A Kind Message from Software Developers to Recruiters

Dear Recruiters,

I write this message to you on behalf of all software developers as I know that most us feel the same way.

Let me start off by saying that I appreciate what recruiters do. I don’t appreciate what they do for the corporate world, or for technology, as I could argue either way for those benefits. I appreciate what recruiters have done for me personally. If it wasn’t for recruiters, I’d probably be making about half the income I make I right now. Also, if it wasn’t for recruiters, I probably never would have moved from San Francisco to Seattle and then from Seattle to Los Angeles. It’s not that I couldn’t have figured out how to make more money on my own or that I couldn’t have moved around the country on my own. It’s just that the motivation to leave companies for more money or to move to a different city to go work for a different company isn’t really an inherent motivation for me. Recruiters have supplied much of this motivation, and for that I’m thankful.

Now to what I don’t appreciate:

  • Not reading my resume / LinkedIn profile:
    I don’t appreciate you pitching jobs to me for which I’m obviously not qualified or interested in. Take a minute and read the entire thing. At the bottom of my LinkedIn profile, there’s even a section where I spell out for you which types of jobs I’d be interested in interviewing for.
  • Calling me while I’m at work:
    You know I have a job, right? You know I get paid to write code, not talk on the phone, right? Do I call you while you’re at your job and try to get you to take a job somewhere else? No, I don’t. It’s called respect. If you give us respect, we’ll give you  respect.
  • Scheduling a phone interview during the middle of my day:
    This goes back to my previous point. Why would I want to interview for a different position during the middle of my work day? Who does that? Only unemployed people. Get a clue please.

Sorry if this sounds harsh. I realize you are just trying to make a living the best way you can. Think about this though. Maybe if you stopped treating developers like your next paycheck, they would actually have some semblance of loyalty to you or your recruiting firm and not treat you like a commodity.

Happy head hunting,
Karim