Recruiters Continue to Annoy Me

The IT market in Toronto is still pretty hot. I know this because I still keep getting calls from recruiters, even though I'm not actively looking. I haven't updated my profile on in months, but that doesn't seem to deter these used-car-salesman wannabees from calling me at least 2x per week.

I never take their calls (they call my cell), since they always call when I'm at work, and most of them block their number. If they don't have the courtesy to unblock their #s when they call, then they're not worth my time. Besides, if it's important, they'll leave a message and even follow up with an e-mail. I always get a kick out of the messages that these guys leave. They must all learn from the same Recruiter Manual, because all of their voice messages sound the same:


This message is for IndyComp0t1. Hi IndyComp0T1, this Joe Recruiter. I'm a Recruitment Consultant calling on behalf of Stupid-Ass Recruiting Company. I was just looking at your profile on Bob's Recruiting Site. I see that you've been working as a Widget Maker at Widget World. Your résumé came up in a search in our databases, and I think you'd be a great fit for a client that we're trying to staff for. Can you give me a call at 555-4444? Again, my name is Joe Recruiter, with Stupid-Ass Recruiting Company at 555-4444. Look forward to speaking with you, IndyComp0T1.


Their follow-up e-mails are no better. If I'm lucky, I get a very high-level description of the job. If not, I just get a terse message asking for a Word version of my résumé. No job description, nothing. And unless you're talking to an actual real-live HR person at the hiring company (rare, but it still happens), they never ever ever want to give you the name of their top-secret client unless you send them your résumé first. Sorry dude, but if I don't know you, there is NO WAY IN HELL that I'm going to willingly send you my personal work history. Some of these guys don't even have the decency to use a real corporate e-mail address for recruitment. I've gotten e-mails from "recruiters" with Yahoo addresses, for example. So this tells me that:

1. Their "company" is a rinky-dink piece of crap that is too cheap to pay more on the recruitment sites to download my résumé.
2. They are not officially working with the company for which they are trying to staff. They are just stalking company job pages to see what's available, and if they find a willing victim (recruitee), they force said company to pay them commission for doing a crappy job of presenting you.

I used to reply to these morons, saying that I wasn't interested, but I've just lost my patience and ignore them. Some of these guys are bloody persistent, following up 2 or 3 times after their initial call, and some of them have the gall to call my home # at night.

Unfortunately, I think we're stuck with these creeps if we ever want to find another job. Companies don't do their own recruiting anymore. They either outsource it to a separate company, or let these vultures bring in the kill. You can't even go to a normal job fair anymore. Back in the day, you'd go to a job fair and companies would send representatives and set up their booths, and you could shoot the breeze with potential employers. That is no longer the case. Now job fairs don't have reps from potential employers anymore. Instead, these fairs are comprised of reps from recruitment companies. Job sites are no better. Good luck trying to find a posting on a job site that ISN'T a vague posting from a recruitment company. Can anyone say invasion of the body snatchers???