I think the consultant that mailed you is highly likely to be poorly trained, highly targeted, looking to earn a couple of fees as quickly as possible.

The internet has had a huge effect on how people look for work yet many recruitment firms don’t grasp just how they can maximise on the opportunity. Most just apply a very basic job board to their offering and off they go.

My take is this sort of thing won’t continue for too much longer. The days of a contingency recruiter’s database being their selling point must surely be drawing to a close (after all this consultant mailed off the back of an old CV - as you point out, your details are on linkedin and I’m sure a variety of other sites) Information now sits in the cloud, any recruitment firm not grasping that? Well put it this way I’m glad I’m not a shareholder…

Re getting a response. If the firm was worth their salt then you would have got one. Either from the consultant having been briefed by a manager or director of that firm or by someone more senior getting in touch themselves.

For recruiters to flourish now, customer service (on both sides of the candidate/ client fence) along with the ability/ skillset to screen and select from multiple channels will be key.

From this tale I’m not convinced this firm is in that club…

Recruiters aren’t industry analysts; they are low paid admin people who try to get a match based on a limited list of criteria they’ve sourced from where ever.

Quoting from your front page, “My goal is to help you and your business implement new and powerful approaches to knowledge work. I do so by helping find the right approach to web strategy, the knowledge economy and social media.” - huh?

Sorry but it all sounds a bit wanky to me. You are promoting changes well outside of current business practices and then criticising business like crazy for not leaping up to follow your vision. It’s great to be bleeding edge but I’d ask the question: what is the economic relevance? What you offer is a niche that suits a very limited range of clients.

Now, the funny thing is that this firm were already talking to me about another role, so one would think they would have an up to date CV on file since I’d sent one through the week before, but I guess not.

Joining the dots seems too hard for some recruiters.

I know I used LinkedIn, Facebook and Google when screening for staff here. You’d think that people who do this for a living would too.

I’ve received similar emails and phone calls. What is bizarre in my case is that a couple of years ago I made a career change from being a CIO to being a director of a recruitment company. You can only imagine how amusing I find it when I answer calls asking if I’d be interested in !

Whilst I get a giggle out of it, you’re right to hassle the time-wasters. Don’t forget, however, not all recruiters are bad. Some are “teh bomb”. :-)

I’ve revamped my company’s emails in the past 6 months. I thought it’d be smart to actually name the companies a prospect has been with, giving context as to why that would make them relevant. Not bad for being in the business 1 year!

For you execs getting emails from guys like me - nothing loses my respect faster than someone getting angry that a recruiter would dare to call and/or email them. Gatekeeper-secretaries who are rude about it are frustrating as well. Remember, companies go sideways, or get acquired, every day of the week - it’s good to be nice to recruiters during the good times and bad!

Okay, well, it’s a lot of bad apples.

It’s difficult for me to be “not frustrated” by these types. It’s difficult for me to try and give the good ones the benefit of the doubt. It’s difficult for me to even talk to recruiters who blind call to me — and most times I don’t.

I can’t tell if you received an attachment with a job description, but my typical response to these types of vague things is “If you could forward a relevant job description so that I could have context for a conversation with you, that would be great.”

It’s usually the dead-end, because then they actually have to do work instead of say things like, “Look, I don’t know a lot about this, but they’re looking for stuff like architectures, system analysis…”

Bah.

I could reply for hours.

So, the good news here is that the same types of jerkwad behavior is rather global and not just specific to the US.

Will be interested to see whether you even get a follow-up email/call.