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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

There is a difference between "low effort" and rude. Not taking 30 seconds to actually comprehend the position and have enough background to actually write a meaningful email basically would rule you out of me hiring you since it says a lot about how you would be to work with.

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You should see the kind of messages I get from recruiters.

Most of which I doubt have even glanced at my resume. From the job listings outside of programming, and those for entry level positions, to those well below what would be a reasonable salary for anyone in the area they are looking (Usually coastal cities for less than is common in Phoenix).

   "Dear Anthony, Thankyou 4 ure notes in LinkedIn about
    contacting u - much easier to know that you're approached
    all the time. U r too experienced for my role, but if you
    know of any mid level Python / Linux developers happy 2
    discuss referral $$if I can place them:) Happy Friday!"

(Actual recruiter message on LinkedIn - I keep it around to remind me why I don't talk to recruiters)

I had a good laugh at that quote, but now I'm thinking: is it legit to cite one or more persons doing their job poorly to dismiss the entire profession? Do you keep around bad code to remind you why you don't talk to programmers? Examples of quack medicine to remind you why you don't talk to doctors?

Essentially every recruiter message that I've received on LinkedIn follows one of two patterns:

a) Hello, you do Python, do you want a job? (with no position details, salary, reason to join, etc.)

b) a) followed by a clumsy attempt to fish details of my contacts (I don't connect with recruiters).

So, er, yeah - "Ha ha, profession!"

Oh, I forgot c), which is usually just a raw, unadorned "I'd like to add you to my professional network." from random recruiter scum. Kinda of a b) really, but without the work of having to have a position available...

My favorite is when they CALL ME AT WORK to network at me, especially since I specifically say "don't call" on my LI profile.

I don't doubt the abundance of bad behaviors. I was just doing a literal parse of your logic.

There actually really wasn't any logic in that statement.

I'm not saying "I have this message from a recruiter, therefore all recruiters are scum." It's a reminder.

Interesting,

In LinkedIn I've been contacted by recruiters from Amazon, Google, Toshiba and Voyer International and all of them have been quite professional.

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