Open Letter to Recruiters and Headhunters
Dear Recruiters and Headhunters,
Many of you are discovering the miracle of e-mail and the over-hyped ZoomInfo.com site. To anyone looking to hire a person in a web-related field (or I daresay any IT-related field), a friendly tip: stop using ZoomInfo. It’s great that you’ve found us, we’re flattered you’re interested in our skills. However, it is insulting to our intelligence and all that we work towards on a daily basis to receive a spammy-looking e-mail that screams Delete Me! at a glance.
If you truly desire a high-quality web/software/IT worker to take your offers seriously, stop using these tacky methods to gain our attention. I, for one, do not appreciate unsolicited job offers landing in my work inbox. Do you know the implications it carries? I refuse to believe recruiters have a perverse intention to purposely get a prospect fired. Certainly others would agree with me: you can establish rapport with more dignity.
Here are my suggestions:
- Stop using ZoomInfo. Right now. That addiction doesn’t apply here.
- Try a better job board or use a better company: quality makes us stand up and take notice.
- If contact is via e-mail, craft a better message than the canned garbage ZoomInfo spouts.
Many of my peers are looking for better jobs or a career move. From my limited experience with headhunters, they have been annoyingly off the mark with their current attempts. If you want to be the next premier company asked to write a guest article about your successful recruiting techniques, try these three simple steps.
Do You Have COWS?
Sometimes I can’t help myself. I have a tendency to learn by osmosis and I’m often not aware it’s happening until the damage is done. Call it the list of useless skills.
I see too many photos of cows on a daily basis. I can tell you if they are wet or dry, an approximate age and the difference between a donor and a heifer. No. Take my word for it- you really don’t want to ask about any of it. I also have the ability to glance at random photos of random cows and can nail the breed with 80% accuracy. Not bad for a city girl.
Aside from the bovine variety, meet a few new cows.
Everyone has a disease these days. The ones with an acronym are the worst. People seem to follow some semblance of this train of thought:
Oh, no! The doctors have an acronym for it! That must mean they say it all the time and are tired of repeating that mouthful of words. It must be serious if they are referring to it as RLS! What if I have Restless Leg Syndrome?! (Ponders.) Ooh…I wonder if they prescribe Ritalin. Maybe I do have it.
If I’m stuck with one, I pick COWS: Continuous Open Windows Syndrome. Do you ever seem to have too many windows open at once? I have a very large monitor with a high pixel resolution. Screen space should not be an issue, but it is.
There is a running joke in my office: we (the random 2 web developers) tell the visitors “It’s all about C.O.W.s.” What we really mean is “It’s all about Cranking Out the Web sites.”
Thursday Finds
Today is also a non-technical day, filled with well-written white papers. Grasp the finer details of web development issues, from a business-oriented standpoint:
- Short version of The Beekeeper – a gentle and intelligent introduction to open source and how it fits into business. James Dixon quashes misconceptions surrounding open source and illuminating the potential in the POSS business model.
- So You Want To Hire a SWF Developer? Joseph Balderson offers a few acceptable names to call “the person who builds SWF files” for a living.
- Understanding Web Design – Jeffrey Zeldman’s elegant article helps explain and clarify the complexities known as ‘Web Design.’
Food for thought: Supporting the Fair Tax
When I need a break from solving a problem on a project, I tend to read something completely unrelated to the subject I was working on. I fell down a rabbit hole and just finished reading an excellent article at Change Your Tree: I Support The Fair Tax (And Why You Should Too).
It’s already known that web designers and developers aren’t well paid, and with worried whispers of a recession in the air, band-aids are not going to be a viable solution. So why not do yourself a favor? Read about a real solution.
