Stop Complaining About Recruiters

Every so often, my Twitter stream — and probably yours — will include some annoyed or perversely-entertained developer sharing a tale of sorrow and woe. The tragedy? They’ve been spammed by a recruiter. Horror!

Look.

Are many technical recruiters clueless*?

Sure.

But aren’t you glad you have your job and not theirs?

Then try gratefulness as a response instead of complaining/showboating to Twitter.

Do you make over $60,000?

Yes? Then you’re in the top 0.19% richest people in the world.

No? Then respond to the recruiter!

Either way, be grateful that while millions upon millions of people are looking for work (and in many parts of the world actual fucking water), an annoyance that registers on your radar is that from time to time someone sends you an email about a job.

Tempted to justify your frustration by pointing out how blatantly irrelevant some recruiter spam can be? Reread that last paragraph.

We are insanely lucky. We find ourselves in the midst of a thriving industry at a point in time when our skills are valuable and demand outweighs supply.

That will not always be the case.

When the tide turns and you find yourself knocking on doors, brushing up your resume, and sending personalized cover letters to position your background as remotely relevant in the brave new world, you’ll remember rolling your eyes at another email from yet another clueless recruiter and you may think, “What an asshole.”

* I love @dhh. I read everything he writes, I watch every talk he posts, and I agree with almost all of it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I would place him among my top 10 most influential authors. What I have never agreed with is how hard he is on recruiters.

Yes, it’s comical that recruiters approach him for mid-level Rails positions considering that he, you know, invented it! But ridiculing an actual human being who wasn’t good at their job (when nobody was harmed) strikes me as borderline elitist with all the bad vibes.

Originally published at http://brianrhea.com/stop-complaining-about-recruiters/