So some background I am very highly recruited in my field. Recruiters out here will lie and tell you they leave you messages (phone and email), they did not get your email or voice mail, etc. Really no integrity in their actions.
Hey Blake, One of my researchers came across your resume this morning and I wanted to see if you are actively on the market and entertaining any new career ideas? My colleague, Stephen, chatted with you a couple months ago. I tried calling your 555-555-1234 number and it went to a random person. Is that your number or is there a better number to reach you at?
I am currently working with a very well-established, well-funded, and profitable startup in Mountain View whose focus is on a vertical search engine in the ecommerce space. They are looking for a very Senior blah blah and your background looked excellent. I would love to share more details and and hear about your search, so please let me know when you have a few minutes to chat. Cheers! ---------- Jeff you guys should do stand up. “Went to a random person”. That’s good. Stephen use to tell me he didn’t get my emails and that I wasn’t getting voice mails he left me. Maybe I should change my cell phone service and ISP. What do you think? --------- Hey Blake, That may be a good idea. Do you have a better number to get ahold of you better? Cheers! --------- My phone should be tied up all day man. I have to call Comcast and ATT and switch services. --------- Ok thanks Blake. Please give me a call when you change numbers because we have quite a few opportunities you may be interested in.
Weak. I would’ve expected some better trolling from you Blake! If it were me, I would’ve started with; – Stephen! How is he doing? And how is his mother? I know she was going through some rigorous treatments for her cancer earlier this year. Can you check in and see how all that went for me? I sure would appreciate it. In any case, my number is 555-555-123. When he replies btching about the 9 digit number, I’d set another hook/line with this gem. – Yes, you read that right. I opted for a beta testing of SOME BSD BIG DATA’s new VoIP communication system giving one a 9 digit phone number instead of 10. It’s pretty sick brah. Hit me up and we’ll chat.
I never understood why more people don’t hate headhunters/ refuse to use them. They literally add zero value. At best, they stand between you and a good job and take ~30% for doing nothing but sending you over. At worst, they pretend to care about your career goals and then go on to plug you into the first irrelevant p.o.s. they can find. Glad you trolled them.
People that don’t like headhunters probably don’t make very much and are very early in their career. There are plenty of really good headhunters that work with higher level people. They don’t waste their time with some 60 or 70k BOM.
You need to do your due diligence on a headhunter just like you would a new hire. How many years in the field do they have? Who else in the office/company have they placed (bonus points if they placed your potential boss)? What is their specialty?
I actually worked for a search firm back in the day (20 years ago). Tough gig, and full of dishonesty. But the best were pretty up-front. The shysters didn’t last all that long.
THe higher up the food chain you got, generally the more integrity people had. I think that’s because the shysters got washed out for the most part by te time you got to that point.
That’s truly a cool story. I don’t know how you would be getting anything to do with a job title out of that email exchange. Because I can code I get a lot of people contacting me about dev positions. Obviously I cannot control who emails me. Similar to internet dating it’s a numbers game, you get a lot of responses and maybe you follow up on a couple. There is nothing on my LinkedIn profile that indicates I am looking for a job but you wouldn’t believe the amount of internal HR recruiters and external recruiters that contact me.
I would be more concerned with who you report to in an organization rather than a title. Out here there are a lot of titles people have that they do not deserve and if they ever left their organization, they would not get that title at a larger organization. Director in Silicon Valley means nothing.
I have relationships with a few good recruiters. I only deal with recruiters that:
Introduce themselves
Want to talk to me on the phone to understand my background / what I want to do
Send me jobs that fit
Unfortunately what most of these idiots do is send cut and paste text, don’t mention company name, etc that never do 1,2,3 above. As an example, I get a lot of “Hey, Interested?” emails with a “We are looking for a XYZ for a very profitable startup that just secured 15 mm in financing.” from people I have never spoken to before. Stuff like that goes straight into the trash.
I don’t understand why these idiots cannot introduce themselves. It’s a sales job. What are they doing with their time if they do not want to invest in a relationship? Blows my mind.
