A new category of spam has been getting worse and worse. It's recruiters. They are tapping me with impersonal job requests (i.e. "Dear Technology Professional..."). Some of them are even a bit close to my skill set, but the jobs are nothing I would ever accept. Most recent was a six month contract in Kentucky. Honestly, even if I did have any desire to move to Kentucky, I wouldn't pick up my life and move for a six month contract..
This kind of spam is particularly insidious, because I can't just label it as spam and then let the GMail filter handle it... because it kind of resembles message that I would actually like to read in the event that I need to find work again. Honestly though, it's despicably lazy of the recruiters. They're just blasting everyone they can find, probably using a spider to automatically scan resumes and send out the messages without regard for location or a very good match. Argh.
I get these, too. It makes me think the only jobs out there are 3-6 month contracts. I bet if I went and looked there would be permanent work, but I'm guessing those types of employers don't need to send out spam.
ReplyDeleteAfter some checking through my email logs, I noticed that many of these messages originated from the same company, panzersolutions.com. This is what I wrote to ALL the senders I could find from that domain:
ReplyDeleteTo whom it may concern,
Can you please find a way to permanently block me from Panzer Solutions's database? I have been receiving a constant flow of messages about jobs that I have no interest in, and I don't really appreciate your company's shotgun approach. Even if I had any interest in moving to places like Tennessee or Georgia -- which I most assuredly do not -- I would never do it on the promise of a short term contract.
I hope you will take some time reconsider your approach. While whatever semi-automated process you're using may pick you up a few leads occasionally, I wouldn't want to see you experience any long term negative consequences from building ill will with technology professionals.
Sincerely,
Russell Glasser
I got a message back saying they would remove me. If you are receiving messages from them too, I hope you will write a similar reply so they'll know it's not just me.
*@panzersolutions.com is responsible for 90% of my recruiter spam, and they have me in their database as 2 different email addresses (one of which is just a typo and I only noticed it when I added a catch-all email addresses to my server).
ReplyDeleteThey didn't reply to my remove request in 24 hrs, so I added them to my SpamAssassin blacklist.