Recruiters

I had a bad experience with a recruiter, aka head-hunter, a few days ago.  Here's what happened.

About a week ago, the recruiter, let's call him Mr. X, emailed me saying that someone I knew recommended me to him.  Wow.  A personal recommendation.  That's great, but I didn't reply.

A few days later, Mr. X emailed both my work and personal email accounts saying that he has a position that seems like a good fit for me based on one of my past colleagues recommendation.

OK, because of the personal recommendation, I thought it might be worthwhile to investigate what this recruiter has.  I sent Mr. X an email saying that I would like to chat about this position he thought I might be a good fit for.  I sent him my phone number and a time range that I would be available.

Mr. X didn't confirm that he would call, but a call arrived.  The problem was, the person calling wasn't Mr. X. It was Mr. X's colleague Mr. Y.  I didn't really have any loyalty to Mr. X, but passing my file along before we ever spoke doesn't exactly make me feel special.

After informing me he wasn't Mr. X, Mr. Y wanted information from me, but didn't want to give me any.  He began the conversation by saying,
"Can you tell me about your programming experience?"

I didn't want to be difficult, but I couldn't help it.  I said something like:
"You emailed me saying that, based on a personal recommendation, you had a great position for me.  Please tell me why you think I'm a good fit for the position."  

Well, Mr. Y began speaking again, and before I knew it, he was asking me again about my programming experience.  He's a professional recruiter, and I am not a professional job seeker.  He was getting me to tell him whether I knew about smart pointers, what I worked on, what I wanted in a job and so forth, but I couldn't get a clear answer on what the job was that I was supposedly a great fit for.

The only thing I really wanted at this point was for him to tell me what the job was.  After a bit, I finally said,
"Can you just email me the job title and description?"
He replied that this was a special position and that he and the hiring manager had a good relationship, and blah blah blah.  Mr. Y basically told me that this job didn't really have a written description.  I still couldn't figure out what the job was.  How the heck did Mr X or Mr Y figure that I was a good fit for this mysterious job?   He must have gotten me really confused, because before I knew it, he was asking me for a resume and I said I would work on it.

The call ended.  Mr Y. emailed me, asked for my resume, and I guess he slipped, but he gave me the job title.  I looked up the recruiting firm and saw that this was a listed job with an actual job description.  In the end, the job wasn't for me at all, and I emailed Mr. Y saying that it wasn't a good fit.

Over the course of the emails and calls, the only thing that the recruiter said about the job was that it was 'prestigious'.  I'm not sure if recruiters will ever really understand what a developer is looking for.  I sometimes want to recommend that they read Joel's test, but I think a recruiter will use that for evil instead of actually helping developers find good roles.