Winner of the worst recruiter of the year!
Every week I get a bunch of emails from recruiters about jobs that I am not qualified for (see Low-rate recruiters – The bane of my existence). Some obviously use keyword searches and just spam any person who has that keyword in their profile (i.e. I have Microsoft Dynamics AX in my LinkedIn profile so I sometimes gets jobs for Microsoft Dynamics AX administrator).
Usually I just delete those emails, but sometimes I get one so off-base that I respond. Like the one I got today for a “Senior UI Developer” using something called “Drupal”. When I do email the recruiter to tell them to stop wasting my time, very rarely do they reply back. When they do, it has always been to apologize. Not this one.
This was from “Shreyas Gandhi” from “Proximous Inc”, who gets my worst recruiter of the year award.
Congrats Shreyas!
My response to his email for a job that had nothing to do with my skillset:
“Please take 30 seconds to read someone’s profile before wasting their time with a job they are totally unqualified for. It will prevent you from falling into the “automatically delete” category. Don’t you aspire to be a recruiter who will be listened to? Or do you not care?”
And his award-winning reply:
it takes less than 30 seconds to delete a message which you are not interested in or which doesn’t suit you, rather than giving unwanted advises and craps, and wasting our time by that way.
If you are not looking for a job then you MUST not put your profile on any job portals or on job boards under wrong category….IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT, NOT ANYONE ELSE’S
And before you put somebody in “automatically delete” category, I have marked you in blacklist on portals and job boards so that none of the recruiter contacts you even when you are in need of work.
All future communications are blocked.
& yes, in the end, You must deserve one unwanted but badly required advise from my end also..and that is… “YOU NEED A PSYCHIATRIST…CONSULT ONE ASAP”
More info:
OMFG! What a complete jerk-off! And the recruitment industry wonders why it has a bad name….
This recruiter obviously doesn’t understand the meaning of long lasting business relationships.
To say it’s your fault is ridiculous. I’d say it was his fault for not putting together a good enough search string. That’s by the by though, it’s inexcusable to have responded in that way.
And yes, agree with Will, this is one of the reasons why the recruitment profession has a bad name with the majority of candidates.
If I was you I wouldn’t give it any more of your time, but you are well within your rights to get in touch with his boss and make a formal complaint.
Thanks for the feedback Dominic. I did try to find out who his boss was, but these types of recruiters are great at putting up a website that makes it look like the are a legitimate company with an office in the US, but in reality it’s just made up of a few bozos who are really offshore. So I could not find out who else worked for the company.
Wow, what a champ! Lots of recruiters are just looking for a quick buck and they need to understand that just like people who do other jobs, you need to work hard and learn to be patient and work with others.
On a personal note, I would have listed the person as Anonymous because you don’t want to give them any fame or notoriety.
Good laugh for the afternoon, thanks!
You’re blacklisted. That’s a good thing right?
Once a recruiter from the French speaking part of the country sent a LinkedIn invition without a personal message. Rather it displayed the standard LinkedIn message, but in French. So I replied he should take at least the time to write a personal message, preferably in English (supposed to be a quite common language) or in my native language.
I got the reply “I’m sorry that you are so closed.”
Wut?
In 2014 this moron will be:
1. Making the equivalent of $1.50/hr cleaning lettuce patches
2. Have a gun to his mouth wondering why he cannot feed his family. Reason: PSYCHIATRIST BILLS!
3. In the corner bar with a blood alcohol level of .20 and saying “Sales. It’s a tough gig!”
The good news is that this guy won’t last. You can only burn so many bridges before you find yourself stranded, and this guy is quick with the matches.
So just to be clear… can you please lay out the EXACT steps on how to get blacklisted from horrible recruiters contacting you ALL THE TIME hahaha.
I really hope that guy doesn’t work for a company I know.
I work for a recruiter, and well if we caught a recruiter sending out a message like that.. he would not be working by the end of the day.
You rock for getting such a great response from the recruiter! I’ve been trolling these people for ages and never ever hear back. Worst recruiter of the year? BEST recruiter of the year! Let’s keep it going! 🙂
oh boy. Welcome to my world James, imagine having to sit beside this dummy all day and recruit with him. This is why I work with a few chosen and we don`t hire anyone else. Unfortunately there are way more bad recruiters out there than good ones.
This guy or girl obviously had too much time on their hands to put together such a lengthy response, which also tells us he is not very focused on recruiting = . low income = anger issues.
The only reason I am responding to this James is I`m sick and tired of being embarrased by these rookies. I would like to get more info from you – the name and `company`. As a successful head-hunter I will make it my personal project to find this guy and talk to his boss. Let me know.
wow…well…James you do have expectations of recruiters, key things you are targeting in your professional skillset, as well as a certain rate based on your advanced skill and market; and clearly by his defensive and unprofessional response he hasn’t been doing this long or his work environment is an awful hamsterwheel where the frustration gets taken out on candidates, or he just simply doesn’t know how to meet your needs.
Recruiting isn’t for everyone
James,
Thanks for this, I was in need for some laughs…classic….
Did being “blacklisted” actually reduce the number of recruiter emails?
🙂
Yeah, I deal with many similar recruiters. There are some decent ones, though. I think my worst so far (not quite as bad as this guy) was:
Recruiter: Blah, blah, what salary expectations do you have?
Me:
R: Well, this is well above what my client can offer. Why do you send your CV for such jobs? Obviously the job description was for someone looking for
Me: You did not specify anything about salary, the job fitted my skills and expertise, so I sent you my CV. Isn’t it your job to filter out candidates who would obviously be overqualified for the job? If you need a junior developer you might as well not call senior ones, put that in the job description and why not put a salary range which you are well aware of?
R: Thank you for telling me how to do my job and for wasting your and my time. You shouldn’t send CVs to jobs which you don’t want.
This is where I thanked her and broke the conversation..
It took like 30min to get to this point actually. And she sounded very pleased with what I could offer..
Then she continued sending me offers..I guess she was very thick-skinned after all..
Had a very unpleasant experience with a recruiter. Not as bad as yours but scumbag quality nonetheless.
http://tatro.azurewebsites.net/index.php/when-recruiters-turn-bad/
Brian, I would say that your unpleasant experience is actually far worse than James Serra’s. Your “subtle” mention of who the recruiting firm is hilarious. I honestly feel bad for recruiters. It is a sales job. The SF Bay area is incredibly competitive and few of the recruiters are able to make it. As for, James’ story. I have had many interactions with Proximous in the past. Never actually worked with them but none ever responded to me in that heinous manner. My experience was quite the opposite. The person that I spoke with there was friendly and professional. I am not affiliated with them in any shape or form. However, I had my share of horrific experiences with other recruiters. I blame the search engines. There must be a better way for these non-technical users to perform more accurate searches. I am guessing that the job boards are not providing them with UI elements needed to do so. I think that this was an aberration not the norm for Proximous.
I pity you James. I have been through the same boat as you. I realized that each company hire a recruiting company that help them fill the position. The recruiting companies have their cronies (candidates.. I mean). They place the ones that are loyal to them. Somehow, the recruiting company comes to know of the candidate if one applies directly to the company. They either use a network of recruiters or they use some spam mechanism to email you with positions that has nothing to do with your skill set. The from address in the email rarely has anything to do with the actual recruiter. Also, check the header to see if it is coming from the right source. Replying to them is the worst thing you can do.
Ah yes, the off-shore crew, bunch of bozos from programmers to recruiters now!
Anyone who writes:
“than giving unwanted advises and craps, and wasting our time by that way.”
Must deserve the: “All your bases are belongs to us” badge