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Dear Google Recruiting...

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Re: Dear Google Recruiting...

#21
post #7

I understand being annoyed that they ignored your request, but would it really lessen your recruiter spam by an appreciable amount? I get such random requests, eliminating a single company wouldn't make much of a dent. I've just gotten good at hitting shift-3 or e (depending on my mood) in gmail the second I sniff recruiter in an email.

It's not the emails which bother me; it's the fact that they're ignoring explicit instructions.

How do you solve this for recruiters other than Google? Surely you must be getting a lot of traffic from them too....

Re: Dear Google Recruiting...

#23
post #5

Dear Colin, You're extremely lucky to have talents that are highly sought-after and well paid. I know many talented architects and designers with experience who just scrape by. Just ignore Google's recruitment advances and move on :)

Just ignore Google's recruitment advances and move on If I thought I was the only person being annoyed by them, I would probably do this. But I've spoken to lots of other developers who get similarly annoyed by Google recruiters despite their attempts to tell Google Recruiting to stop contacting them -- so I figured it was worth writing a "ha ha only serious" public piece in the interest of getting Google's attention…

You are not alone, and you're right that it can get very annoying. But I think one day computer programmers will look back and wonder how we ever had it so good.

Re: Dear Google Recruiting...

#26
Given Google's emphasis on quantifying every aspect of recruitment, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason is because their numbers show that contacting people who previously rejected offers was more likely to result in a hire than contacting people who never interviewed, and that they decided that ignoring "do not contact" instructions was worth it after some time. Basically, kind of an retargeting strategy but applied to hiring. I understand why this may be annoying to you, but your case is probably rare enough that they decided to go along with it -- I would think that most people do not care enough about being contacted by companies they do not want to work for to complain. I do not condone this but the assumption that you may not feel as adamant about not working at Google as you did two years ago (during which a lot can happen) seems perfectly understable to me.

With that said, your post does come across as really obnoxious. Asking to have an "ON PAIN OF DEATH" mention added on their file? Really? I dislike having my instructions disobeyed as much as the next guy, but if I counted properly this is 6 emails over more than 7 years. Surely one could live with receiving one unwanted email every year or so? It's not like it's that hard or time consuming to just ignore a message or to decline politely -- after all, a lot of people do it multiple times on a daily basis, and I'm sure you do too.

This is too bad, because the tone of your post distracts from the perfectly valid (but IMHO, minor) point that this policy does imply things about Google they view themselves.

Re: Dear Google Recruiting...

#27

I don't understand why it bothers people so much to be contacted by recruiters. I just send a quick reply that says "I appreciate the interest, but I'm not looking for new position right now.". It takes me about 10 seconds to type that sentence and hit send. It takes me such little time that I probably would not remember if they contacted me again a year later. I'm always grateful to have skills that are in demand. I…

I just hit the archive button :(, but now that I think about it, I should really just draft a canned message.

Re: Dear Google Recruiting...

#29
post #5

Dear Colin, You're extremely lucky to have talents that are highly sought-after and well paid. I know many talented architects and designers with experience who just scrape by. Just ignore Google's recruitment advances and move on :)

Recruitment isn't the same thing as a guaranteed job, though; it's more like an invitation to submit a resume than anything else.
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