the real Nate Clark

Attention all you recruiters / “staffing specialists” / spammers out there. Here’s an amusing story about some turd named Pradipta Archiputra aka “Max Archie” that should illustrate to you how NOT to search for skilled talent in the Ruby world.

Some time last night I received a brief email from said recruiter. Here’s what it looked like:

I have a couple of Ruby on Rails position, wanted to know if you are interested?

Max Archie
Technical Recruiter
Prodigus Source
Cell: 219-669-9216
Phone: 312-235-2365
Max@prodigussource.com

At first glance, aside from the bad grammar and lack of any real details about the positions available, I almost ignored this one, as I get this type of unsolicited message from some recruiter at least every week. What I quickly noticed was that this message was sent to 400 other people in the To: field of the email. FAIL.

What happened next was truly amazing. First, my Twitter started blowing up with rants from fellow RoR coders who received the same email and noticed the failure of epic proportions in the way the message was sent. Not more than a few minutes later, the Reply All train started … and somehow Pradipshit sparked a worldwide impromptu discussion of 400-odd random technologists.

Less than 20 hours and 89 replies later, a true phenomenon has arisen. A Google Group has been created dubbed Pradipta’s Rolodex for all of us chosen ones to continue ranting and stay in touch. One creative member of Pradipta’s Kids even made a nice logo taken from Prodigus cheesy stock photo on their website. Now we’ve even got a website called The Pradipta 416 and a sexy badge to acknowledge our inclusion:

All I can say is, wow. I have met many recruiters in my days as a technologist … but this guy takes the cake as the sleaziest. Please, if you’re in the recruiting or staffing industry, and insist on spamming to source your talent, at least learn how to use the BCC field or get a proper email list manager.

That’s my rant for the day. Now back to work.