How about being a grownup and actually take the damn call? Could you not just tell him you weren’t interested rather than being so ignorant? For a whole month I mean, really?
"All I did was miss three calls because I left my phone at my friend's and when I called they'd given the job to someone else, how unprofessional"
What you have described is very different from:
"Dude calls every fucking day for like four weeks straight;"
I doubt you'd leave your phone at your friend's for a month, and if you were uncontactable daily for a month then, yeah, I can understand them giving the job to someone else.
Let me tell you about my first experience with a recruiter. I realise this is only one anecdote, but it sums up their usefulness.
As a fresh graduate I sent a recruiter my CV and he sent me two job specs. I applied for one and the company ended up making an offer. The salary was well below normal, the company's office was in the middle of nowhere in another part of the country, and I'd had to have moved out there and bought a car in order to do the commute. The deal was not a good one, but through the recruiter I negotiated higher pay. During this process I was warned about coming across as 'mercenary', and he made real efforts to get me to take the job quickly ('stop delaying', 'this kind of job won't come up again').
At the same time as having this offer on the table, I received a separate offer from a company I'd applied to independently, with a salary ~25% higher, great benefits etc, which I accepted, to the annoyance of my recruiter.
Once you get talking to a recruiter, they really do put you through the booking.com experience.
I accept their value. But it is limited.
"They are just doing their job" is a weak excuse. Most of the recruiters are doing such a bad job in matching the workforce with companies that they end up wasting everyone's time. The only reason why these brute-force approaches work is the surplus of demand in the current SE labour market.
This reminds me of the people that think women (or men) that don't want to go out with them owe them some kind of explanation. No, dude. Get some social awareness and move the fuck on.
Goes both ways.
No, that's being a child. Being a grown up means not only thinking about yourself
Wait till you're a grownup and you realize how not true that is.
Being an adult means you get to own many of your choices, but also their consequences.
Giving the recruiter a direct "no" would be far more professional. OTOH, I've dissed more than my share of recruiters myself, though generally only after an initial clear and unambiguous communication wasn't respected.