Chan's Personal Blog

When I first arrived in Silicon Valley, I observed a curious behaviour at work. Every so often, my coworkers would receive unsolicited phone calls from head hunters (recruiters). The head hunters promised them riches and shiny jobs in obscure start-ups. I starred in awe and amazement as coworkers cursed at the head hunters for the unsolicited calls; I sat there thinking, wow, my coworkers must be rock star programmers because people are actively trying to recruit them, I wish I could be famous like that. Looks like that wish has come true.

On Tuesday, I came into work and noticed I had a voice mail on my work phone. This was very odd because I never use the phone, and no one ever calls me. I playback the voice message, and it's a head hunter. He was looking for engineers that worked in Search for positions in New York, and he wanted to network with me. While this was all happening, I thought to myself, oh wow, I'm not as cool as my coworkers, I'm on the map, people know about me! Then, I promptly deleted the message as I was totally not interested.

Apparently the head hunter had gotten my phone number through my mom? (Mom and Dad, PLEASE don't give people my work phone number.) This was very odd because I don't use my Canadian phone number for anything. I'm really curious to know how recruiters were able to get my contact information, and how they knew I worked in Search. I haven't passed out my resume or anything on any job boards or anything.

In either case, the head hunters now know I exist. I feel special, but I'm sure that feeling is going to go away, and turn into blind hatred to them.

One of my coworkers has an awesome blog post about a really creepy recruiter who called him. Make sure to listen to the actual phone message that the recruiter left (it's at the end of his blog article). It's awesome!