8 things I hate in recruitment letters [add yours, it's kind of research]

I really dislike people sending them multiple times in a row. I had someone reach out three times in a week recently with no response and escalating levels of rudeness.

I dislike being reached out to with junior positions, as someone whose title has "lead" in it right now.

Contract positions seem unethical to me usually unless it's part-time work.

The number one biggest issue I think it that of technical recruiters not having a technical background. It would be like letting a bus driver operate your next airliner. I understand why it would be hard to find someone with a technical background to fulfil a recruitment role; but maybe that's the problem. Technical recruitment, IMO, is an unneeded role.

If I want a role with a organization I seek them out. IF they want me I am not hard to find.

I'd say my biggest complaint is that they don't bother to look at my actual skill set. All to often I get posts that are clearly for a back-end web developer or even worse, a software developer.(I'm a front-end web developer for reference) I get that it's a numbers game and they're emailing hundreds if not thousands of developers. It's just spam though if it's an opportunity for a job I don't do.

I'm not in the market these days. Back in the days of yore when I was amenable to a new position, there was one thing that irked me more than anything else.

My biggest thing I hate in recruitment letters is when I get one that looks intriguing from a company I'm interested in, and I get all excited about the opportunity...

...then I read that I would have to relocate.

So I contact the HR recruiter, and indeed, required to relocate. So I graciously decline.

Subsequently, about once a year, I get another email for same-or-similar position from said company. Still with the requirement to relocate. From the same HR recruiter.

Sigh.

I dislike when the recruiter gets their creep on.

Hit me up on LinkedIn with a message? That's cool, though I'm not likely to reply unless you have a compelling reason for me to do so, based on what my history has been.

If that's followed up by a friend request on LinkedIn, nope, sorry we're done here. In what world would it make sense for me, the currently employed candidate, to accept a public friend request from a recruiter? I like my job, I don't know you, and this could make people think I feel the opposite. just no.

I've had that followed up with an email to my personal work email (they guessed the format; not that hard). My jaw dropped, it's like you were smart enough to guess the email address but ignorant or uncaring enough to respect my current employment...get bent.

Sometimes they can get my number, which is listed in a few discrete places. They'll give me a call up like we're old buddies. This one time, they had me going for a few minutes thinking we worked together; until they generalized something and I caught on. I said please hold, and got in my car and took an hour drive with my phone on and the radio jamming. I think they lasted 15 minutes before giving up.

So where does it go from there? Am I going to be blocked from walking into my office because the recruiter is there waiting for me? will they be at my house when i get home?

It boils down to respect, some recruiters just have none and are trying to make their quota. The few that I have worked with, when looking for my previous position, we're great. They were informed about the position, the qualifications, my experience, and did not try to use pressure to force me to make decisions.

It feels impersonal when job descriptions or experience requirements list off every programming language/framework under the sun. If you're reaching out to me, I want to know that you have identified something specific about me that your company wants, not just someone to be a code monkey.

"I've got a Senior Development position for you"

While I'm not looking right now, here are some from my job search earlier this year:

1. Sending out emails that don't match the skill set of the recipient. For example, sending a DBA emails about front end dev jobs.

2. Asking for advanced degrees when it obviously isn't necessary for the job (this means this is a low paying contract job specifically for a H1B contractor).

3. Asking about visa status (another H1B contract job tell).

4. Asking for private information like passport or social security numbers up front (no, just no).

5. Buzzword bingo recruiting ("Java ninja", "TDD Rockstar", etc)

6. Asking for unlikely combos of experience, such as someone who is an expert in Oracle, embedded systems and web front ends.

7. Asking for unrealistic experience, such as someone who has 5+ years experience in a framework or technology that was released less than 5 years ago.

The worst though are recruiters who do send you well targeted emails that you respond to but they ignore you and keep sending you more job listings.

When they say: I saw you github profile so you are probably interested in angular or drupal.
But I never developed with that technologies.
I hate a lot because seems that they try to see that they are not n00b in tech but show how much they are

On the flipside I feel so blessed that we literally have people offering us jobs left and right. Count your blessings and don't be rude to these people who are just trying to make a living.