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Ask HN: Recruiters wont stop emailing me, what can I do?
9 points by mkoryak on Oct 1, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments
I have been trying to get myself unsubscribed from all recruiter emails. I've had success with most of them with a simple "please don't email me again" response. A few of them ignore these requests and keep sending me emails, sometimes calling. Others say that have removed me, only to email me again a few months later.

I don't delete any of my emails, so I can search back to 2005 and find dozens of emails and requests to be removed.

Can I do anything about this other than blocking the domain from emailing me? I don't think can-spam covers this, but maybe there is some other law that is on my side that I can at least threaten with?




(Warning; recruiter talking here.) It's probably hard to stop my spammy 'colleagues'. If I'm correct they are sending you messages to your private email address, so we're not talking about LinkedIn here?

Perhaps you can create rules in your inbox that automatically put messages with the subject containing "job opportunity" directly in your spambox. The spammy recruiters aren't very creative in the mail titles, so look for the common patterns and direct-to-spam those.

If we are talking about Linkedin, I know a guy that uploaded an avatar with him wearing a clowns wig, that stopped a lot of recruiters approaching him :-).


Oh no! The horror of unwanted employment possibilities! If they're such a problem you can forward them to me.


Yes, it is spam that happens to be about jobs, many of which I am not interested in or qualified for. I would be happy to forward them all to you but I suspect you will find yourself in the same boat.

You do love Java and XML, don't you?


Heh, nobody loves Java and XML. Unfortunately, a lot of APIs use WSDL and thus force engineers to deal with XML. Old legacy systems are hard to change...


If you're using a popular web-mail solution (e.g. Gmail), I would just report them as spam so they end up in other peoples' blacklist.

Otherwise, ask them if they're willing to represent convicted federal felons, sex offenders, and/or rehabilitated serial killers to their clients? You'll get black-listed real fast.


not a bad idea, though it wouldn't be fun if I somehow ended up starting a rumor about myself. I did resort to something similar once. I noticed that some recruiting tool had something in their terms about not contacting minors:

http://i.imgur.com/mINDBH2.png


I'm in the same boat. I have nothing helpful to add, but I can tell you what DOESN'T work, maybe this will save you some time:

1. Replying and telling them what kind of opportunities you're actually interested in. That doesn't matter to them. Those who use the "spray and pray" approach don't seem to care if there's little chance of a good match.

2. Replying and telling recruiters to kill themselves. Although this is quite fun, they seem immune to the insult.

3. Clicking the unsubscribe links in their emails. In fact I think this may make things worse (because you've just confirmed that your address is active).

4. Flagging them as spam. Most of them are advanced enough to circumvent most spam filters.

5. Setting up filter rules in your inbox based on the "from" address or subject. Many recruiters never re-use those kinds of things.

6. Converting your resume to image format before posting it on the job boards (so the text isn't searchable). Not sure why this doesn't work, but it doesn't.

7. Adding a disclaimer to your resume begging/pleading with recruiters not to contact you. They ignore it, or think that it doesn't apply to them.

Sigh....

I guess the only option we have left is to deliberately try and crash the tech economy. If we succeed, that should get rid of the recruiters pretty quick. Let's split up the tasks: I'll start raising a Billion dollar seed round for my sandwich cart, you start working on a social network for dolphins. Okay team, let's do this.


From a previous thread: "On a whim, I recently updated my LinkedIn picture to a photo of myself in a multi-coloured clown wig. This put an immediate end to all messages from recruiters."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9104947


Ah cool you actually had the link.


I mostly solved this problem by taking 2 minutes and writing a thoughtful response to remind them that I am an actual human.

"Thanks, COMPANY_NAME sounds interesting, but I'm not looking to make a move. I really enjoy working with my fantastic team solving challenging problems in my current position. It would take an unbelievable improvement in [salary, schedule, problem space] to make me consider a move. Let's stay in touch on LinkedIn and feel free to reach out in N months or if any amazing opportunities that meet those criteria come across your desk. Thanks!"

Personally, I have found that not all, but many recruiters will reply with a LinkedIn request and an "I'd love to get to know more about what you are looking for, or will follow up in N months."


Create a new email account that you're never going to use. Tell the spammy recruiters that you're shutting down your (real) address, and please to contact you at the dummy one instead. Aside from that, put the bad senders in an email filter rule.


You could try to fight fire with fire setting up an automatic repply with "... that sounds interesting, give me a call at [false phone number here], my salary requirement is $500k at this moment..."


Why not just set up an e-mail filter?




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