Bad business practices damage your company, KRG Technology

I just composed and sent this message to eleven members of a single California-based recruitment company. I’ll let the email speak for itself, but you, dear reader, should also know that the positions they reference range from Business Objects to Android programming, with nary a DB job in sight.

Dear KRGTech representatives,

In the last several months, all of you have emailed me again and again about available jobs in technology. NONE of these jobs are in my specialty, and NONE are in the area where I live. I have emailed to ask you to stop sending me these. I have called and told you to stop. I even yelled at one of you. You are still sending me these unwanted emails.

What you are doing is called spam – using email “to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately”. It’s infuriating.

But I won’t call or write you any more, or spend any more time being mad. Instead, I’ve put you all on a distribution list, and made a rule: any time one of you emails me, ALL of you will receive the email back (and I’ll never see it). Perhaps if you get enough of these bounced emails, you’ll see fit to remove me from your database forevermore, as I asked.

Find a better business model; you’re just alienating yourself and damaging your company.

This email will be made public in five online publications and a popular technology webshow, along with the name of your company.

Have a nice day,
Jennifer McCown
Microsoft SQL Server MVP

Jen here again. Yes, it’s petty, and yes, it’s a First World Problem. Spam also stupid and infuriating, and I firmly believe in a bit of light shenanigans to balance out the bad kharma, and better still, ease my overdeveloped sense of righteous indignation.

Happy days, kids…
-J

 

Edit: Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one who is experiencing this. I somehow got another person’s email mixed in with the annoying recruiters, and she replied:

Jennifer,
I agree with you and am tired of receiving responses. I am not employed by or wish to be affiliated with KRGTech. I have emailed requesting removal of my address and have not received any response. I am not one of the recruiters, just a fellow job searcher that’s email address has somehow gotten tied to the company. Thank you for sending this email.
Respectfully,
<name redacted>

Of course, I removed her from the distribution list.

9 thoughts on “Bad business practices damage your company, KRG Technology

  1. anonymouse

    Jen —

    Why don’t you just set up an autopurge of their domain in your control panel? GoDaddy has this and I *LOVE* it. Anyone I don’t want to see or hear from again I simply banish them to the autopurge hell and their e-mail never sees my inbox. Not as good as hot sliced bread, but dang close.

    1. Jen McCown Post author

      I know, and it’s easy enough even to set up an Outlook mail filter (which I have done). It’s the practice itself that drives me crazy.

  2. Anonymous

    This company KRG technologies are certified spammers.. They spammed me with irrelevant job and when confronted them, they were rude..

  3. Eric

    Haha, yes KRG Technologies is One of the worse Indian recruiting companies out there today. One of their ‘brilliant recruiters today emailed me a job…and exposed not only my email address but 748 other addresses. I mean come on, seriously? And I want my reputation tied to you why?

  4. Spam, spam, eggs & spam

    I just had the pleasure of receiving irrelevant email from the eager workers at KRGTech and purging messages from five different “recruiters” within 50 minutes for the same position (not in my area). Ridiculous.

    1. Jen McCown Post author

      I wonder if that’s the same set of emails I’ve been getting / ignoring / deleting on sight, each of which begins with a sentence containing the word “urgent”.

      [Looking…]

      “Silverlink.com” Hm, might be time to pull out the distro list again…

  5. san

    Hi Jen,
    Thank you for this.

    I just received an email yesterday from KRG Technology regarding an opportunity to work for HCL America/Western Union in San Francisco, CA. Shortly after this email, I received a call. The guy I spoke to was Indian (his thick accent gave it away), and he was trying to set me up for a job interview in Sunnyvale, CA. He said right away that the salary would be 55k + benefits and that this was not negotiable. I accepted because 1) I’ve been struggling to get any job interviews (to date, I’ve had 0), and 2) my goal is to get my “feet wet” and through the door, so to speak, and gain any kind of programming experience. Although my ultimate goal is to become a full-stack web developer.

    Today, I received yet another call, from a different staffing/recruiting agency. I forget the name, but the lady I spoke to was also Indian (once again, the accent gave it away). It turns out, this lady was trying to set me up for an interview in Sunnyvale, FOR THE EXACT SAME POSITION WITH THE EXACT SAME COMPANY IN SF.

    I’m wondering, are these staffing agencies bad and should I avoid them completely? (I just signed up for Robert Haft here in Oakland, CA; I hear they’re good; any thoughts?).

    I’m feeling kind of down at the moment because I thought that this was going to be my first real job interview (within the CS field). I’ve been coding since 2012 and went through a masters in CS program from 2013-2015. I’ve yet to land anything. Not even one job interview.

    I read this article (http://www.brandonsavage.net/why-recruiters-are-bad-for-your-career/) and after reading, I called back KRG Technology and informed them of my decision not to proceed with the interview, which they set up for me this Saturday.

    Was it a bad thing that I accepted their initial offer to an interview and then declined? I’m wondering if these recruiting companies have the power to hurt your chances of landing a job with any company? I didn’t want to show up to the interview and sign a formal document, and then be their “b1tch”. Or am I looking at that the wrong way.

    I couldn’t help but sense red flags all over while I was speaking with the recruiter over the phone. I asked several times for a job description (because I wanted to know what the job entailed), and the guy couldn’t tell me either by phone or through the follow-up emails that he sent me.

    Any thoughts? Did I make the right decision?

    I hope you have a blessed day, Jen.

    1. Doug

      As chaotic as it seems, HCL America prefers to use the “Indian” recruiters. I worked a contract through KRG for HCL America for over a year. Although I was a bit suspect, I began work less than 2 weeks after the first call from them. The job was relevant to my experience. Based just upon my experience with them, I would not disregard them if you are having difficulty getting work.

      1. san

        Hi Doug,

        I appreciate the response. I ended up going through with the “interview” for the exact same reason you pointed out. I figured since I was having trouble getting any interviews at all, I shouldn’t disregard them.

        I showed up to HCL in the southbay and about 60 people were there. They had us all take a quiz, which I learned was used to weed out candidates. I didn’t get an interview. A young fellow I spoke to during our waiting period actually got an interview. Afterwards, he texted me and said “you were lucky they didn’t pick you. My interviewer was very rude. They also had me waiting 3 hours in the lobby before telling me that I didn’t get the job.”

        A few weeks after that strange experience at hcl, I lucked my way into a contracted db developer role with a great company. I guess things kinda fall into place when you work hard and keep trying.

        I’m glad to hear you were able to get some work in though 🙂

        Happy New Year, Doug. Hope all is well.

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