Awkward Placement Approach

For some bizarre reason, I seem to attract more than anyone’s fair share of random inquiries, peculiar requests for assistance and other assorted mystery messages on a regular basis. One such recent item that caught my attention was the following snippet from a person presumably running some sort of “recruiting” service…

As you will notice, this was a generic message sent to my email but not addressed to me by name – probably because I was only one of the thousand or so recipients. To protect the privacy of the subjects’ identities, I’ve removed all gender references, mentions of the “candidate’s” and sender’s name and their current titles. The remainder of the content was left intact from the original unsolicited correspondence.

~~~

Good afternoon,

A friend of mine is seeking a high level VP or C- Level Executive position in the {geographic region} area. I have attached his/her resume for your review. Person’s contact information is on his/her resume and I have an Executive Bio if you're interested in that as well. I am reaching out to you because we share a connection through LinkedIn. Person is currently working as a CXO so please respect his/her privacy and do not contact his/her current employer without speaking with him/her first.

Please feel free to reach out to PERSON if you have any positions he/she may be a good match for.

Regards,

SENDER NAME

~~~

Where do I start with how unlikely I am to have any reaction aside from ridicule for this pimptastic placement project?

First, I get it that swaths of unimaginative types seem to be under the impression that blasting out their blanket broadcasts is groovy and swell with the connected age. Except, that lazy method is inevitably detected and intercepted by those that know plenty of people personally and professionally and don’t bother shooting their stuff to strangers. Further, they don’t look too kindly on those that sully their entire occupation with their sloth-like ways.

Second, for someone concerned about their “friend’s” privacy, isn’t it ironic to be mass distributing their CXO friend’s resume to countless people that have zero interest in who this person is, where they work and why they may be seeking a new “high” level VP or C level executive (with a capital L and E) position?

Next, is “sharing a LinkedIn connection” a compelling enough reason to “reach out” to someone who at the time of this writing has the following network statistics?

YOUR LINKEDIN NETWORK

1,631Connections link you to 13,950,729+ professionals

118,766New people in your Network since August 29

Finally, if someone does in fact care about helping their “friend” find a position he/she may be a good match for, why on Earth would they enable them to suffer the professional embarrassment and likely extended period of zero positive response caused by an atrocious (dys)-functional first page of a (way too long) pretentious and pompous three page semi-chronological, yet sloppily prepared resume?

Comment by Noel Cocca on September 5, 2012 at 7:42am: So true, funny, and yet not funny! I get this a lot in physician recruitment and it amazes me. Much like politics these days, people tend to trust what they believe to be true rather than the actual facts and run with it blindly. Not only does this candidate and their "helper" acting like a recruiter not know how badly their privacy is being breached already, but this sort of resume blasting will hurt the potential candidate in the long run.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 5, 2012 at 10:38am: I get those once or twice a week. I have a standard message I send back.

Deer elly ( sorry if I missed your name but this is a form letter an I'm. Pressed fer time)

I'm not sur whut yer pal does, see here in Bugtussle, Texas we don't use all them letters unless they spell real words folks can understand and that ain't many. It sure does look like yer buddy has done a lot of stuff in a lot of places I never heard of. Here in Bugtussle we don't take much to folks we don't know what they do or where they been. See they might be one of them terrorists.

You might try sending him to one of them recruiter fellas in Toad Suck, Arkansas. I hear they are more progressive in Toad Suck than we are here in Bugtussle. It looks like you have sent all his contact numbers to lots of folks so I bet if he don't git a new job he will sure have a chance to buy lots of insurance and have lots of chances for one of them fabulous work at home jobs so I know he will appreciate your help.

Comment by Christopher Perez on September 5, 2012 at 10:48am: Awesome, Sandra. I'm copy/pasting that into Evernote for repurposing. All I need to do is replace the Texas drawl with a few smartass Mid-Atlantic zingers. You just saved me a ton of time.

Actually, I usually try to reply with a tactful but unambiguous note that this is not a high-percentage play. Maybe I shouldn't be wasting my time. But maybe it's causing a few people to re-think their job search strategy and focus on better tactics.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 6, 2012 at 2:36am: Lol. I have others more geared to northern exposure.

Comment by Paul S. Gumbinner on September 6, 2012 at 8:16am: I receive those emails all the time. Somehow my name got on a list which I cannot track down so that I can have myself deleted. Our first rule is that no resume ever leaves here without the candidate's express permission. This is done to protect the candidate's identity as well as to determine their interest in a particular assignment. Sending out a mass email with someone's resume and all their information not only breaks this rule, but, at least form me, is totally abhorrent; among other things. It not only increases the chance that if they are working their search will be found out but if they are not working, it can fall into the wrong hands at a company and it may preclude the candidate from getting a real job. (You know the comment, "we already have their resume.")

Comment by Christopher Perez on September 6, 2012 at 8:57am: Paul, I also abide by that cardinal rule that no resume or identifiable information about a candidate is ever distributed without that person's express advance approval. In fact, over the past week, I've had 2 instances where a candidate's information was in a client's DB and both times, the candidates were confounded and had no idea how it had happened. Of course I had established during our first conversation that they had had no interaction with this client. Fortunately, the client looked at each case individually and ruled in my favor (helped to have a strong advocate in my hiring manager), but still annoying. In one case, it seems clear that a recruiter submitted a person w/o that person's approval or even knowledge. A bit off-topic, but your comment made me think of this. Chris.

Comment by Guy Swain on September 8, 2012 at 11:00am: I have a love - hate relationship with these fools. I love them because they make me and people like me, who are ethical and professional recruiters, look brilliant. I hate them because they make it harder for each and every one of us to keep a good reputation and they damage the appearance of the profession. Sometimes I wish we were able to 'strike people off' and prevent them from practicing.

Sandra, I need a Canadian version of that. Brilliant!