talking to..
I tell trolling recruiters that we maintain a troll newsgroup where we post the names of recruiters and firms who keeps calling; and that not only HR will refused to do business with anyone listed there, but employees and ex-employees looking for work use it as an anti-BBB and will usually refuse to use them also. If I see their number again in the phone log, or hear that they called someone else in the company, I will permanently blacklist them in the phone system and post them to the newsgroup, and they will lose a significant source of leads and referrals.
I'm not sure they believe me, but they at least often decide that I'm crazy and stop bugging me.
Actually, I was thinking of being a little more cruel.
Looping music on hold, interrupted at regular intervals by allyourbase.gsm.
Or maybe a message saying, "I am sorry. Nobody is available to assist you at the moment in the "employees looking for other work" department. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
We had a similar problem with our phone system at work about 9 years ago. Except it would automagicically call unknown (to us) numbers and record the dialing, ringing and then the other party's answer/voicemail on our voicemail. So we'd get to work and have creepy messages timestamped 2:16am with angry people answering "hello. hello?!? do you know what @#$ time it is?? ~click~" etc. Sometimes it'd be other computers/fax machines. We had approximately 900 onsite employees each with their own number/voicemail and flowdown from management reported a third of them were having this problem. It went on for a year or so before they changed providers. But yeah, that was disturbing. And at that time all outgoing calls showed up as just some number that didn't ring anywhere without the Co. name so none of those people really had tracability to complain with assuming they had CID.
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
We weren't exactly getting hassled by recruiters, but we were getting call-spammed at work. 6 years ago, they were using a well known CC service that also provides travel agent type services. So the company CCs and travel were both handled by this huge corporation I won't name lest I get in trouble. The company required all employees that needed to reimbursed for anything to have a company CC and strongly encouraged everyone else to fill out the apps. (Bingo, they got some kind of deal out of it.) They didn't realize that this corporation sold our names and personal info to other companies and got us on all kinds of call lists.
I don't work for some tiny company. Its one of the big five DoD contractors. You'd think they'd be more careful. ~sigh~ The phone call harrassment starts at work because most of us used our work numbers on the apps to avoid confusion with our person versions of the card. You could hear the phones ringing around the cubicles, the offices...it was like a trickle becoming a wave. Solicitors soliciting all kinds of crap. We're all answering the phones and explaining that this is our work number and we can't take non-business calls (not exactly true but a good excuse). A month later the company is bogged down with phone calls and we all have our lines off the hook, lowering production. (remember, DoD company, no cell phones) Someone blows the whistle and admits what happened and the rumor gets around. Just as the lawyers and class action suit starts because people are getting tons of stuff at home addresses too, someone in management must have kissed major corporate ass with the CC/travel agent company because we all get settlements, and letters with apologies. Slowly phones stop ringing, etc... True story.
Most of the evil things to do to phone solicitors have been well covered in the posts here. We did all kinds of transfers to upper management and the travel services because theres no way to tell where transfers come from. We also put them on hold to our company's lousy elevator music and then picked back up and pretended we were Domino's and asked to take their order. We'd hold the phone up to the speakers on our Suns and play the default "toilet flush" sfx audio recursively as loud as possible until they hung up. None of that was really fair, they were just doing their job. It was our management that screwed both parties over. It does turn out though that we couldn't ask to be put on the no-call lists through the credit check people because we used work numbers. You can only do that with your home numbers. Which was why we had voicemail overflow and left our phones off the hook.
Did I mention that I cut up and canceled my personal AmEx card shortly after too.
There is no reason you cannot put your office phone on the do not call list.
Plain and simple this is marketing at the expense of someone elses time.
Where I come from the recruiters come in a ply the troops with baked goods.
Noone much likes it. Its an intrusion.
It's like if the car dealer called you everyday to remind you they still sell cars.
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Watch out: they don't actually care whether or not you would like to receive it. They'll send it anyway.
There's a Danish company that has turned getting rid of telemarketers into an art-form. Basically, no matter what the telemarketer is flogging, the answer is "We do not use that".
See more at WeDoNotUse.com.
My opinion? See above.
Mention that you've got facial tattoos. Or ask whether the client they are recruiting for has a metal detector at the office entrance. When they ask why, tell them in graphic detail about your genital piercings that are always setting off the detectors at airports.
What's with all the creative gymnastics? The annoyance of telemarketing comes from the fact that they are wasting your time. If you stay on the phone, even to mess with them, you still lose. If you don't simply hang up the second you realize the nature of the call, you may as well be listening to the spiel.
They could be said to be staging a Denial of Service attack against you. That would be illegal, wouldn't it?
Call the local phone company. You might get them stopped by threats of arrest of the individual phone operators for harassment. It has worked for me.
Log the annoying calls you get while this is going on for a phone company complaint.
Ask to speak to a supervisor to do that. It doesn't help to threaten a wise-ass phone operator.
Make a big issue of demanding the phone operator's name. They sometimes have code names of MR. Blue or MR. Green. Demand a real name.
Another possibility is to ask them to hold on while you redirect their call and leave them hanging. Some of these companies have timed WATTS lines and the charges will add up.
Make a long list of information you need to take their call. Slowly ask the questions and pause telling them the pen would not write or some other excuse to take up their time.
Having them hold while you attend an imaginary call on another line several times is a good stall.
Shifting them around to several people who must have that same information is annoying for them.
Every time they call use the same stall even if challenged on it. Say it is company policy and you must get the information with each call.
You don't actually write down anything just go down the list of questions slowly.
I often enjoy this and they soon learn they are the butt of a practical joke. That works when threats fail.
2 things. #1 I realize that it is kind of sh1ty to get calls at your business for anything that is marketing related. There is not much that can be done about this. #2 But what everyone seems to be totally missing from a recruiting aspect, is how a recruiter gets your phone numbers and email addresses. The majority of this information is gathered from resumes on job boards like Monster, Hotjobs, etc. The simple truth is, if you do not want to be called/emailed, stop putting your resume on the web. Instead of being an idiot and getting pissed at a recruiter for contacting you about a job, take a minute to realize it is your own fault. Don't post your resume if you are not looking for a job!
So yeah, i'm a slashdotter taking a break from the tech scene for a while (was working on wall street, currently backpacking around India). Of course I have nothing better to do on a Friday night :) so why the heck not engage in a little revenge of the nerds?
First time I called they hung up.
Second time, they asked my name. I gave it and said i referred by tyrone king. They said they don't have anything available. I was like, "really, isn't that what you guys do?" She asked what I do and I explained my situation. "Sorry, we don't have anything available." But she took down my temporary e-mail address: avi.job[at]umich.edu.
Very curious to see if I'll ever hear back from them. Course I haven't the slightest interest in DC while backpacking around India. This is the place where all the *really* interesting stuff is happening.
So the funtion would be Ceiling((RAND)*9) to pick one of the 10 phones they have..
The easy solution to this is neither very technologically advanced, or requiring much work.
All it requires is an air-horn.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Using the Force, he can remotely Force Choke the caller/harrasser. I'm sure he's cheap too since he'd enjoy the practice.
Help, I'm trapped in a carbon-based life form.
okay, they are annoying, but how many of us have gotten jobs through recruiters? most of us i'd venture to say. not there aren't bottom feeders in a any profession...
Well, as far as Sig's go, Freud was a doozy.
A friend of mine got 2 such calls simultaneously.
A few button presses later and they were talking to each other thanks to the magic of PBXs...
I wonder who recruited whom?
We should have seen this coming after posting resumes on sites like Monster.com
Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.
It says to only fill in your email if you answer "Yes"... why would you fill in an email otherwise? It accepts the poll without it.
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
As someone who does tech support at a call center, I am very acquainted with this technique.
"Let me talk to your supervisor!"
"Sure, can you hold...........forever?"
Beware of monster.com "customers" who find ways to harvest information from their systems. And when it happens, don't expect Monster to be concerned at all. I've learned this over the last few years.
How do I know this is fact? I used one particular address on my monster.com account. Not only will they tolerate (and not care) about your information being abused, they will also tolerate their "customers" sending you BS spam through their web API, etc.
It gets more complex than that, but I'm sure there are several of you out there that share my annoyance.