There's an unfortunate stigma associated with IT recruiters. You can't even mention the word "recruiter" in a room full of geeks without half the population rolling their eyes. I've been optimistic, up until now.
Some recruiters don't care enough about the quality of their work to bother reading my resume in full; why else would I get so many emails about .NET positions? One recruiter even had the gall to tell me he knew I didn't fit any of the 10 positions (including full descriptions) below, but could I please forward it to any of my friends that might be interested? This email was 15 pages long. He wanted me to do his job for him and read through all of this stuff? Sorry, but no.
The job market in CA is nothing like what I was used to in GA. There wasn't really that much IT in GA, so you took what you could get. Here? It's the land of the plenty. You really can pick what you want to do and what kind of company you want to work for. There's a trade-off, though. The number of recruiters is directly proportional to the number of jobs.
Yes, there are a lot of quality recruiters out there. I've been lucky enough to deal with quite a few of them. They are having a hard time contacting me, however, since I've had to stop answering my phone. One particularly persistent recruiter called me 15 times in one day. Just this morning, a single recruiter called me 6 times in 3 minutes. He didn't leave a voicemail until the 6th call. I'm getting (on average) about 10 recruiters trying to talk to me about 15 jobs every day. I know this is really nothing to complain about, but sometimes I really don't want to answer the phone. One time I was on the phone with one recruiter, and another one kept calling and hitting my call-waiting for the entire conversation. Argh!
Were you one of those dicks that doesn't understand that one voicemail is adequate? Then take heed. I'm not the only one that's angry about this. You'd get a lot more respect if you followed a few simple rules.
Rule #1: Read the resume in full. Read the job requirements in full. If it isn't a match, stop here.
Rule #2: Email the candidate with a complete job description before attempting to call him/her. This is key. I hate it when recruiters try to describe a job to me over the phone. It's easier having a full list of requirements up front.
Rule #3: Wait 24 hours after sending the email before trying to call the candidate if you haven't yet received a response. If there is no answer, leave a voicemail.
Rule #4: Do not call over and over and over and over and over and over again. All cell phones have a 'Missed Calls' function. We can also tell how many times you've called. Patience is a virtue.
If you're one of the recruiters I've been dealing with and you haven't done these things, then rest assured, I'm not angry at you. I'm just angry at the people that are giving you a bad name.
