Slashdot Mirror
Want 30 Job Offers a Month? It's Not As Great As You Think
An anonymous reader writes: Software engineers suffer from a problem that most other industries wish they had: too much demand. There's a great story at the Atlantic entitled Imagine Getting 30 Job Offers a Month (It Isn't as Awesome as You Might Think). This is a problem that many engineers deal with: place your resume on a job board and proceed to be spammed multiple times per day for jobs in places that you would never go to (URGENT REQUIREMENT IN DETROIT!!!!!, etc). Google "recruiter spam" and there are many tales of engineers being overwhelmed by this. One engineer, fed up by a lack of a recruiting spam blackhole, set up NoRecruitingSpam.com with directions on how to stop this modern tech scourge.
Have you been the victim of recruiting spam?
I'm ready
I get these every damn day. You would think these folks might take the time to look at where I live (it's on my resume) and compare that to where they want me to work. Never happens.
If it's a job worth having, they'll find me.
Really? It's an example and all, but as developer born and raised in Detroit (the city proper) and a current resident of the city, is it necessary to kick the place even more? Any way, recruiter spam is a constant pest for me as well; one recent one was trying to get me interested in a "Live Chat Customer Service"' opportunity somewhere... I think I'll be taking a peek at NoRecruitingSpam.com .
The sharpest blade is no match for the sharpest mind.
Same thing happens with doctors and nurses, quite frankly.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I keep getting hit up by IT Recruiting agencies. Almost got screwed over by one of these agencies after I looked over the contract. I get hit up about 10 emails a day by various automated job systems.
Sure, I don't enjoy the AMAZINGLY HOT recruiters that I GET TO TURN DOWN because THEY'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Sorry about the caps, but I'm sure you can relate.
(you should know how to filter emails by now, too)
Um, this is hardly about getting 30 "job offers" a day. These spam emails are in no way shape or form job offers.
They aren't really even legitimate advertisements for jobs. Many times the jobs don't even exist (except for the purpose of allowing headhunters to get their grimy hands on your resume).
Sometimes I get multiple contacts a day, for a few weeks at a time.
Sometimes I go a month or more without one.
They more often than not seem to be Indian recruiters. I am not stereotyping, but there seems to be a very opportunistic and predatory type of staffing company that works primarily with H1B workers from India. Their second tack is job placement spam.
Curb the H1B problem, we probably will curb the recruiter spam problem, although bad recruiters will never completely go away.
Get a professional sounding/spelling domain and create your own emails on it. Get creative with your extended addressing and use that address only for job hunting. When you aren't on the hunt, either kill the address until you need it again or just send the mail it receives to /dev/null
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
A guy finds his email address harvested by jobdiva.com
Sets up a filter to discard these email.
News at 11.
Find a few local recruiters, make friends with them and touch base every year. When they get tired of your coy nature, rinse and repeat. They need your money and will hang on long enough that if you do ever get laid off, you have at least one starting point. Saved me once.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Yeah, I get em too. There's a delete button on my mail readerl. I use it. Wait for the next recession. It'll stop then, I promise; you'll wish you were getting those emails then.
Every... Day.... :-/
and that's saying a lot.
I get these every day even though I've had the current job for five years. For things that aren't anywhere near anything on my resume. Recruiters are just bottom feeding scum, and it's gotten a lot worse since people in India (and Africa, and Eastern Europe, etc) have realized they can just browse LinkedIn then shotgun resumes to companies. The hit rate is tiny, but all they need is one. Local firms are bad as well, with apparently every single person from TCC contacting me about the same job.
LinkedIn is no better - 'Jobs you might be interested in: Mechanical Engineering Manager in Baton Rogue'. Really. I'm not an ME, I specifically say no management roles, and I specifically say unwilling to move. Maybe you should contract me to rewrite your jobs candidates engine, because I think I could do better in 2 days with 300 lines of python.
So why are you still on LinkedIn, you might ask... well, it is fairly amusing, and I can handle one or two a day. And if I ever need a job my profile will be there.
My gmail Inbox used to be nice and clean. Now I refuse to clean it; it has become such a mess. Here's the thing, you would be contacted, but it turns up that he is not THE recruiter but some guy (like me, used to be jobhunting too) but advises you that you will be getting email from such and such and he even tells you in advance your responses will be recorded. Well the floodgates were not open; it's more like the levee broke. It's sad that it has come to this; sadder still that he had to accept such a job. Better than being jizz mopper. he was told probably that in a way it is an IT job; they just didn't mention it had S.H. in front.
I don't know about the "jobdiva" site mentioned at the "norecruitingspam" site, but I can certainly relate to getting too many unsolicited requests for my latest resume for "amazing opportunities" somewhere across the country. Obviously you didn't read my resume, asshole--it links to my web site, which always features... my latest resume!
Once I get more than one such email from the same domain, I just add 'em to my Postfix blacklist (surely I can't be the only engineer who still runs his own mail server?).
Sometimes I'll even add them after the first email (if there's any legit recruiter named "Satish Kumar", I'm sorry about the unfortunate coincidence).
Here's what my blacklist looks like at the moment:
Also, anyone who clearly hasn't read my resume (I know nothing whatsoever about Informatica... I just worked at a place with "Informatica" in the name) gets blacklisted. If you don't read my resume, you're lazy, and you're spamming. If you do read my resume, you'll also see the bit (in the first paragraph) about having little interest in working outside my city limits, and absolutely no interest in relocating. That alone has greatly reduced the far-away recruiter solicitations.
I used to work with big outfits like Tek Systems, but I've asked them to leave me alone (unlike the spammers, they will actually listen). Nothing wrong with them; I just decided I'd rather support local businesses. I've found two local recruiters, working for local companies (or self-employed) based here in my city. Both of them have gotten me great jobs. Any persistent out-of-state recruiters (who aren't named Satish Kumar) get a polite response explaining that I'm not looking for new recruiters. Any half-way decent company will respect that. I really don't get that many unsolicited offers anymore, and the ones I do get tend to be more interesting.
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
A sister company did recruiting, and a then colleague said "I asked for a MVS and Unix person in a particular state with experience in a package", and got hundreds of names, none of whom knew all those things". The didn't know the difference between "and" (3 candidates) and "or" (3000 unqualified candidates). I still get requests for things I only ever did once, with co-requisites of things I've never done...
davecb@spamcop.net
I have over 25 years experience, and a lot of recruiters call me or email me. All the time.
For phone calls, I drive the conversation. I live in the SF Bay Area. Since I'm not willing to relocate (and it says that on my resume and LinkedIn profile), first thing I ask about is the location. If they can't be specific, are not familiar with the Bay Area, or don't live here, I tell them I'm not interested.
If the caller has a heavy accent, or has trouble understanding me, I tell them I'm not interested. If they can't communicate effectively with me, why would I want them representing me to a potential employer?
Then I ask them to be specific about the job and the company. If they are vague, or if the job is not in my niche, I'm not interested. Any contract-only position, likewise. Then comes line of business: Anything in eCommerce, banking, insurance, marketing, game development: not interested.
Then I ask about compensation. If it's below what I'm making, not interested. I don't tell them what I'm making now, or if I do I inflate it by 30%. Some stranger calls me on the phone and starts asking personal questions? None of their business.
Emails are easy to cull. Anything with a subject line intended to catch me eye or trick me into reading it (like when a stranger sends an email with subject like "long time no see") gets immediatley deleted. Anything which doesn't include the job location, or is a location I'm not interested in, gone. And anything that looks like it was sent by an algorithm (e.g. anything from CyberCoders).
Remember, there are a lot more recruiters than relevant opportunities.
Job Diva is the WORST of all. Hell they don't even hide that they use a harvester. Just Google them and there are numerous tales of their horrific nonstop spam. I get Detroit (which is a fine city IMHO), Fort Wayne, Billings and every other place I'd never move. Bravo to these guys for finally doing something, I'm signing up now.
No Recruiter Spam!?! That sounds like an illegal wage suppression scheme. Let's get class action status and sue for billions.
Too many offers remind me of the last months of the dotcom bubble...
Who reads email anymore? I just check personal email after paying a bill, or not. Or I look when am expecting something worth reading, friend/family for instance.
Get up!
I work in Detroit and make fscking good money! Whats the knock!
If you can't handle spam, you aren't qualified to be in IT. Seriously, you can't solve the most common problem that occurs on the internet ... Get a Gmail account you moron, FFS.
If this is really a problem for you, you need to switch professions, become a psychologist you'll fit right in, its full of people who talk out their ass like they know something yet have absolutely no idea wtf they are doing ... sounds like a perfect fit for you.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I've been unemployed for 6 months and the job market in San Diego CA for electrical engineers is the worst I've ever experienced.
1. It's mostly recruiting companies doing the hiring. There seems to be a lack of direct company recruiting going on (At least in San Diego, CA).
2. If it is companies doing direct hiring, they want "new college grads" at all times of the year
3. They want master's degrees at a minimum.
4. Thay want someone who can speak Mandarin.
5. The list of skills required is so detailed and complex, it would be very difficult for someone to be a master of everything on that list, and one would have a terrible time maintaining any degree of focus to ensure a good result.
6. They whine to congress about the H-1B cap.
Fortunately for me, I have plenty of money in the bank and in investments, plus I have rental income. I'm 54, and not sure I'll ever get to be employed as an engineer again. I'm mostly keeping my self occupied with personal engineering projects and code. I'm hoping things eventually turn around, but am prepared to retire if they do not.
I get recruiting spam at my dedicated dice.com email account (a sister site to slashdot). Awkward.
The norecruitingspam guy himself spammed news.admin.net-abuse.email a few days ago with this. All he's offering is an email filtering service that blacklists the Jobdiva spambags.
He posted his screed in a Usenet thread that I started over five years ago, that's archived by Google, at apparently has a pretty high ranking when someone is searching for more information about all the spam they're getting from the Jobdiva spam factory. Over five years ago I happen to notice that every recruiter spam that I received turns out to have come from the Jobdiva spam factory. Ever since then, once or twice a year someone finds that thread in Google Groups, and post a "me too" to the Usenet group. Which I find pretty funny.
After figuring out where all my recruiter spam is coming from, it was a simple matter of adjusting a few settings on my mail server, and, poof!, it was all gone. Originally I never thought much of it, and only posted the first message in that thread as a means of sharing my thoughts, and nothing more, but apparently someone else now discovered effective email filtering and thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. As Benny Hill would've said: biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig.... deal.
One good thing here is that now that he's got a good link from Slashdot, and, presuming that his web site is still up (haven't checked), because all his web site now only contains a big rant against the Jobdiva sleazebags, this will shine a bit of a brighter spotlight on those vermin, and perhaps shine some well-deserved sunshine on these sleazebags. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
It's not just with IT jobs. It's prevalent in other scientific and technical fields, too. I'm a PhD computational chemist and I constantly get bombarded with recruiter spam from addresses like 1000018179_10007281@jobbank301.com that have subject lines like, "JOBOP - Drug Discovery - Medicinal Chemist - Medford, MA". Gmail sends these all straight to my spam folder. Seriously? If there's a 301st "job bank", what's in the first 300 job banks? Does anyone check email send from an email address that starts with eighteen random numbers? I really don't think any of these recruiters know what in the hell they're doing, as I have never gotten a job from one of them. Ever. All of the jobs I've worked at since receiving my PhD have been from direct contacts and personal references. JOBOP emails are completely useless in a job search,. . .
This article is about spam, not real offers. If they were real offers, it would give the lowdown-- location, skills, duties, and pay. It would be an actual employment contract, and all the candidate would have to do is sign up, or not.
So often, these so-called jobs are fake. There isn't a real job, they're just harvesting resumes. Or maybe there is but they've already settled on a candidate, and everyone else has no real chance, the employer is only going through the motions to satisfy EEOC rules.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
It must be rough, having dozens of people throwing money at you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This asshole cold-called me... AT THE OFFICE.... When I don't have a direct line, and he had to go through the front desk to get to me.
I told him to never call me again.
Apparently, the asshole was scraping LinkedIn, because the next day, he called about 90% of the office. You'd have thought he'd have got a clue when the secretary started hanging up on him.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I deleted my Linked In after getting endless recruiters and head hunters that didn't even read my resume and just blindly sent out requests.
I have 10 years in industry in a very niche market and I'll get jobs in manufacturing or other random area that just require a Mechanical Engineering degree.
It got to the point where I'd have boilerplate nastygram about actually reading my resume and getting back to me.
Maybe I'd have a job then.
You are compliance chum for their H1b hire. They need to go through the motions of looking for an American and somehow never find anyone.
Tons of published tech jobs are h1b compliance chum.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Last year I realized that I'd never changed my LinkedIn job profile info to "not interested" after starting my new job a year earlier. I'd been getting a lot of pings from recruiters, and I thought that might discourage them. Nope. Saying I wasn't interested made the recruiters even more interested in me!
Which would be great if any of them had a job better than my current one, but they never do. Everything is more boring work I'm less qualified for, for less pay.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I have recruiters routinely call me at work. That's on top of the daily spam email.
I happened to write ONE .NET app for a company a while back. My resume is dominated by OSS development, yet these morons lock on to the one thing that wasn't.
"Have you been the victim of recruiting spam?"
I have an account on LinkedIn, so ... yes.
Which is funny/sad, because there is nothing in my linked-in profile that suggests that I'm particularly qualified for any in-demand jobs. So the spam I get is for garbage jobs, and positions for which I am obviously neither qualified nor interested.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Was just telling fam and friends about this. It's very real and stresses the day-to-day stuff when you are always being forced to re evaluate your current situation. Obviously a non problem in a bigger sense, but it adds to the daily stress. Now- this versus none, it's an easy decision. /Sean c
The email standards should add a $1 fee to contact a new person. Every email user would have a whitelist and only emails from that whitelist get through. For a fee of $1 you could ask a person to be added to their whitelist. They would have the option of saying yes or no, and of accepting or refunding the dollar.
Spam, solved.
Recruiter spam emails are not job offers.
Then all people working in SEO and App development must be crap, shoddy and useless.
Some programmers are crap. Some programmes are excellent. Some system administrators are crap. Some system administrators are excellent. Some recruiters are crap. Some recruiters are excellent. See the pattern?
I get hit with 1-2 job opportunities every day or two from LinkedIn alone...
Some are good, some are cruft... it all becomes noise since I'm not looking for a job right now.
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
I deleted my LinkedIN profile because of this. I didn't mind people contacting me through LinkedIN's messaging feature, but recruiters would track down my work email and send me emails saying "your profile looks like a perfect match" and "are you available Tuesday for an intervew?". BTW the position is on the other side of the country and pays 60% of what I currently earn.
One recruiter looked up our main phone number and called it. He left a message for me to call him, along with his name and the name of the agency he worked for. Unfortunately almost everyone in our small company works at customers' sites, so the only people answering the main phone are the President and the VP. Our VP pulled me aside before a meeting and asked if I was unhappy and looking for another job!
My experiences include:
- spending time telling a recruiter exactly what I am and am not looking only to have the recruiter proceed to send me job openings that were compelety irrelevant as if we had never spoken
- having a recruiter schedule an interview, showing up only to have the employees to interview me completely unaware I was coming. I was told one of the founders would be interviewing me only to learn he works remotely from a different *state*, and another that was supposed to interview me had taken the day off--fully unaware of my interview
- having multiple recruiters from the same firm contact me, neither aware of the other's interactions with me even though they both got my info from their own software system, and asking me to duplicate information
- have no clue what technologies are related and/or compatible
No recruiter has successfully helped me find a job. I don't know how they earn their living if they all behave this poorly.
Seriously, their 'smart' systems suck balls. CareerBuilder gives me programming jobs from my horticultural resume. Monster gives me retail jobs from my culinary resume. Neither can figure out my IT resume so I get shit from security guard to administrative assistant.
All they're doing is selling you out to data harvesters.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I usually get one or two of these spammy mails every day. My favorite was one I got several years ago, which described an interesting opportunity, but I wasn't (and still am not) willing to relocate. So, I wrote back and asked the guy if the gig could be done via telecommuting. His response was "yes, but they require that you work from the office. Will that work for you?". I wrote back asking if he knew what "telecommuting" meant, and never heard back.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Having 30 solid offers per month for even entry level programming jobs would be reassuring if nothing else. These are just generic position postings though, with no special inside track to get an actual job.
Having said that, I got a new job by replying to one of LinkedIn recruiting e-mails a couple of years back, and got a nice salary hike as well as more interesting project and less stress than my previous gig. After that, I usually reply by declining politely and thanking the recruiter for asking. If someday myself or a friend needed a new job, I would probably have a slightly better chance with recruiters who had a positive experience with me before.
> The list of skills required is so detailed and complex, it would be very difficult for someone to be a master of everything on that list,
The list of skills isn't things you need to be a master of. In fact, most of the time only about half of the listed words are things you'd be doing on the job. You should, however, know what most of the keywords MEAN. If most of the listed words are in your vocabulary, you can then talk to the hiring manager to find specifically what the job is.
I'm a Salesforce.com developer and am constantly getting hit by recruiter spam. In the last week I have gotten 15 requests, only 5 of which are in my area. The rest? Over 500 miles away at the very least!
Whenever you are working with a popular technology set, you are going to get hit up by non stop recruiters. The part that drives me nuts is the non intelligent ways that they shotgun blast. In my current position (I work for a major non IT recruiting company), I'm working with a Salesforce based recruitment engine. I KNOW what options are available to many of these systems. It seems like they do not utilize any intelligence beyond a keyword search. In the engine that I've aided in developing, we have many different options available to better target appropriate candidates. For example, something simple, like a zip code radius! Heck we even incorporate state based filters if you don't have zip codes.
Unfortunately, there is not much that I can think of to combat this other than unsubscribe. The only issue there is you might later miss out on a legitimate job opportunities. I mean heck even terrorists manage to get lucky at times in action movies, and these folks might get one in 200 right :P
Recruiters spam job offers to get YOUR resume
your resume contains business intelligence about a companies internal workings that they cant get thru traditional methods (public info, social engineering, meaningful HR contacts, etcetera)
example of info leached from your resume - network infrastructure architecture, systems and tools used, number of employees, pay scale, etcetera etcetera etcetera
95% of the jobs posted are trollbait for YOUR resume. They already have applicants, they need intelligence on new companies to place their applicants into.
When they place employees in a company most of the time its under contingent basis (TEMP to perm is the promise, ahem A LIE).
the recruiters make more money by keeping you contingent - why sell the cow when you can lease it?
The recruiters will use the contingent to gather more intelligence on the company so they can place more contingents inhouse
when the contingent doesnt get intelligence for the recruiter, the contract ends - and the recruiter ceases to find job offers for that applicant
only work with recruiters who will place you permanent, negotiate a fee that is acceptable to do this. in USA fees associated with job search is tax deductable (unemployed - 0k/year, employed - 60k/year less a $5000 commission = 55k/year more than you had to begin with)
when you find a good recuiter, stay with them exclusively - even when they move to a new company; they will serve you when you show committment.
No, I'm not a recruiter, but have inside info about industry. its legal slavery, but legal it is.
For what its worth.
No. Because I don't place my resume on a job board.
If I did (presumably because I wanted a job), I'd be pleased to be getting 30 offers a month. (Is that all?)
...are, by far, the worst offenders. I check the origins of every recruiter's spam through Glassdoor and other sources. If the CEO sounds Indian, into the blacklist goes the domain.
I suspect that the overwhelming majority of them aren't even in the US, but route calls through US-based call centers. I've had up to 15 voicemails in one day from Indian recruiters.
Hell, I've been retired for over eight years and I still get spammed.
I usually send a standard reply along the lines of "please take me off your mailing list".
When that doesn't work, after 3-4 mails from recruiters from the same company I send a longer reply, this time cc'ing the CEO, CTO, etc. of the company, making sure to include the names of the recruiters.
Works like magic.
Even the legitimate companies use a Harvester these days. It's called "Bullhorn", at www.bullhorn.com and they're pretty good about harvesting from all the available job boards and website job ads, and reporting the changes as quickly as feasible to their clients. It can be a useful tool for the recruiters.
Of course, the system is trivially gamed by changing a few lines in your resume or the job description to show up as "freshly updated" and stay in the ranks of "most recent listings". A lot of people do this on Dice Monster and, frankly, among the escort ads at https://backpage.com. This also gives you some idea of the "professional services" these kinds of people provide..
LinkedIn's business model is collecting resumes for headhunters to spam. I deleted my account and still get emails from them.
I have about 15 years+ experience in system engineering and have been looking for a job (Europe) for the last two months and I started avoiding whatever job offer that involved recruiters. As mentioned in the article, most of them seem to be harvesting resumes and their procurement is degraded to some automated (vendor/certifcation) keyword scanner and a never ending lists with psychological (multiple choice) questions.
Best one I heard: Your resume doesn't mention 'Active directory' :-)
No. Those were different positions.
Folks - the industry considers software development an entry level job. It is only the companies making obscene profits which pay $100K+ for software people and they think over-35 yrs old is over-the-hill - most of the time.
If you want to pick and choose a software job, you've got to become extremely well-known inside an industry, speak at industry conferences, and find a recruiter who cares enough to learn what you want.
Most recruiters are like ugly men trying to get laid at 1am in a bar. Numbers. numbers, numbers.
Having my time wasted by 20 "recruiters" taught me early to find one who took the time to understand my wants before bothering me. He learned my interests, my rates, my travel requirements and which jobs I'd be willing to travel 80% or relocate over.
Taking a 6-12 month vacation every few years is nice too, while my "guy" searches for the right job.
* US$120K+ - I'm a F/LOSS solutions architect with 25 yrs experience; 10 yrs cross-platform C/C++.
* Never in Cali, NY - cost of living and lifestyles in those places don't agree with me.
* Jobs within 5 miles of my house or telecommute, I'll work for less.
* Nothing north of Tenn - I've lived enough north of there to know 6 months is beautiful weather - 6 months sucks.
* I'd love to work on 6-12 month overseas contracts which include nice housing, local language training, not living in a shack, solid electricity, internet, and time off for regional travel.
* Aircraft or space industry jobs and I'll pack. Former rocket scientist with avionics development experience here.
Since I have my FU-money already, the overseas work is less about pay and more about experiences.
I would move for an Airbus job in France on June 1. However, I would NOT move to Cali for a SpaceX job. Don't get me wrong, visiting Cali is fine - just don't want to live there. ZERO interest in living there. Send me to Uruguay first.
...but it seems the author isn't really talking about receiving 30 job offers. I can easily imagine receiving 30 calls about job openings a month. I've gotten as many as ten calls -- not emails, calls -- in one day. Granted, several of those wind up being for the same job but those calls are not offers. They're not even a guarantee that you'll be selected for a phone screen let alone a face-to-face interview.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Still receive them. Started my business a decade ago, took down all my profiles at all the job sites, and 10 years later I'm still offered jobs all over the nation. Usually for positions below my pay grade and experience level from back then, much less with a decade more work added.
I wouldn't call myself a victim for having skills that are highly in demand. Still, a lot of recruiters seem woefully incompetent, for sending me offers from completely different countries (when I'm even losing interest in working outside the city; commuting by bike is definitely a perk).
But even relevant positions come constantly and when I still have plenty of project to work on. I wish I could pass them on to my unemployed non-programmer friends.
Im a technical writer, and have some done some scripting and the like (VBA, .bat, XML/HTML, etc.), and I get recruiters contacting me all the time for programming jobs.
Anecdote on how LinkedIn's job InMail service works: LinkedIn charges recruiters $7 per email they send you. BUT, if you IGNORE the email or delete it (i.e. click neither the 'I'm not interested button' or the 'Yes, contact me' button, then recruiters DO NOT HAVE TO PAY ANYTHING. This means that recruiters on LinkedIn have no incentive not to spam as many people as possible with their posting, knowing that most people won't even read it and LinkedIn won't charge them for unread or automatically deleted email. Want to punish the recruiter? Then you have to go click the 'Not Interested' button on every email individually.
I am an IT Professional. It took time to list all of my skills on one resume. I now have my resume posted on only two websites. Why? Because I have NEVER performed a job search out of a 15 mile raduis from my home. I live in Maryland. The state abbeviation is MD. It is important to mention at this point. I receive solicitations for jobs in North Dakota, ND; Montana, MO; Delaware, DE; Virginia, VA; Pennsylvania, PA and the like several times a week. What really is painful is that I am contacted from two or three recruiters from the same company. The job offers are for a two or three month duration. Really?
But I do get an occasional one for something which isn't an especially good fit. Maybe every six months or so, fortunately.
One outfit -- Craps or Job Roulette or Dice or something like that -- once sent me one based off an ancient resume that was completely off. I hadn't been even a part-time Oracle DBA in literally decades, or anything like it. (It might have been unrealistic in its geographic positioning, too.)
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
The Atlantic article this slashdot article is based on is dated Feb 27, 2014. It's old news. Why is this a slashdot story today?
....and you get zero job offers....or jokes like 3 month contracts at the other end of the continent.
Between the spam emails and the phone calls from people who have such thick accents I can barely understand them I get far too many of these every week. They're out to get your REAL resume and I believe they get a bonus for every one they receive. There are no jobs - only headhunters.
I never opt out of the emails because then I would be confirming that they're going to a real, active email address and the spam would increase exponentially.
So I clean out my mailbox every day and have stopped accepting calls from unknown out of state numbers. They go right to voice mail. If they bother to leave a message I delete that too. Too many calls and they get added to my blocked list.
It's annoying, time consuming, and never going to stop.
Try actually needing a job. I live in a minor tech hub, and when I was let go and submitted my resume I was legitimately getting calls on my phone, every 5-10 minutes. If I talked to one recruiter for a serious option for 30 minutes, I always had 1-2 voicemails on my phone when I hung up.
The good news was, first, it was easy to get a job. Second, after getting a job and rejecting these calls, the flood of messages did die down after a couple weeks. I know this can be annoying but after being laid off once, this is a problem I'm willing to live with. I never really need to worry about finding work.
People hearing "may I submit you?" are not getting job offers. They are getting recruitment contact. It takes several more steps than that to actually be offered a job in most cases.
This is a big problem, but one which I often get dirty looks from people when I complain about it. Because they think I should be grateful to have job offers..
I'm at the point where I just have to turn off my phone sometimes.
Once in a while I will answer just to explain to them, hey, you might want to check a map of the United States and see that this job is a thousand miles from my home. And not to sound racist, but, I swear, the moment I hear an accent of any kind, I know its BS and I hang up.
But even the valid jobs, in my area, for skills I actually have, are sometimes so excessive I cannot conduct normal business on the phone. I've had to literally delete my accounts on job boards after landing a job to slow them down.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.