Dear Recruiter,

I get a lot of interest from recruiters all over the country. Even when I'm not actively looking, I have to sift through dozens of email requests in my inbox as well as voicemails every day. Ninety-nine percent of them I ignore after reading the first line. As a recruiter, I imagine you would like to float to the top of the stack and get my interest. You're in luck! I have a few tips for you.

First, know who I am and what my capabilities are. It's not hard if you look here, at my LinkedIn profile, or if you actually have a copy of my résumé (as so many of you claim). I am not interested in QA, help desk, or junior, mid, or even most senior development positions. My current areas of expertise are in people management, user interface design and architecture, and web development. I know you ask politely that I should forward your email to my colleagues that might be interested if I'm not, but seriously, I like my friends and coworkers enough not to spam them with your endless shotgun blast of emails. I won't do your dirty work for you.

Second, tell me what the actual position is. Nothing gets me to ignore you faster than if you send me an email saying, "Hey I've got a great opportunity, send me your résumé!" Really? If it's so great, why can't you tell me about it? I'm not just going to start randomly sending out my résumé in the hopes that one of the positions will actually be interesting. Oh, and when you actually describe the position, I couldn't care less about the technical requirements. Sending me a laundry list of desired skills is certainly useful, but if that's all you send me, it doesn't tell me a darn thing about your client or the position. Open with telling me about the company, the team, the project, the hiring manager... anything that might give me better information to make a decision on whether or not to hit the reply button. Kudos if you actually identify the client company; I'm a professional, and I appreciate being trusted not to go over your head.

Don't ask me about my salary history. I won't share it. Why? Because I'm a better negotiator than that. You tell me what the client thinks I'm worth to them, and we'll see if we agree. Don't ask me for references until after an interview—I don't let people bother my colleagues unless I'm certain we're both serious about moving forward.

Do take the time to take advantage of all the resources I've made available to you. I have a pretty well-refined CV at this point. I have a LinkedIn profile as I mentioned above, complete with recommendations from some of my past coworkers. I have this web site which showcases both my writing skills and my thoughts about leadership and web development, and I even have a portfolio and code samples available. Share these with your client; you'll both learn a lot more than you will from asking me one of your canned twenty-questions pre-screen forms.

Lastly, if you made it this far, thank you. Part of being able to work with me successfully is showing that you're actually taking the time to understand me and not just blasting out emails in the hopes that you'll get a random bite. I'm actually a pretty reasonable person, and I've done this dance enough times to know when people are wasting my time and when they're being sincere. Making a real effort to work for me as well as your client goes a long ways toward earning my respect. Not to mention, I'll actually call you back.

(I can't take full credit for the idea behind this page. I got it from Adam Martin's post.)

What am I looking for?

Some pre-qualifications if you want to contact me about a position:

See also: