Recruiters 39

For a few months I’ve been getting emails from a couple of recruiters who for the most part have demonstrated themselves to be a step or two above the vast preponderance of their ilk. However, I’m beginning to wonder.

One—who calls himself Dave Johnson (although this could be a nom-de-recruit; Indian recruiters for the bottom-feeding body-shops frequently give themselves names that are meant to sound as American as the US addresses and VOIP phone numbers)—has begun to annoy me, though.

If you’ve managed to avoid getting into these people’s contact databases (by never, ever applying for a tech position online using any job board or ATS), here’s the level of stupidity that is not uncommon. On the same day, with only a couple of hours intervening, Dave sent me these two listings:

(I’ve noticed that about 50% of Dave’s emails are headed “[Some company] would like to meet with you”. Dave lies.)

Now, I’m guessing that Dave’s algorithm spat out these emails because wherever he scraped my contact details, the file had the word “product” in it. You’ll note that both job descriptions also have the word “product” in them. It’s of passing interest that they both also have to do with coffee, although to my recollection the word “coffee” does not appear in any of my professional details.

However, Dave’s algorithm seems to be bifurcated, since—even if I were inclined to branch out of the tech world into the exciting challenges of coffee demonstrations (at a Costco, in one case!), Virginia and California are on opposite ends of the country. This is the kind of geographical ignorance you find very often in the hope-you-are-doing-well emails that come from recruiters based in Bangalore, rather than in Santa Monica. (I’m tempted occasionally to ask if there are no maps of the United States in all of India.)

The thing I wonder about this whole recruiting industry is how does anyone make a living at it, when they are so stultifyingly ghastly. Can their pipeline be so huge that enough of these ridiculous gambits strike paydirt (with a big enough commission—how much could either of these two offer?) to keep Dave on good terms with his ISP?