Who REALLY Sucks? Scientific Study

This is a fairly frivolous research project, but I have heard so many people complaining in the past year about how 'recruiters suck', that I was motivated to go do some research, using the Google Chrome Search Engine to obtain data about what, or who, or which professions, vegetables, computer languages, etc., apparently suck the most, assuming that the "Democratic Principle" is correct, and that popular opinion would necessarily be reflected by statistics of search results.

My methodology was straightforward. I entered the term "Recruiters suck" to see how many results were tallied by Google: 223,000. Surely this is a huge number which should warrant our attention -- isn't it? Or, maybe not...

Next, I tried "lawyers suck": 875,000. Hmmm. Interesting. How about "firemen suck"? 373,000. These were some surprising numbers to me, so I continued to research this vein of thought.

What about "software engineers suck"? only 144,000. Truly a low number. Could this have anything to do with the fact that software engineers are the ones who designed the search engine? Gosh, I don't know...

Next, since I have a Chemical Engineering degree, I thought to try out "Chemical Engineers suck"... Whoa! I got a number only one-fourth of the previous low total: 47,700. Apparently, Software Engineers suck about 4x as much as Chemical Engineers. I was relieved to learn this.

Still, I'm not too sure, based on my research, that we can actually make any valid conclusions about who sucks what or how much they suck, based on public opinion polls. Apparently the worst possible thing to be (at least on this list), is a White male.

Here are my results (incomplete though they are) for your examination:

People suck: 151,000,000

White people suck: 77,000,000

Men suck: 76,000,000

God sucks: 61,000,000

Women suck: 54,000,000

Jesus sucks: 24,000,000

Babies suck: 14,000,000

HR Directors suck: 10,500,000 [this one is clearly an error!]

Doctors suck: 10,100,000

Billionaires suck: 4,650,000

Ruby [on Rails] sucks: 4,570,000

John Zappe (editor of "The Fordyce Letter") sucks: 2,470,000

Asians suck: 1,920,000

Nurses suck: 1,370,000

Lawyers suck: 875,000

Danish People suck: 825,000

L.A. "Dodgers" suck: 680,000

Broccoli sucks: 579,000

Kale sucks: 572,000

News Reporters suck: 534,000

Clowns suck: 503,000

Mexicans suck: 454,000

CEOs suck: 395,000

Dentists suck: 387,000

Geniuses suck: 386,000

Firemen suck: 373,000

Vacuums suck: 266, 000

CTOs suck: 254,000

Recruiters suck: 223,000

Software Engineers suck: 144,000

Management Consultants suck: 106,000

Fortran sucks: 51,700

Chemical Engineers suck: 47,700

David Heinemeier Hansson (inventor of Ruby on Rails): 33,600

Nicholas Meyler (self): 1

So, here we have a scientifically valid (but incomplete) survey with controls (all searches were conducted using Google Chrome on the same computer) which seems to indicate that Chemical Engineers suck less than either vacuums or Jesus. I do not know what we should conclude from this, but I suspect that the results may indicate that we are 'coddling' those who complain about our work... and that those who complain about our work may be 'coddling' themselves by creating false data, and controlling the results. This is worth further study, of course.

NOTE: Please feel free to share your own findings of scientifically-determined results of what sucks. Please outline your methodology, briefly.

Comment by Jacqueline Bozorgi on August 26, 2014 at 1:12pm: I think the anger harbored about recruiters is due to a couple of factors, including recruiters who actually do 'suck'...but, mainly because we do a lot of rejecting. People can't handle accepting fault for not getting the job, so who else to blame but us? Also, recruiters have a reputation for not calling back all applicants, but I think that is usually due to the applicants not reading the job description and meeting the qualifications for the job.

I always shake my head when I see the emotional rants people write regarding how recruiters 'suck', and think 'somebody got rejected'. They are just making themselves look bad.

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on August 27, 2014 at 1:21am: That may be the problem, Jacqueline, but they present it differently, as though it were for "spamming" or something else. There's always something to object to, if people want to object, and salespeople are trained that "objection" is really a buying sign (it is!), so we keep on doing whatever we did that was complained about, and then it pays off with a completed deal (hopefully).

I think that most of the complaints stem from the fact that people don't necessarily understand that they aren't candidates, even though they might have been contacted. Recruiters should (I think) contact as many relevant people as possible on a search, even people who are NOT a good fit for the position, but who MIGHT be able to make a constructive referral. The reality is that "The Art and Science of Recruiting" is not something you can learn about in books. All the outsiders are ignorant of the fundamental principles of recruiting, and many of them are really ineducable.

Chomsky wrote about "innate concepts" in linguistics, which could only be understood by the people who actually had the appropriate brain-structures to understand those concepts. I would bet that if you took MRIs of a selection of "top recruiters" to analyze for similar brain-structures, you would find some fairly unique or unusual things... so, it may be impossible for the discontented ones (the complainers) to comprehend what is really happening, and it naturally makes them angry... On the other hand, it could just be that the complainers have "Abbie Normal" brains ("Young Frankenstein" reference).

Comment by Nicholas Meyler on August 28, 2014 at 8:56pm: Scientific Experiment: Using Google Chrome, I did a search for “Recruiters are great”, vs. “Recruiters suck”. The first won out with 47,500 results, while the second (also entered in quotes) had only 2,580 results. I am pretty encouraged by that!