Why am I so bugged by these spammers?

Look - I get it. We all hope that somewhere, some time a client is going to become aware of what we do and connect with us on it. I'm in sales. I'm all about it.

But here's what bugs me. I was thinking about this a few minutes ago while finishing off a whole chicken from the WalMart deli. (I started it last night by the way.....)

So someone wants to slip an ad in here. What's the big deal? Am I so uptight that my eyes can not deal with someone wanting to sell me something? Nope. Heck - I bet we all have thousands of products flashed at us throughout the day. So being advertised to is not what has me so bunched up at the moment.

It's the idea that someone is going to come here, pose a "somewhat" relevant topic, get a conversation going and then POW! WHAMO! BLAM! All of a sudden - here their product is - a perfect solution to the dilemmas uncovered in the discussion. Awesome!

Well guess what spammers? I'm paid to know what's going on. Being observant is a key to who I am. So when you try to dupe me - I'm offended. I'm not an idiot. You may be able to trick a few people to click on your link - but when they get there - they're not too happy about it.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on September 23, 2011 at 2:00pm: YES!

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 23, 2011 at 2:36pm: Here is the other part of it in my opinion. We live in an industry where one of the first things we learn ,if we have half a brain and last longer than six months, is... a recruiter does not go to a site dedicated to java programmers or petroleum engineers or any other verticle and intrude on their professional discussions by blasting in with a job req. Some will do it and find out pretty quickly that they are not welcome there and have just shot themselves in the foot with a multitude of people who could be their next 30K if they hadn't made an ass out of themselves or tried to snide their way in by trying to talk the lingo and pretned they are one.

If we have a brain we will go to a site introduce ourselves and observe. Or ask for help understanding some of what they do. I have always been well received if i go into a group or go to site tell the group i am a recruiter trying to learn more about what they do and would appreciate it if i could ask a few questions. Everybody in the world likes to talk about what they do and help somebody else if the person asking is not trying to play games.

If i go in and start telling a group of petroleum engineers how i think they should do slant hole drilling or pretend that i know how they do their job or try to tell them i have the ultimate solution to all their pain points they will eat me alive, throw me off the site and they will not forget who the jerkette was that did it.

Why somebody who had been a recruiter for two years back in the 90's and has been selling software since then thinks that they are contributing anything when they write a goofy blog about how a recruiter should make cold calls in 2011 (and they know because they have the worlds greatest ATS) insults my intelligence. I don't go to their site and tell them how to develop software or tell them what they need to do.

The other reason it irritates the living hell out of me is that i'm here to interact with other recruiters, share our war stories, learn something, help somebody, blow off some steam with people who understand what i'm talking about. I have and will buy things from the paid advertisers. I see their ads, i check out their products and if you cheap bastards who think you can sneak in a free ad haven't noticed, you won't see a bunch of garbage from any of those over on the right of this page or from that big banner ad at the top. They respect us as potential clients and customers. If they blog it's a real blog, if they want to comment or ask a question it's a real question not a "set up" phony attempt to connect.

I can track a knat across a steel ball at midnight in a rain storm and i'm trained to know when a resume just doesn't feel right or i have a phony on my hands. That's what i do for a living and i'm damn good at it. I don't like sneaky people, cheats and ego manical weasels.

We have a rumble with a hot shot yesterday and guess what bang, here comes another one in less than 12 hours with more spam and slam while the one from yesterday is still mouthing off that he didn't think six questions spammed onto the discussion forum was spam.and was throwing pictures of apples and leaves on the site as fast as he could. Keep it up spammers and there won't be any recruiters left on here and you can spam each other until you have to go somewhere else to dump your trash.

We even respect each other enough that we don't spam the site with our job orders. If we did the site would be nothing but a long list of job reqs that nobody paid any more attention to than we do your phony baloney ads promoting your product or service with some lame junk that lets us know immediately that you don't have a clue about recruiting.

Do you get it yet? If not i will see if i can nail a few more of you.

Comment by Rick on September 23, 2011 at 4:09pm: Jerry, I whole hearted agree with your comments. What would make a person think that you are going to buy something from someone that is starting off their presentation under false pretenses or even worse, the fake name/avatar just as the person that posted a couple of blogs on RBC the last day or so? If you cannot show who you really are, step up and put your real name behind your product or service you don’t deserve the time of day from anyone.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on September 24, 2011 at 6:15pm: Kris Dunn wrote a good article about vendors on Fistful of Talent Sept 16th in relation to the conference in DC. Seems vendors who didn't want to sponsor but wanted to take advantage of networking opportunites got their business cards put in the "Bounce Bowl". Fun read and on point.

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