Recruiters and Headhunters take notice.

Even though I am gainfully employed in a full-time position I still receive an endless number of emails and phone calls from recruiters scraping Monster.com and Dice.com for Citrix Administrators, SQL Admins, MS SQL DBA’s, etc. I honestly can’t understand how most of these guys get anyone to work for them except the desperate unemployed. I’m going to dissect a recent contact I received from a headhunter sending spam to everyone who had a Citrix certification on Monster.

“Hi Philipe,

I am a recruiter from XXXX; I have a position in NJ as a Senior Citrix Metaframe team Manager. I would appreciate if you can forward your updated resume.”

Here was the limited description provided for the position.

Position : Senior Citrix Metaframe team manager.
Exp : 7 – 12 Yrs
Rate : DOE
Duration : 1 yr
Location : Jersey City, Nj.
Skills : Citrix Metaframe

Now let’s count the reasons I would NEVER contact this recruiter, “Subbu”.

1. My names not Philipe, I don’t even go by Phillip.
2. He never looked at my resume or he would know I go by Todd.
3. My resume states “geographic location: RTP, Raleigh/Durham” not New Jersey.
4. Subbu probably doesn’t speak English as well as he writes it which is not encouraging since he writes it broken (I couldn’t imagine being hired by someone who can’t communicate effectively and professionally in my native language). Recruiters that I can’t understand get classified as cheap overseas labor.
5. Who in their right mind with 7-10 years of Sys. Admin experience would answer this request for a resume?
6. Again, who with 7-10 years of experience would jump on a 12 month “team management” contract? (They would have to mad cash)

Subbu did not even close his email with his full name, just Subbu. He also asked for the last four digits of my social as part of the requested response. Do mass market headhunters really think that there are experienced Sys Admins sitting around, poor, waiting for some vague position to come along in hopes they’re qualified? If I were an employer I would be highly skeptical of any candidate coming from a recruiting source such as this. Unfortunatley this email personifies 90% of the recruitment contacts I receive.