This is an interesting approach that I might adopt, if only because my ordinary interactions with recruiters have been so wretched. It can hardly be worse than my results thus far.<p>The behavior of recruiters is puzzling to me. I've repeatedly been contacted by recruiters who want to talk to me about opportunities at X (where X has been Amazon, Google, and a few others). I've responded to these and then received no further contact from the recruiter. They go to the trouble of making a pitch to me and then disappear when their pitch is well-received. My only guess is that they're operating like a telemarketer, spamming the message out to some large number of people to ensure they get a few responses and ignoring any extras.<p>Just last week a Google recruiter contacted me and gave me a link to his calendar to schedule an appointment. I made the appointment and he no-showed. He later contacted me and said he'd spent the day at a conference he received a last-minute invite to attend. I'm just astounded that these folks treat people with such contempt, given that it reflects poorly on them and the business they're associated with.
There seems to be in this thread (and on HN in general) a lack of empathy for the recruiter.<p>Here's my perspective on (internal) recruiters as someone who sits next to them at an office:<p>1. Recruiters tend to be really nice people.<p>2. All day long they talk about prospects with other recruiters almost as if they were talking about potential romantic partners. Except replace any discussion of your physical characteristics with your intellectual / linkedin characteristics. It would be weird if it weren't their job.<p>3. If a recruiter sends you an InMail, if you reply back (no matter what the response) it helps them as each unanswered InMail costs them money (they don't get to reuse it).<p>4. Their job is really hard (especially for finding developers), and they are under a ton of pressure, especially when a company is growing, to build head count. Investors really value head count growth heading into a Series B / Series C round of funding.<p>So, consequently, I would recommend that devs cut recruiters some slack. Be grateful we live in a time where our greatest annoyance is someone contacting us with a job opportunity.<p>It wasn't always like this and it probably won't be forever.
For an illustration of just how dishonest, lazy and rude IT recruiters can be check out <a href="http://shit-it-recruiters-say.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow">http://shit-it-recruiters-say.tumblr.com/</a>. Yes, at least in the UK they really are that bad.
I started just replying with a "No thanks, but I'll hang onto your info in case anything changes or I come across anyone else who's looking", and then I add their email to a "recruiters" contact list in Gmail.<p>I now have close to 300 folks split between internal/external/vc. I haven't needed to use the list yet, but I have shared it with one or two friends who were interested in changing jobs.
I like this. I know that recruiters are something a lot of us have to deal with, and most of the time they are an annoyance. This approach sounds like it could save a lot of wasted time for both of us. That said, I realize I don't know much about the business of being a recruiter, and I wonder what their perspective might be.
This would be an interesting twist on a job board. After reaching critical mass, charge recruiters to see the updates. They get a pool of people they already qualified when they're actually looking and developers get more control over the process.
All the independent recruiters in my area have an autoresponder set up in my GMail that tells them politely that I don't work with their kind because the incentive structure of their business creates quantity of matches over quality.<p>I'm happy to receive interest from recruiters who work for the companies they're recruiting for, though.
I like the proactive approach. Just yesterday, I went to an IXDA breakfast event and some recruiters showed up. Some people were just annoyed by their presence, but I thought it was a good opportunity to talk. They were pretty new to the industry, so I gave them pointers about how supporting the community by sponsoring events, organizing talks at companies they are hiring for, telling better stories about the companies they are hiring for, etc could get them better results than the usual cold-emailing.<p>I just think that if you don't like how they are doing things, give them pointers. Won't work everywhere, but sometimes it will, and that will be worth it.