Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site opus.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!nbires!opus!rcd From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: net.news,net.followup Subject: Re: Recruiter Responds (long) Message-ID: <1104@opus.UUCP> Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 02:09:37 EST Article-I.D.: opus.1104 Posted: Thu Feb 21 02:09:37 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 23-Feb-85 04:42:27 EST References: <259@sol1.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO Lines: 111 > Okay, boys and girls.... You've had yours, now I get mine. I believe that sol1!sue went overboard with her response--though it's some- what understandable, given some of what was posted. However, I have to argue strongly against what she did to my response: > From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) > > Geeez--weren't any of you guys alive in the '60's? You play the same game > > you do with the people who barrage you with ads containing business-reply > > cards or envelopes: give a bogus answer. Let them waste time figuring out > > that they're getting a non-answer--THAT makes them pay for it. > > Don't abuse the technique--you don't need to flame someone just because you > > aren't interested--but when someone gets out of hand and/or won't pay > > attention to a reasoned request, zing them via e-mail. > > The advertising potential of the net is large--but so is the potential > > response to offensive advertising; it cuts both ways. If people respond > > when they're offended, the advertiser gets the idea quickly. > -- > Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 > ...Cerebus for dictator! > > RESPONSE: Dick, it has been my experience that game-playin can also cut > both ways. > Re: bogus answers.... "you always hurt the one you love". > Did it ever occur to you that your petty bogus-trick could be damaging to > fellow netters who are seriously searching for a new place of employ since > sifting BS responses only denies purposeful time dedicated to helping those > netters who have responded in earnest? However, many of us (including myself) > *were* alive during the 60's and can quite readily tell a stinker from a > flower. sol!sue You're not making the distinction very carefully. Please take a second look at what I said, particularly: "Don't abuse the technique--you don't need to flame someone just because you aren't interested." If you're against me just because I suggested a technique by which people who are extremely annoyed with you (which, incidentally, I'm not) can show their annoyance, that's your problem. > Did you really expect me to be so insecure that I would simply take my ball, > kick the dirt and go home? Be a little bit mature, would you? If everyone takes the advice I gave, and your mail runs 10:1 AGAINST what you're doing, you'd be a fool to stick around. However, if everyone takes the advice I gave (and not what you seem to have inferred), and your mail runs 10:1 IN FAVOR of what you're doing, you can reasonably continue in spite of some criticism. When I get "junk mail" (i.e., from a bulk mailing to a commercial mailing list), I look at what's offered. Some of it is sent to a large fraction of the known universe, in the hopes of making some money without any regard to how many people it annoys or how much trash it generates. I feel some teeny moral obligation to vex firms which do that--if someone's trying to sell me brass accessories for my yacht, or a dehumidifier, (or even a Republican president, for heaven's sake!:-), or who-knows-what stuff I'd never want in a million years, back goes the reply envelope with as much of their junk as I can fit in it. HOWEVER, a lot of mailing lists are selective, created from the lists of firms from which I've made purchases in the past. I can recognize the ones that are of interest to me. I may save the stuff or I may toss it, but I DON'T need to vex these folks. They have offered me a potentially useful service. What I tried (and apparently failed) to point out was that folks can use USENET in the same sort of way I treat Business Reply, except that it's much more effective--a protest is more likely to happen en masse and be noticed, where the Business Reply thing is generally a single voice in the wilderness. Let the readers have their say (by MAIL, folks) and see what the response may be. [I'm abstaining, BTW.] If the postings have a reasonable appeal to (and consideration for) USENET readers, OK. If they get out of hand somehow (not quite sure how) or start flooding the net with traffic, then there's a problem. In the anarchic nature of the net, there won't be any single person to solve it, so the netters will have to solve any problems by the cumulative effects of many protests. I have some sympathy for the headhunter's position, and I understand the need for confidentiality of the employer (who is, after all, also the headhunter's employer). I have had satisfactory results dealing with a headhunter in the past. Still, I expect that headhunters should give some consideration to the situation of computer professionals and should be sensitive to two issues: A headhunter is NOT free to the employee, by any stretch of the imagination. Don't pretend otherwise. First, employers only have so much money to spend on personnel. Money which goes elsewhere doesn't go to the employee. Headhunter fees based on first year's salary make it explicit that the employee is contributing a sum to the headhunter. IT MAY BE WORTH IT, but it's still there. Bad headhunters are plentiful. I get at least one call every week or two from HHs I've never heard of, often out-of-state. They want me to take a job that's in no way related to my interests or training. If I indicate a lack of interest for whatever reason, they ask me (in effect) if I might like to encourage some of my co- workers to quit and leave my company short-handed. They expect me to have the time (which costs my company > $1 / minute!) to talk as much as they want. I've had people try to hire me to re-fill a position I left three months previously. The latter paragraph of issues is NOT the way I perceive sol1!sue working. The ONLY reason I point this out--to her, to other headhunters, to netters seeking employment or not--is to give some indication of why a lot of us have a VERY short fuse on the antics of some headhunters. Overall, it would seem that the net is not particularly subject to the sort of disregard that headhunters can show in person or on the phone. I'd much rather 'n' thru net.jobs at my leisure than try to shake some bozo who's called me while I'm in the middle of working out the details of some difficult algorithm or design. When I start getting calls generated via the phone # in my signature, or when I start getting junk e-mail, I might reconsider... -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been.