I had a recent email dialog with a head hunter by the name of Kevin Fink <KevinF@ca01.snelling.com> who has solidified my opinion of headhunters as the internet version of a stereotypical insurance salesman. They are often abrasive, rude, impersonal, whose philosophy centers on quantity, not quality.
Where do you live? If you live near Northern, California I have an excellent opportunity for you combining your java and e-commerce background. Please email me your resume in a word doc, and in return I will give you the web address for your review. Thank you for your time. Now, if Kevin was really interested in me as a client, he may have actually read some of my website and realized that 1) I live in Seattle and 2) I'm not looking for employment. Both of those tidbits are easily locatible and in logical places on my website. It is clear to me that he isn't the type of headhunter that bothers with researching his potential clients. At this point, he has already "outclassed" many of the other headhunters competing for my time and attention. He is rude, evasive, and not really interested in doing a quality job. I recieve many job opportunities every week and this guy has already topped the list and it's his first email. But wait, theres more!
You sure don't do much research... if you actually read my resume which is on my website, you'd notice on www.zenspider.com/RWD/Resume.html (just two clicks off the homepage) that I'm currently employed by Amazon.com. You can probably guess that there is an icecube's chance in hell that you can meet or beat the opportunity and benefits that I have at Amazon. You can also find on my website where I'm living these days if you can't infer that on the fact that Amazon.com is a Seattle based company.
On top of all that, if you actually did your research you'd notice this on my resume:
(NOTE: I am not currently seeking employment)
This is why I don't work with headhunters. Now you'd think that he'd go away, that he has other potential clients to spam, and that his time is very valuable, right??? Wrong! I recieved the following sophmoric response about five minutes after I sent him the above:
If you had done your research on the e-commerce industry you would know that there will be another "amazon" or "yahoo" ipo that you might have gotten into so earily that you wouldn't need to work. As far as your ice cube in hell, that attitude will keep you at amazon, not knowing where you background might lead you to greener pastures. O ya, on the research thing, you were just one person that I "might" have wanted to talk to based on the information on your resume'. Is it people like Kevin that make the world go round? Hardly. Greedy, impersonal, stupid people like this slow the world down tenfold. The "attitude" that he refers to keeps me from having to deal with people like him and keep me happy. Staying at Amazon.com, "not knowing where you background might lead you to greener pastures [sic]", is the best thing I could possibly do at this time in my life. I'm not even talking money here folks. I'm happy at Amazon.com. I'm constantly learning at Amazon.com. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.