How Many Recruiters?

Here's a cultural subset who've become a somewhat regular part of my life since being given the chop at work: recruiters. They're a strange breed, collecting resumes and frantically doing whatever they can to add that one extra contact to the LinkedIn profile. Some are good. Some will take the time to actually read a candidate's resume and attempt to come to a set of reasonable conclusions about what that person has done and most likely wants to do in the future. They're kind of rare. The majority simply run a few quick keyword scans, leap at any matches, no matter how tenuous, and start making calls.

Well I'm glad they call. It's good for the ego. When the days at home alone grow long it's kinda sorta nice to get someone on the other end of the line asking if you're interested in a position, even if it's something that's totally orthogonal to your current career direction. At least you feel loved.

Well, this morning I received a call about a web development manager position. The scenario went something like this.

The phone rings. It's not a number I recognise but it might be about a job. I answer.

"Hello sir, is now a good time to talk?"

The voice is accented and female. By the sine curve intonations my guess is that she's calling from India. A lot of recruiting companies are now located there and use IP phones to obtain US-based area code phone numbers. I think that's a decent strategy. I really don't care where the recruiters are calling from. All that matters is whether or not they've done any work before they call.

"Sure, now's a good time."

"I wanted to find out if you're interested in a web development manager position in Mountain View, California."

Ah, yes, the Mountain View job. I know all about this job and how to end the call quickly.

"Is this position at a company called Skyfire?"

"Yes, sir, it is."

You see, most recruiters don't like to tell you which company they're representing when they first call you. For whatever reason, the big reveal isn't executed until some further sign of commitment has been made. But in this case I knew what was coming my way.

"Yeah, I thought so. My resume was sent to them a couple of days ago by another recruiter. They took a look at it and apparently thought that my skills tend too far towards management. They wanted someone with a more hands-on coding background."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"No, no, don't be sorry. They're well within their rights to pick and choose."

These conversations are pretty commonplace. More to the point they've happened nearly a dozen times over the past week. Skyfire, is a company that produces a mobile web browser—I used it for a while on my shitty, old Windows Mobile 6 phone while it was in beta—that tries to bring a fully-fledged browser experience to handheld devices. It's actually not a bad product. The company might actually have some legs. They're obviously on a bit of a hiring spree and in order to meet their needs they must have reached out to every recruiting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Within the span of a day I fielded multiple calls and emails all asking the same thing, all pushing the same position. Therein lies the sad jaundice of our ailing economy. When every starved, bony-ribbed lion pounces on the lone carcass in the desert, fighting for the scraps, you know that times are tough. Skyfire is one such carcass.

At any rate, they didn't care for me so what does it matter? I'll must mosey along and seek love elsewhere. Any takers?