Some IT recruiters are very intelligent people who do a good job and enjoy getting talented people into the jobs they want. They're helpful, friendly, polite, and understanding of our needs. They do us the great service of finding us a good jobs when we don't have time to find it ourselves. This letter isn't to those recruiters.
This letter is to the recruiters who have made us dread the Job Hunt. They make our fingers tremble on the mouse as we hit the submit button to add our resumes to internet job boards like Monster.com.
Why tremble? Because we know they're right there, waiting to thoughtlessly grab our email addresses for job SPAM lists that send us emails with cryptic titles like "J#474395 12 C++ Prgrmmrs Houston TX". They're waiting to call us at 6AM or 10PM at night to offer us positions as Senior Widget Engineers when absolutely nothing on our resumes is indicative of any prior experience even using Widgets, let alone engineering them.
We don't care whether your email says you need someone ASAP or if you mark it with a little red "URGENT" flag. We especially don't care if you write your whole email about how desperately you need Widget Engineers for eShop4Pantyhose.com in 30 point bold HTML text. If you send us Word Documents full of Job Opportunities, we won't read them, either because we don't use Word or we don't open Word documents from our own mothers because it will probably contain the next Melissa virus.
We don't want HTML email and Word documents, and that's one reason your clients want so badly to hire us. And you don't understand, because if you did they might want to hire you, too.
So, next time you call me with a lead for a great Java programming position even though my resume says i'm a web designer or a systems engineer, i'm going to tell you i'm very excited about the position. I'll let you interview me on the phone, and wait until you ask me if i'm familiar with the Java Swing and AWT. I'll say, "No, Mr. Recruiter, what's that?" And i'll wait. And you'll say, "uh ... you mean you don't know?"
"Of course i don't know, Mr. Recruiter, i'm a dog catcher not a Java programmer."