How to Uninterest Me in Your Job Opening
========================================
:author: Aaron Ball
:email: nullspoon@iohq.net
:sectnums:


I have been receiving an incredible amount of job calls and emails lately. I
mean, so many that I'm concerned my cell phone minutes will go over my allotted
450 (sure, I don't have to answer those calls). For whatever reason, I actually
read through most of these emails. However, lately my brain has been tuning its
spam filters to reduce the strain of going through that much junk. For you head
hunters out there, here is my personal list of easy ways to uninterest me in
your job opening. You might want to pay attention because I suspect I speak for
a lot of people.


**Update 2018.11.28**

Wow. This post is really old but is still seeing traffic. I suppose it's time
to rewrite that intro paragraph a bit.

I am **still** receiving an incredible amount of calls from recruiters, but
instead of worrying about my 450 minutes and overages, I now worry all the
calls will crash my cell carrier's logging system due to log flooding. The
calls are bad, but the emails are worse now. Due to this, I actually started
developing a filter script that uses
link:http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net/[bogofilter] to detect patterns in
poorly written job emails and automatically filter them into a "jobs.bad"
directory.

In light of that, this post is no longer about how to uninterest me in your job
opening, but rather how to avoid being caught by my Bayesian filter and regular
expressions.  :)



Subject lines that tell me nothing
----------------------------------

I just dug through my jobs.bad directory to get a list of the worst offenders.
Here are a few examples of this one. The subject lines tell me nothing. If you
can decipher these easily, send me an email. Maybe I'm missing a trick to
reading email that I should know.

* JobNotification(4370535922B4F7A49)
* __<Company>__ Job Opportunity #715807
* HIGH PRIORITY ||
* Job Description
* Check this role out
* Trying to reach you.........
* Good day!
* New offer
* Staff wanted
* Next steps
* Your resume
* Urgent requirement
* Checking in
* Devops
* Job description: DEVELOPER II - 0012312578
* Please submit your resume

Those aren't very helpful. The subject line should contain a simple summary of
the email body (like a well-written git commit log). Imagine if journalists
titled their articles like this. Reading the news would be very difficult.

Comically, while writing this section of the post, I received two job emails.
One was titled "Checking-In" and the other "Trying To reach You // Linux System
Engineer". At least the second one is relatively good.


Have an "optout" or "unsubscribe" link anywhere in your email
-------------------------------------------------------------

I see these relatively frequently unfortunately. It seems a [large] number of
recruitment firms scrape job boards for email addresses, then subscribe them to
their mailing lists without first requesting permission.

When I realized these were coming in, I set up a simple filter that searched
for any emails with those words in the body and automatically moved them into
my "jobs.bad" directory. This filter looks like (I'm a mutt user if you can't
tell)...

  ~bhttp.*(unsubscribe|optout)



Using words like URGENT, NEED, ASAP, and/or OPPORTUNITY
-------------------------------------------------------

This will not make me want to answer your email any faster. Because of these
emails, I have another regex filter to clean these out. It looks like...

  ~s[A-Z]{4,}

I do glance over emails that match that filter, since that is a very permissive
one that could match a great number of emails, including good ones. It does
usually return about 90% job emails that I ignore and are subsequently moved
into my "jobs.bad" directory.



Writing subject lines all or mostly in caps
-------------------------------------------

This is pretty much the same as the last section. Using all caps makes your
email stand out, but only in a bad way. My previously defined filter matches
these emails and they get moved into my "jobs.bad" directory.



Telling me there is a need for a <job title> in my area
-------------------------------------------------------

Firstly, the phrase "in your area" tells me you don't know where I live. That
also means you probably aren't near me, otherwise you would say the state name
at least.

Further, this subject line looks like it is generated. When I work with
recruiters, I typically pick the most human recruiters I can. This means they
are friendly, have lives and interests outside of work, don't read from a
script or email from a template, and have at least a basic understanding of
what they are recruiting for. A generated email tells me you are likely none of
these things.



Describe the role using buzzwords that apply to every role
----------------------------------------------------------

Some examples...

* "Must operate well within time constraints"
* "Must be able to multi-task"
* "Must feel comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic, and flexible
  environment"
* "Must be able to provide status reports"
* "Requires excellent communications skills, both verbal and written"


I understand there are some exceptions to this statement, but most jobs require
these things because that is what software development, working on a team, and
being a human requires.



Use your first/last name to convey additional information
---------------------------------------------------------

Some examples...

[options="header"]
|===
| First name   | Last Name
| shebaa       | Recruiter
| Andrew       | has jobs for you
| Bill         | <company name>, Inc.
| John Johnson | from <company name>
| Recruitment  | team
| Direct       | Client Requirement
|===

This is mostly just annoying. The spammers do this to to make it look like
emails are coming from "Microsoft Support" or whatever the phishing campaign of
the day is. If spammers are doing it to get people's attention, should you?

The one that I object to the least is "Firstname Lastname Company", since that
actually tells me who you are, though your email address does the same.



Unrelated jobs from out-of-context keywords from my resume
----------------------------------------------------------

Probably about ten percent of the bad job emails I get do this. Just because
the keyword _Java_ is in "Java Middleware Administrator" on my resume doesn't
mean I'm a "Java programmer". If I was a .Net developer 10 years ago and
haven't touched it since, it's likely that I am not going to go back to doing
it again, nor will the company be interested in me as my skills will be quite
rusty.


Very short contract in another state
------------------------------------

Chances are, I will not be moving for a 3-6 month contract in another state.
This is especially true if the state has a significantly higher cost of living
than where I am now, like California, New York, and Virginia. Further, I
certainly wouldn't consider a short role in another state if the company won't
pay relocation fees or allow remote work.

To the credit of the recruiters though, I'm sure some people take these roles,
especially if they aren't tied down like I am (eg: no spouse, mortgage, pet,
etc). Chance are though, if they're moving around this frequently, they aren't
doing it under contract, but as a consultant.



Offer me Superuberplexes more money than I'm making now
-------------------------------------------------------

A job regarding ways to make SuperUberplexes of moneys from home working only a
small number of hours per week just sounds like a scam. I have only received
one call/email like this that was legitimate, and it was with an oil and gas
company. This industry happens to have more money than nearly every other
industry in the country.



Make me click on a link to view the job description
---------------------------------------------------

Nope.



Inconsistent company or recruiter names
---------------------------------------

I don't see these very often, but I get a chuckle when I do. Sometimes I will
see emails where the from name is something like "Bill Johnson", but the
signature of the email is "Jared Philips". My best guess here is that a
recruiter inherited another recruiters computer and login and didn't finish
updating their email client. Regardless of the explanation though, this isn't
very professional.

Very concerning though is when I get an email where the subject or from lines
contain the company name, but the "hi my name is... from...." doesn't match.
For example:

----
From:    Bill Anderson from Coolcruiters
Subject: Bouncy Castle Developer position in San Francisco
Body:

Hi!

My name is Jared Leiperspachenphinzentel. I am a recruiter with Fun-ops Devops
Recruitment Firm.
...
----

I made up some of those names to avoid using any real names (if your last name
is Leiperspachenphinzentel though, please email me - I will buy you a beer).
Regardless of the fictional nature of those names, I do see emails like this
where the from line is not remotely like the name the recruiter says they work
for.

The only guess I can come up with for this one is that the company changed
names and people didn't update their email clients to match. As mentioned
though, still unprofessional.



Summary
-------

I hope you got a chuckle out of this post as I did. Some of these examples pass
annoying and end solidly in the realm of hilarious.

If you are a recruiter reading this, despite some of the annoyed tone in this
post, know that I will not be mean to you if you call me. I am always friendly
and professional to recruiters, though I don't always say "yes, I'm on the job
market". I wrote this post for those annoyed by bad recruiter practices and for
recruiters who want to know how to reach me (or how to avoid being blocked).

On a related note, if you **really** want to impress me and stay in my inbox or
even make it to my "hall-of-fame" directory, send me an PGP encrypted and
signed email.


[role="datelastedit"]
Last edited: {docdate} {doctime}
