Don’t Call Me At Work!
I’m usually flattered when a recruiter calls me. Even though I’m happy at my current job it’s always nice to know there are people out there interested in what you have to offer. Today, however, I was more upset than I was flattered.
I was sitting at my desk at my workplace, the offices of my employer, plugging away at a project when my phone rang. When I answered the person identified himself as someone with a consulting firm. Thinking he might be trying to offer services to the company I asked what he was calling me about to verify. If he was trying to sell services to us I’d try to redirect him to the proper channel since I don’t have the authority to be fielding such a question. Everyone would be happy.
But this turned out not to be the case. Instead he was calling to recruit me.
When I asked him where he got my number he said he went through the company’s IVR phone directory. Obviously this was not the answer I was looking for so I rephrased the question. “Where did you find me?”, I said. “On LinkedIn“, he responded.
LinkedIn is a social networking site aimed at linking professionals. It’s a great site for keeping up with former colleagues, linking to people in similar professions, general professional networking and, of course, recruiting & finding new jobs. I’ve maintained a profile on LinkedIn for several years and have found it to be very useful. I’m always flattered when someone likes my LinkedIn profile and contacts me for possible a project or position they’re looking to fill. Well, almost always.
This situation was no different except for one thing: this person called me at my employer’s offices.
I asked why he called me while I was at work instead of one of the other methods of contact on my LinkedIn profile. After all, on the top right of every LinkedIn profile there’s a link clearly marked Contact Person X (where ‘Person X is’ the name of the person who’s profile you’re on). The response was “this is how we contact people”.
Let me get this straight. Rather than click the contact link to discreetly send a message to the person you’d like to recruit you call them at their employers offices and have them possibly risk their current jobs by having such a conversation on a company phone? What if somebody overhears the conversation? What if that somebody is my boss? I’m perfectly happy with my job and the last thing I need is to have such a conversation at my desk and risk any repercussions it may bring.
What are the ethics of cold calling someone via their office phone to recruit them? I’d say it’s not ethical at all. It’s one thing if you email me and I reply telling you to call. It’s quite another to assume that it’s alright to call about this kind of subject on an office phone without permission.
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Comments
I agree that this is unethical recruiting tactics and kindly asked to be removed from a recruiter’s database and was called naive and stupid by the founder of the recruiters agency and was told that I would not stay with my present employer forever and that I was essentially screwing myself over from being removed from their database. This recruiting company called my office, and when they were tranferred to my voicemail, they routed themselves to my receptionist and presented themselves as a client working on a current project with me and was able to social engineer my receptionist into letting her know that I was out of the country. If this isn’t an invasion of privacy I’m not sure what is. Are there any laws/regulations to prevent recruiting harassment? I can’t seem to find any…
BTW – I am not actively looking for job opportunities and my contact information is not posted on LinkedIn.
I’ve also had 3rd party recruiters attempt to reach me at my job. Even more so recently. One just called today. I agree that it’s very annoying and unethical. They have other ways to reach me. They can even call me through the contact page on my website if they want. In house recruiters don’t attempt to dick you around like this, because they don’t make money off of generating leads or commissions for new hires. In house recruiters don’t waste your time because they don’t have time to waste and they know what they’re looking for. These 3rd party recruiters are nothing but cocky scumbag salespeople. It’s in their best interest to make you look bad at your current job so that hopefully in desperation you’ll come to them looking for a new one.
[...] Me At Work! Posted by Dave December 14, 2011 I’ve written before about my pet peeve about recruiters calling me at work. But this morning I think I may have found something that irks me more: poorly written recruiting [...]
Guess what… there were 2 unethical job recruiters called my office today and my manager picked up both calls…im not actively looking for a job…im really annoyed. 
Most recruiters are unethical. I had one call me at work. What if my boss was at my desk when this idiot called? It would be okay if it were a friend, but a so called recruiter could get me fired if they think I am looking.
I just got a voice mail on my office phone from a recruiter. Thankfully I was away from my desk in a daily status meeting and didn’t answer. I many times don’t answer calls from unknown numbers or calls that don’t show a number. This is pretty tacky for them to look me up on Linked In, use my employer’s phone directory to look up my number, and call me on my employer’s phone. If any recruiters are reading this, know that I just made a policy for myself to never respond to this means of a recruiter contacting me.
Well, this just happened to me. I see by this blogg its been going of for at least a few years. It seemed very unethical to me also! What a lot of nerve. And yes, what about people who could be fired? Can we not just post our careers on Linked in? Does that have to mean we are looking for a job? Can’t we just be interested on who is where and doing what? After 25 years as an Engineer I just like seeing who is doing what in my field! I’m going to add a line on Linked in about not wanting to be called….uhggg. Anways, I would say we need another law, but why do we need to keep making laws about the obvious? Is there job as a recruiter more important than me being fired at mine?
Have received calls from recruiters at work as recently as today. She said the same when I asked her how she got my number at work (linked in), cold call through company directory). Did not bother asking why, doesn’t really matter. My first thought is that perhaps employer is trying to get rid of me by using a recruiter to place me somewhere else. Is this a common tactic by managers? At my previous job, also received a few calls from recruiters at work.