Recently, I got recruited.  Badly.

Nadyne,

I am a recruiter at [somewhere] and am searching for an experienced User Experience Researcher to work at our corporate headquarters in [the Bay Area]. I saw your profile on LinkedIn and thought you might be interested or might know someone who is.

We are looking for someone with 5+ years experience and

• Mastery of user experience research methodologies
• Successful track record conducting Qualitative and Quantitative research studies
• The ability to drive the creation and adoption of new research methods and tools, including reporting tools and
• Extensive knowledge of usability methods

If you are interested or know anyone who is I can be reached at [somewhere]

I look forward to hearing from you.
[recruiter]

I gave the email the response it deserved:

[recruiter],

http://www.nadynerichmond.com/blog/2012/06/07/the-flip-side-of-unsolicited-resumes/

Regards,
Nadyne.

It probably took me longer to write my email than the recruiter spent on their mail, since it took me a couple of minutes to find the blog post.

There’s nothing in the recruiter’s post about me.  I mean, I suppose I could give him points for spelling my name properly, but given that the rest of the mail is cut-and-paste¹, I’ll assume that he’s capable of cutting-and-pasting my name too.   It just correctly identifies that I’ve got more than five years of experience as a user researcher.  There’s nothing in that mail that does anything to sell me on why I would want to work at that company or in that role.  It’s lazy recruiting, and I’m not going to invest my time in talking to a recruiter that can’t be bothered to do the most basic part of recruiting.

Amusingly, I got the following response:

Nadyne,

This is a great article.

Thank you.

[recruiter]

It is, isn’t it?  Except either (a) you didn’t read it, or (b) you read it but didn’t actually comprehend how it applies to you and your lazy recruiting.