Open letter to IT recruiters

I'm not interested in doing your job for you.

What do I mean by that? Some background -

Even though I haven't updated my resume in a long time, it's out there on a number of different sites (all the big ones, CareerBuilder, Monster, DICE, LinkedIn, etc.), and because my primary role in IT is testing solutions, software and systems - regardless of what managers and agile proponents will tell you - testing is a human (thinking and acting) activity that's an integral part of any application solution life cycle , as well as constantly validating all business requirements.

So consequently, that need, 'needs' to be constantly filled by projects and initiatives who are falling apart and think testing or QA will magically makes things all right (that fact that testing is largely based on studying and asking questions about what the solutions and observing the answers by rationality, observation, logic, and fact; and isn't about exclusively solving problems, but rather lighting the way to solving problems is usually lost on people who don't know how software is built and subsequently, think QA can magically make everything all right, but I digress).

And by this, what happens is I get tons of emails requests from recruiters looking for testers or QA people. I even get tons of requests for automation testing (because these people, like many IT managers, believe that it's cheaper and just as effective to 'automate' all testing - as if somehow all testing can be replicated by something else cheaper and quicker and achieve the same results. Yes these people are deluded because software doesn't think - it only does what it's programmed to do. It isn't alive.). Of course most corporations want to get a lot of work for a low-ball amount, and on top of that, they are usually contract roles, or the infamous 'contract-to-hire' role. QA is one of those essential roles in IT that never gets the respect it's due because when it's done right it usually involves honesty and integrity and it's value exposes the reality of what some solution really is doing, and really, managers would not someone in authority who uses scientific methods and evidence to start or stop something from moving forward.

All of this I can normally deal with.

I can even deal with ones that are contract, and on top of that are really describing two different roles in one. Having done essentially an 'individual contributor' hands-on role in addition to a lead role for the past three years and essentially only got paid for the former as opposed to the latter, it's not surprising.

However if there's one thing that really I find very annoying is when - in addition to some recruiter sending me some long-winded job description for a role I'm not interested in, at a rate that's far below what I'm currently making, in a place no where near where I live - they ask me to look for people with such skills and send their names to them.

They respond thus - 'Hope to hear from you or someone you know!'. To me this is akin to when you get something in the mail with your name and 'or current resident' or 'valued customer' listed on your address. Yeah, some company really cares enough about you to send something in the mail to you, but really they're just trying to get any fucking human being at that address to spend money on their shit.

No.

Bad enough I wasted my time reading through another stupid job role, that some recruiter thinks I'm going to do their work for them by reaching into my 'network' of friends and co-workers and bother to dump their shit onto them.

So next time you send one of these stupid useless job description, I'm going to post them here and deconstruct and expose how stupidly their email and job was put together. 

 

Let's start with one one from Ms. 'Hope to hear from you or someone you know!'. I've captured some of the salient points from the email and will illustrate here (in this case, it was for a contract-to-hire IT manager, yeah what an oxymoron) -

'We are moving quickly.' - If they are moving so quickly, why send this on a Saturday? That's usually a sign someone abruptly quit.

'If you or someone you know is interested please send us your c/v. ' - See my response above.

'Who you are:
You are a strong leader that believes leadership is a greater motivator than management. You value an environment where individuals are focused on a common goal; where collaboration and team success are revered over individual accolades. You are skilled at helping teams reach peak performance. You have a passion for continuous improvement in software development.' 

My observation has been that 'strong leaders' generally people who have been there and have grown their capacity for making good decisions through experience, as opposed to being hired in as a contractor where they won't have neither the experience or authority in a new situation. Given in this case, this was sent to a place I know, I happen to know this is not the description of the environment at all. It's no different than any other IT shop. And everything in IT revolves around status and sucking up. I think this is in large part one of the reasons why testing is not very well regarded or respected, because it purports to tell people the facts. I always tell people, the first job of testing software isn't to tell you what it's supposed to do. The first job of software testing is to tell people what their software is doing.

'This role will:
'• Build and lead a team; inspiring team members to reach higher levels of performance through trust, delegation, participation and coaching' - see above, not usually achievable as a contractor.
'• Require a technical aptitude allowing you to be "hands on" with developer/engineer deliverables' - that's an individual contributor role, not one of management.
'• Develop strong relationships with key partners within IT and those outside of IT in order to achieve exceptional results' - contractors generally don't fare very well here, unless they happen to be a friend of one of the existing managers, which in it of itself is generally suspect.
'• Ensure team is resourced to support future growth' - can't usually do that as a contractor - no authority.
'• Work collaboratively as part of the larger IT leadership team on strategies, initiatives, standards and cross-team resource allocation/financial planning' - That's nice if you're an honest person. But thrown into environments where much as described above are where people routinely are more interested in their own status - such honesty usually ends up being consumed when useful, and discarded when it isn't. And I've observed that bullshitters aren't collaborators.
'• Regularly interact with other leaders on project status, priority setting, and resource allocations, as well as IT-wide efforts or policy-level decisions ' - AKA - micro manager.