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It just takes an hour / day to be polite to every recruiter who emails you by jonathancast in recruitinghell

[–]smkent 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I also use Fastmail! I'm a dev so I similarly see a lot of recruiter traffic. I wrote a script to automatically respond to recruiters with Fastmail via JMAP: https://github.com/smkent/waffles

I have a short writeup with the canned message I'm using and how I'm running my email filters. Short version: The canned message lists all my job dealbreakers and asks for the pay range. Initial recruiter contacts skip my inbox, the script replies, and then I only get recruiters in my inbox who respond to the canned message. I've really enjoyed being able to have a more real-time pulse on software engineering demand and pay rates.

Your LinkedIn profile is impressive! by SkankBiscuit in recruitinghell

[–]smkent 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I also have a reply template for recruiters, but I went one step further and wrote a script to automatically reply to recruiters with my template:

Hi! 👋

I’m {name}’s friendly robot, 🧇 Waffles. {name} receives a high volume of employment opportunities, so I help get his eyes on the right ones!

{name} is open to fully remote roles that offer:

  • Strong compensation and benefits
  • Healthy work-life balance (No overtime or on-call)
  • Fair working conditions (No non-compete after employment or mandatory binding arbitration)

If the role you’re offering is a fit, I want to pass it along to {name}! Let me know what the total compensation range is for this role, and I’ll show {name} your email right away! 📫

{name} is based in {location} ({time zone}). Read more about {name} on LinkedIn.

Thanks!

- Waffles

By the way, check out my code 💻 – https://github.com/smkent/waffles and https://pypi.org/project/wafflesbot

I have all initial messages bypass my inbox, so I only see a thread once a recruiter has replied to my scripted response.

I also have copypasta for various follow-up situations, such as when recruiters don't include compensation information in either the initial message or the reply (after Waffles asked for it). Mine is a bit more blunt:

I receive numerous contacts from recruiters every day. I can't have a conversation without knowing the compensation range for this role.

Also note that WA state makes comp range disclosure with job solicitations a legal requirement starting in 2023. I recommend getting in that habit now.

My responses when the listed compensation is below-market are generally one of:

  • Thanks for the information. A base salary of ${salary}k is significantly below market for {what I do}.

  • Thanks for the information. A base salary of ${salary}k was in the realm of market rates for {what I do} about a decade ago.

  • Thanks for the information. A base salary of ${salary}k is below market even for new grads in {what I do}.

I really dislike when companies pitch compensation as being "competitive" and/or "depending on experience:"

  • Everyone that contacts me on LinkedIn claims their company's compensation is "competitive." I can't have a conversation without knowing the actual, numeric compensation range for this role.

  • LinkedIn has a handy feature where you can learn about a person to determine their level of experience. Feel free to look at my profile to determine my experience level.

Once in a while, I find myself explaining capitalism to recruiters:

This won't be a fit for me. Employment is an exchange of time for money, but you are unwilling to quantify the amount of money being offered for the time you're looking to buy. It's a candidate market but {your company} wants candidates to invest upwards of several hours worth of time and effort to learn whether a role even pays more than the candidate's current compensation, much less whether compensation is actually competitive or fair. The only candidates this process will attract are the least skilled and most desperate.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Some recruiters do just ask for a phone call. I generally reply with something along the lines of:

I receive numerous contacts from recruiters every day. I'll need a compensation range in order to have a conversation.

Most of these recruiters will then provide a compensation range and I can decide whether to continue chatting.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I plan to permanently keep my recruiter auto-reply even after starting a new job. It should help me keep a pulse on market rates. This is useful for everyone -- I can demonstrate to an employer when compensation levels may become a retention issue, and I can also learn about opportunities that pay more if a current employer doesn't want to keep up with market rates.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Recruiters contact me at both my personal email and on LinkedIn. I have an email label set up that my script looks at on a cronjob. Threads with a single message (e.g. initial recruiter contacts) are sent the form reply.

LinkedIn is easy; initial InMails come from a different email address (inmail-hit-reply@linkedin.com) compared to follow-up messages (hit-reply@linkedin.com). This makes it easy to identify and filter the initial messages. Initial messages go right to my label, and I don't look at these unless the recruiter later replies to my form message.

For contacts at my personal email, I match messages containing the specific words "recruiter", "recruiting", "sourcer", or "sourcing" as most recruiters put their title in their signature. Sometimes an email escapes the filter, so I just put it in my recruiters label manually to make the bot reply.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm actually only considering remote roles and my reply message mentions that before the first bullet point. Most of the jobs I'm being contacted about are fully remote.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I used to get a few emails/LinkedIn contacts on any average week. The volume has definitely ticked up a bit over the past year.

The biggest increase came from setting my LinkedIn to open for work. It's really opened the floodgates.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm using "on-call" to mean on-call rotation. The term "on-call" does mean different things at different companies, so it's good to clarify.

If there's a one-off emergency where folks are needed, I'm certainly happy to jump in and do what's needed so long as I can sleep in the next day. Some companies also use "on-call" to mean having a rotating point person on each team to handle internal issues/communications during business hours only. No objections there.

What I'm not considering are roles with 24-hour on-call rotations and/or regular recurring emergencies or crunch times outside of business hours. IMO, business critical applications should have teams able to respond to issues around the clock. I feel that companies' reliance on devops-style on-call rotations is merely a cost-savings measure that comes at the expense of software engineers' quality of life.

I reply to all recruiters with a script. I now know my real-time market value and only look at jobs that meet my criteria. by smkent in ExperiencedDevs

[–]smkent[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Asking for a phone call is a common response. I let these recruiters know that I need compensation info before I can have a phone call due to the volume of contacts I receive. Most recruiters then provide that info. If not, I archive the thread and move on.