Recruiters 20

Last year, while still in Seattle, I was approached by a recruiter working for Ariba Networks; he was looking for a product manager for their headquarters in the Silicon Valley. I had a conversation with him, sent my CV, he allegedly set up a call for me with the hiring manager; then…nothing.

He didn’t reply to voice or emails and didn’t pick up on my calls (I assume he had caller ID). So, fine—another in a long list of crappy humanoids dressed up as “talent acquisition” professionals.

So when I got an email from him two weeks ago, announcing that he’s now working for another company that produces mobile clinical care apps for physicians and that he’s looking for a PM, my initial response was, “Big whoop.” His email didn’t even have a phone number for me to reach him on; how serious could he be?

So I wasn’t surprised when my reply elicited no response for several days. Then he left me a VM (with a number)…last Saturday. I connected with him on Monday for about 12 minutes—got a lot of guff about this company and the fact that, while they’re doing mobile apps, they don’t require mobile experience; in fact most of the people there didn’t have mobile experience when they came. They’re more interested in someone who’s owned a product before. He emphasized that what they’re really looking for SaaS competency and, of course, healthcare experience.

Blah, blah, blah.

He wasn’t interested in what I’ve been doing since last we spoke, just said he wanted me to speak with the HM—to whom he’d evidently already shown my CV (picked up presumably from Dice). As in, before determining whether I was interested. Well, the call was set for Wednesday afternoon.

In the intervening period my research turned up the fact that a good 70% of this company’s revenue comes from big pharma, who use the apps to push their latest drugs—usually more expensive and less effective than the older ones on which they’ve lost the patents. (Since one in four physician refuses to see pharmaceutical sales reps any more, the drug companies are looking for ways to get in prescribers’ faces; and handheld devices work just fine.)

And in the conversation with the HM I found out that he’s in fact hiring PMs to work on those precise mobile apps, not their new, SaaS-based EHR, which I actually find interesting. Also, he’s evidently interviewing scores of applicants, so I’m just one of who knows how many 30-minute calls. And there’s that whole snout-in-the-pharma-trough thing, which I find really troubling.

Ever since that call I thought about this. My current employment is…unsatisfactory; but I don’t see how I could feel like I had a scrap of integrity if I went over to that particular Dark Side. Any more than I could work for Wal-Mart.

So Thursday, when I got home from my daily snake-wrestling exercises, my thank-you email to the HM was a thanks-but-no-thanks.