tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34036186124365423322024-03-13T00:24:20.587-04:00Recruiting RantsRants from both sides of the HR desk (guest posts welcome).Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-37772095719894700472022-03-22T11:38:00.002-04:002022-03-22T11:38:26.826-04:00Comments offDue to a spate of spam comments, commenting has been disabled for this blog. :-(Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-74219987524946165442018-08-21T13:50:00.000-04:002018-08-21T13:50:11.388-04:00Don't Be a Dingaling! As if stupid spammy recruiters weren't
ALREADY enough of a pain, here's the latest. It's not the usual
sort of of spam (email), it's even more excruciatingly stupid because
they're wasting their own time as well!
My phone starts ringing, earlier today. It's an
unrecognized number. So, I follow my Standard Operating Procedure: mute
the Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-1882748053873484652017-12-20T09:38:00.000-05:002018-01-04T09:18:52.423-05:00It ain't relevant, man! Some
of you may have run a forum or three in the past,
be it on a web site,
a
Usenet
newsgroup,
a mailing list,
a Fidonet
Echo
back in the day,
or, as this story concerns, a
LinkedIn group.
(Groups are the main reason I use LinkedIn,
though LinkedIn has seemed hell-bent on screwing them up
for the past several years,
and killing the whole concept off for the past few. Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-15412138487675740462017-06-05T11:32:00.005-04:002017-06-05T11:33:38.299-04:00Infinite Skills This seems not very far off the mark from how closely the vast majority of the "recruiters" I've dealt with read (or at least understand) a resume: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/resumeDave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-57848857703920560272016-10-19T09:32:00.001-04:002016-10-19T09:32:55.421-04:00We are spammers! Bum padumbum, bumbumbum! Wow, it's been so long since I've posted here that I nearly
forgot I had this blog. Sorry! At least I have been
working on the book... a little bit... once in a while....
Meanwhile, today's spammer is Farmers Insurance, or at
least their recruiting division:
To: David Aronson <the address I use at CareerBuilder>
Subject: Response to Resume
Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-84209461914016744682014-11-03T07:47:00.001-05:002014-11-03T07:47:32.389-05:00It's not just Americans.... I recently found a new web comic (well, new to me anyway), made I know not where but apparently they speak French, and began catching up on the archives. The episode at http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2012/12/10/le-mouton-a-cinq-pattes/ is particularly relevant to this blog. Go check it out. It's mainly for geeks, but non-geeks will understand what's going on, Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-6602516250103446662014-07-16T21:22:00.000-04:002014-07-16T21:22:02.043-04:00Meta-Tag, You're It! In a rather "meta" twist, I am now getting
spammed by so-called recruiters who want me to be... a recruiter. Maybe
I'll go do that and have a successful career spamming more high-tech
consultants to lure them into becoming spammy recruiters, and they'll spam two friends, and they'll spam two friends, and so
on, and so on, until the entire world is spammy recruiters! Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-65039651139358952152014-07-15T08:13:00.000-04:002014-07-15T08:16:47.840-04:00Beep Beep, Beep Beep, NO! Insurance companies aren't the only industry
with recruiters spamming me a lot over the years. Even aside from my
actual industry, I occasionally get come-ons from car dealerships.
Of course I'd just love to give up my six-figure income doing
work I enjoy, from home, to be a car salesman (right after I'm done with my
other careers selling insurance, taking tickets on Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-82335708649672075612014-06-14T15:33:00.002-04:002017-04-04T10:36:53.786-04:00Ma Spam Strikes Yet Again You'd think that
once the recruiting department of a huge technically innovative company decided
to get some foggy glimmer of a clue how evil spamming is, and start actually
including some way for you to get off their spam list, that they'd do that
simple task correctly, wouldn't you? Yes, you probably would.
But again, you'd be wrong.
Here's yetDave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-42143301075792414022014-05-31T17:31:00.001-04:002014-06-03T07:46:12.583-04:00Ma Spam You'd think big companies would know better than
to recruit by spamming, wouldn't you? Especially big companies that have
been around for almost 140 years. Well-established big companies that
have traditionally been leaders in technology. Companies built on radical
advances like, oh, say, the telephone, and created their own, like, oh,
say, Unix, you know,
that Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-8885056697055479872013-08-24T15:43:00.001-04:002013-08-24T15:43:30.305-04:00U2F5IFdIQVQ/IQo= The title of this
post may look like garbage to you. But the truly geeky will notice the
equals sign at the end, and realize "hey, this might be base64-encoded!" And so it is. In plaintext, it
says "Say WHAT?!" -- but I have been saving that title for another post, on
recruiter emails that aren't quite so illegible, and recruiter phone
messages (and even Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-91580072745852136942013-08-12T09:24:00.001-04:002013-08-12T09:24:37.770-04:00There she goes, there she goes again.... I've shown you spammers who send me many spams for different jobs, mostly fairly inappropriate for one reason or another. And I've shown you spammers who send me a spam or two for the same totally inappropriate job. Then there are the spammers who send me multiple spams for the same totally inappropriate job. Today's spammer is Insphere Insurance Solutions, Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-37107187570738190132013-08-08T19:38:00.000-04:002013-08-08T19:38:21.425-04:00Return to Kingdom Spam Some of our prior miscreants have been at it
again! I really need to call Don Lilly and give him a piece of my
mind. After all, he wants me to call, he even tells me to
call! I'm sure he wouldn't mind hearing from you too. See
the spam below for his phone number.
While we're all at it, we should also call Mutual of Omaha's main
number and tell Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-29803885334415720822013-07-21T14:58:00.000-04:002013-07-22T12:33:29.616-04:00Why Recruiting Rubyists Is Hard Recently I had cause to
not-quite-rant on LinkedIn.
A
recruiter (who, AFAIK, hadn't done anything wrong) asked in the Ruby on
Rails group:
So...any idea's on why it is hard to find a Ruby on Rails
Developer in Chicago for a contract to hire?
I didn't expect much of a reaction to my reply, but so many
people have been "Like"ing it, either on LinkedIn or by email to Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-42382702099977524662013-06-28T19:06:00.000-04:002013-06-28T19:07:41.737-04:00STFU and GTFO!
One of the recruiters who spammed me earlier, Bhavana Gour of eTouch Systems, pushed my buttons again recently, though indirectly. She didn't do anything all that unusual. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it was good, it just means that a lot of her colleagues commit the same offense. She posted several job ads in the Discussions tab, rather than the Jobs tab, of aDave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-2421543637858524292013-05-03T21:46:00.002-04:002013-05-03T21:46:25.857-04:00Hey Junior! If the spammy recruiters don't send me things that are totally inappropriate by dint of location, permanence, skillset, or pay-rate, not to worry, there are many other idiocies in their bags of tricks. Another common one to fall back on is the very closely related concept of level:
From: Monster
To: me
Date: &Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-23222826125454163372013-04-21T13:02:00.000-04:002013-04-21T20:11:29.186-04:00Mutual of Omaha's Spam Kingdom Recently, I mentioned companies spamming me about "opportunities" to become an insurance salesman, train conductor, or many other positions utterly unrelated to my current career or otherwise expressed desires. The below message came so quickly after posting that, that I'm taking it as a sign, that I should start posting them. So now, the first of many examples Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-48935270366851922172013-04-20T13:52:00.000-04:002013-07-20T08:50:04.695-04:00I see nutTINK! Remember what I wrote earlier about lack of information? Since then, I got a phone message that takes that to the extreme. Transcript:
Hi, this message is for David. Hi, David, this is Sekar calling from a company called Bridge Technologies and Solutions. This call is regarding for a job opportunity. If you are interested, kindly call me back at 208 Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-4717181622052776162013-04-19T15:56:00.001-04:002017-04-04T10:50:13.947-04:00Cure for Recruiter Spammorhea? Since last time, I've spent most of the time busy on a project. That ended a few weeks ago, and I've spun the search machine back up again, so it's time for more Recruiting Rants while I can!
Let's start off with one jerk who not only spammed me with an inappropriate "opportunity" (I get several per day), but he alone sent me multiple per day! Over the Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-5870879231187556742012-10-03T12:53:00.003-04:002012-10-03T12:55:20.014-04:00Duuuuuude! Srsly? Yes, it's finally another post. Been kinda busy lately. I'm getting off my duff now because just I saw one particular recruiter, on LinkedIn, exemplifying one of the major things they always tell candidates not to do. How seriously do you think a recruiter (or indeed anyone) would take you, if you showed up on LinkedIn, or some other place where you're supposedDave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-56403582339896072482012-03-05T20:45:00.000-05:002012-03-06T09:31:35.292-05:00Say What? Sorry for the looooong delay... I thought I was going to have a guest blogger fill in, and it didn't work out. Oh well. Anyway, on with the show.
I'm going to take a bit of a side trip right now, from our perusal of typical direct initial contacts. Why? Because I came across an indirect one that was just so horribly bad, that this lazy Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-21133214236126619642012-01-29T14:44:00.001-05:002012-01-31T15:41:12.771-05:00Goose Sauce Part Deux: Location?! Let's continue working down our
hypothetical emails. Sorry it's taken me long to get back to this;
blogging is a low priority for me at the moment, and I was trying to
line up some guest bloggers too.
Anyway...
Suppose the body of a candidate's cover-email, on an unsolicited resume, just said, "I have skills you might be interested in." -- and Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-13303235166794592272012-01-24T09:32:00.001-05:002012-01-24T09:32:28.607-05:00Recommended Resource: The Daily WTF Just a quick note about a source of more "Tales from the Interview" -- exactly that tag, from The Daily WTF. Check out that department at http://thedailywtf.com/Series/Tales_from_the_Interview.aspx.
Meanwhile, we'll continue working our way along a typical (bad) recruiter's first contact email shortly. I promise!Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-79221225631467563222012-01-18T07:20:00.001-05:002012-01-18T08:13:12.388-05:00Stop SOPA and PIPA!
This post is black in protest of SOPA and PIPA, the House and Senate bills that will strangle freedom and innovation on the Internet, while doing next to nothing about "piracy", the alleged reason for the bills. Take action!
* Go sign Google's petition against them, at https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/, and any others you can find.
* Contact your Senator and Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403618612436542332.post-61985370007998946012011-12-23T09:15:00.002-05:002011-12-23T09:15:21.334-05:00Goose Sauce, Part I: Dear Actively At many steps in the process, the expectations seem very unfair. As I said, I'm not a recruiter, so I know mainly of those steps where the candidate is held to a much higher standard. (If you know of times when the recruiter is held to a much higher standard than the candidate, feel free to contribute a guest post.) Often the candidate is expected to be Dave Aronsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05727750970755433075noreply@blogger.com0