
Dear Recruiters - KenCochrane
http://kencochrane.net/blog/2013/02/dear-recruiters/
======
wikwocket
...by the way, if you find any recruiters offering a 200k job with 6 weeks
vacation and a signing bonus, where you can telecommute from anywhere, but
darnit they require Windows or PHP work now and again... drop me a line! ;)

~~~
AUmrysh
I'd be willing to write in brainfuck exclusively for 200k. This guy has it
good, doubt he'll ever find a job with that kind of attitude. He could be ol'
Don Knuth, still wouldn't get a job from anyone worth working for.

Although, with that guy's track record, maybe he knows being a cocky asshole
is just the way to get a good job in software, I don't know.

edit: after thinking about it more, I think this may be a parody of the sort
of unrealistic expectations recruiters have for 'talent'.

~~~
shykes
> This guy has it good, doubt he'll ever find a job with that kind of
> attitude.

These comments sadden me. I work with Ken at dotcloud and can tell you he is
one of the most humble and easy to deal with colleagues I've ever had.

Have you never been contacted repeatedly, almost to the point of harassment,
by a recruiter who wouldn't take no for an answer, yet could not be bothered
with even the most basic research about you?

It's that combination of a) blind persistence and b) disregard for the actual
person that defines truly spammy recruiters, and which obviously drives Ken
crazy. I don't blame him for trying to stem the flow. If anything I would like
to find out if this new anti-spam tool actually works :)

~~~
ianstallings
Yes. And never mind the fact that he's stating what it would take for him to
_leave_ a job he obviously loves. Of course he is going to make outrageous
demands. He doesn't want to leave! Hello.. is this thing on? I feel the
message got lost on a lot of people that maybe haven't been inundated with
recruiter calls and emails or had their time wasted talking about positions
that they would never take.

I mean who here hasn't been contacted by a recruiter asking about a skill set
you barely know or don't even have on your resume? Or their understanding of
it in general is so far off you don't even want to deal with it? Or ones where
they try to connect to every person in your company through you? I could go on
and on. It gets maddening.

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gearoidoc
Considering we're in something of an IT bubble at the moment, I sometimes
wonder if we'll look back on stuff like this in a few years and think "Wow, we
had it good".

~~~
rco8786
Almost undoubtedly, I would think.

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sheri
Why talk down to people like so, almost treating the recruiters like they were
little children who need to be lectured about how to behave. Recruiters are
human beings too, who are just trying to do their job.

~~~
TylerE
Try posting a public resume on Monster sometime, and wait for the multiple
e-mails about a perfect opportunity, and then if you follow up on them it's a
3 month contract in Lower Bumfark, Kansas.

~~~
znmeb
No, actually, it's almost always insurance sales or multi-level marketing.

------
huhtenberg

      Minimum offer
    
       ...
    
      Pony: 1+
    

There are certain social behavioral norms and breaking them makes you look
cocky and unprofessional, even if in reality you are not. This would be an
example of that.

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typicalrunt
I love it. Very succinct and to the point. I don't agree with some comments
saying that it is naïve because it is not beating around the bush.

If I am a recruiter or any potential employer, I can now instantly see what
this applicant wants and expects in the form of compensation, and it is now my
job to exceed that compensation and entice this person to come work for me.

If I don't want to meet his target salary, then so be it, I go my own way and
he goes his with no love lost. I find this type of discourse very refreshing.

------
revbuddylove
Why am I reading about someone's slick way to solicit recruiters while
pretending he is happy with his great job?

~~~
alttab
If I was his manager reading this, I would bring him in for a 1:1 to determine
what truly motivated him to write such a worded diatribe. Best case scenario
he doesn't understand how multiple audiences would react to it and assumed
only developers that agree with him would see it. This is never the case with
the Internet so I'd then have to question his capacity to understand the field
he is in.

At the very least it reflects poorly on his current employer, as I wouldn't
join in fear of having to work with him.

In this world you must assume that everything you write on your blog,
Facebook, etc will end up in front of your grandma, your parents, and your
boss. Assuming otherwise is a risk, or at least a demonstration of
thoughtlessness.

------
ErikAugust
I looked at his minimum offer first and thought he was a professional football
player. But no... he's a LAMP developer.

~~~
justinsteele
Disclosure: I have worked with Ken.

I'm not sure you are aware what LAMP means. He prefers (for good reason)
nginx, as it states in the post. Ken is someone who gets shit done, for lack
of a better expression. He is well worth whatever he is paid at DotCloud, and
I would venture to say he is worth his "Minimum Offer".

------
magsafe
His LinkedIn profile has an alphabet soup of technologies and programming
languages. Even if a recruiter did read it, like he requests, they would have
no idea what this guy's real focus is. It even mentions Windows, as well as
Xcode and iPhone development when he is clearly a server engineer.

Maybe he needs to revise or shorten his resume before lashing out at
recruiters for not reading it. I'm not a recruiter, I'm a developer who makes
$225k, has unlimited vacation and lives In San Francisco. As a developer, I
feel that guys like him give us all a bad name and make us look arrogant,
inflexible and hard to work with. Maybe this attitude is why he still doesn't
make his ideal salary of 200k.

After this blog post I doubt he's going to get any other job, let alone one
that meets his minbar.

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kyllo
So why are you even on LinkedIn? If you're trying to deter recruiters, what
desirable functionality are you getting out of the site that keeps you from
just deleting your profile?

Or do you actually enjoy the attention and are you just pretending to be
annoyed by it as a way of bragging?

~~~
KenCochrane
I don't use Facebook, so I use linkedin as a way to stay connected with people
I have worked with in the past. As people move on, phone numbers and emails
change, but linkedin lets me stay connected to them even if I no longer have
their email or phone number.

Once again, I'm not against getting sent relevant job openings, I'm just tired
of people who just spamming everyone without even bothering to read the
profiles.

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edem
It is rather arrogant I think.

~~~
donretag
I agree, especially the deal breakers section. No Microsoft Windows? At all? I
use whatever gets the job done, as any good technologist would.

~~~
larrik
Technically, any technology CAN get the job done, but the author clearly feels
that Windows is never the best choice. Personally, I completely agree with
him. Developing on Windows offers no advantage over OS X or Linux.

------
ghurlman
These days, I reply to recruiters with what they can realistically expect in
the market, job description vs. expect pay rate. More often than not, the pay
they're offering is way, _way_ too low for the market at large, never mind
myself.

Sometimes I get a reply, sometimes not, but I get the feeling that by & large
the terms are out of their hands, and I doubt the recruiter sending the
emails/making contacts is the same person that got the req from the hiring
manager/company. It's that person, the person accepting the req, that needs to
know the market and work with the hiring entity to put together a realistic
job package. It's that person you should be frustrated with.

------
scottmagdalein
I love Portland, Maine. I don't blame you for not wanting to leave.

~~~
BudVVeezer
I'm shocked how many telecommuters live here in Maine; and dismayed at the
number of companies who think we actually _want_ to move to the Valley.

~~~
alttab
You might not be 22, full of idealism and hope for the future, completely
distracted by high profile start up capital and valley life style. As someone
who was recently interviewing in SF, I find that the younger "nothing but my
bike and my MacBook" type well geared for that. The pay is good when you don't
have a family and are willing to pay 2300 for a one bedroom shithole.

Of course, I'm hand waving and over generalizing. But I'd say a large portion
of the talent demand meets that transient start up life style and many
recruiters probably assume that if you are in tech, that its what you want.

------
jwmoz
Sounds like you have the same experience with recruiters as I do!

~~~
KenCochrane
I wish linkedin would allow you to add this stuff to your profile. Ideally the
search/spam feature of linkedin that recruiters use, would have to pass your
filter before getting sent to you. This way if you get notified at least it
passed your filter and you would be OK with it.

That would be a feature I would pay for.

~~~
jwmoz
A link to a post like yours would be the perfect response for emails such as:

"Hi James

Please contact me asap or I can call you ??

I'd like to discuss a PHP contract role your perfect for

Speak soon"

~~~
KenCochrane
Yeah, I'm hoping it will save me some time. Now I can just send them this link
each time I get a message, and if they bother following the link, doing as I
say, and writing back then I know they are at least serious and not just
fishing.

~~~
amorphid
OP, why bother replying to posts where the recruiter clearly didn't read your
profile at all? It's a nice gesture, but the sender is creating work for you
by being lazy and off target. An offline version might be responding to junk
mail with a note about what you'd really like to buy.

Are you replying on the off chance the spammer is sitting on a cushy job order
they haven't mentioned?

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btilly
What I want is even simpler.

On LinkedIn I told you that due to family circumstances I am not available for
full time work until the summer of 2014. Is it 2014? Do you have a part time
contract? No and no? Then why are you contacting me?

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onemorepassword
I really don't mind recruiters badgering me by email or any form of non-
disruptive communication. Keeps me nicely updated on the market, and tells me
who to avoid should I actively be looking for something.

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speeder
Heh, I wish this sort of stuff happened to me.

I don't receive recruitment messages, not even the spammy ones.

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znmeb
This guy will change his tune when he gets fired for being an asshole.

