is this still relevant?
I still get asked a lot about my 'headhunter nightmares' blog posts, usually followed up with a question about whether I still hold a hatred for recruiters even after so many years.
The short answer is "yes", but I'm not quite so in-your-face about it. Now, I just do the usual passive-aggressive stuff:
- report them to LinkedIn as spammers
- mark their emails as phishing attempts at Gmail
- report them to their ESP for breaking federal CAN-SPAM laws
- report them to their hosting provider for breaking federal CAN-SPAM laws
- report their hosting provider to and their hosting provider's network infrastructure provider for allowing a user to break federal CAN-SPAM laws
my backstory
It's a tough job and *somebody* has to do it, but they seriously need to be regulated to follow a core set of rules, like having a licensing authority over them who can yank a license for bad/shady practices.
Those who spend any time with me talking about finding a job in technology learn quickly that I *hate* third-party recruiting agencies, affectionately known as "headhunters."
If you've done any kind of web search for "recruiter nightmare" stories, you've probably been sent here. I've dealt with some real winners in the past. Everything from headhunters who don't bother reading a resume before calling, who can't spell and let automated spell checkers correct their mistakes, who straight up lie, who can't tell time, and who just waste my time.
So I started a series of articles about some of the recruiters I've dealt with in the past. In some, I meticulously detailed the conversations or have screenshots of Emails just so you can see the absurdity of what I went through. Sometimes I protect them by not sharing their names; other times, not so much.
So sit back and read about my experiences with headhunters ...