1 - I wonder how he built his list, as I also got the email from him.

2 - I got an email from this person too, but not a blog comment. I think I disagree with you guys when you call this spam. It is true that the post is unrelated, but it is real. He/She really is offering contract work. I too replied to the email and said that I'm too far from the location and that I'm employed already. I got a friendly reply back, like you did.

In short, I think the method is close to spam, but the content is not. I personally wouldn't mind if this was incidentally posted at my own blog, perhaps it can help people who are actually available for that position, even though it is not the place to do that.

3 - I could see concern with blog comments, but why are some people complaining about getting an email!? You have a problem with someone emailing you to see if you're interested in a Domino job, when your address was probably found in some Domino blog where you posted a comment that was technically proficient!? How picky can you possibly be? That's about a million miles from V1AGRA spam for anyone that's a regular reader here.

Rocky, the thing that is interesting is that you probably just delete general spam comments, but because this particular post was actually targetted at your audience here, it gained an air of legitimacy and you took the time to respond to it negatively. Doesn't that strike you as a backwards reaction? I mean, you should REALLY be pissed about porn spam or whatever, but when a comment comes up about an open Domino position, especially in this market of everyone complaining that the job market is shrinking, this is hardly a disservice to you or your readers.

Yes, it's a bit rude. Let's call it the ethical equivalent of farting in an elevator. But your reaction is so much more severe that it is for people that pee on your shoes.

Oh, and Chris... you don't have a licensing issue when using authenticated Domino accounts on an ordinary servers, as long as the open accounts you have are not for users who are your customers, employees, contractors or suppliers. OpenNTF.org is an example.

4 - First off, I don't think that he was "sucking up" to you, he was sincerely apoligising, which takes a lot of balls. As for allowing such comments, it has to be a personal decision, I for one would not mind that sort of thing.

5 - Hm. Well, I also received this opportunity and I posted it on my blog. I got another call today asking for two developers (this was not from a recuiter, but from a company I know).

I was contacted by email, which seems appropriate. Putting the request into an unrelated blog comment is just lame.

On the other hand, I think it is good to read of this desperation to find talented Domino developers.

6 - I find it totally unbelievable that even though their are millions of Americans unemployed and the job market is stiffer for I.T. professionals than ever before that a presentation of a job that could become eventually a career opportunity would be considered offensive or disrespectful. I think if there was ever a time more then ever before, it's now to become more opened minded to every possibility to help get America back to work! As the Recruiter said, the job boards are saturated with people looking for work. If this guy is utilizing your blog as a source to identify talented I.T. professionals, maybe you should consider this your little way of helping fellow Americans find work. Who knows, your blog may become more popular and more often visited because possitive impact it may make on people finding work. I say you should write this guy back and welcome him to post more opportunites.

7 - I too received the email, and also responded that I was not in the market for a contract position. I probably would have deleted the response from the blog had it just been attached to an unrelated entry. As an email, I didn't mind getting it. If it had been an email for a PHP programmer with GPG experience along with Python, I would have been less forgiving as there is nothing in my background that relates to that.

Taking the side of the recruiter (without trying to stereotype all recruiters), I would figure that emailing a blogging community with a specific technical bent would be a very good way to either find a candidate or get a lead to pursue. And if I were polite and explained the situation in the email, I wouldn't see anything wrong with it.

Bottom line.... I don't think there was anything wrong with emailing the request. It gave me a chance to ponder and see if there was anyone I knew who could benefit from that (like Greyhawk's situation of a few months back). And if I was looking for an opportunity to somehow move to Michigan, it'd be perfect.

Now, had this job been in Tampa or Orlando...

8 - I think once you let one do it, it opens the floodgates. There are plenty of websites specifically devoted to matching Notes dweebs with cubes, and this isn't one of those. Good on you, Rock, for not letting this very important space get watered down.

9 - I don't think it would be a good idea for bloggers to post an area for job openings, as this would be soon taken advantage of. I recently posted a job opening on my site, only because I knew the employer and knew the exact position.

I don't have a problem with receiving the email request, although I think I would have a problem with the anonymous posting. Ethics is definately the question here. These guys just want the commission by any method.

I would only post a position that I am aware of personally or a position that I was reliably informed of. Even then, I would be hesitant. Send me a mail with the details and I will post it, if I choose to.

My opinion, you were right to remove the details. A bit harsh, but to be honest, these guys don't give a rats about you. They just want to make a sale.

10 - I was also blammed (splogged, whatever) by this post and removed it, but it stood there 3 days because I was out of town and out of touch. I was a little miffed but considered the following:

1. It's not automated. The VIA... splogs are as close to automated as possible.

2. It's somewhat relevant though not a desired place for this message.

3. It's possible, even probable, that this is SOP for the company but not for the person. Consider the possibility that this is his/her 3rd day on the job, and he/she was told to do this. If so, I feel sorry for him/her for this major lesson learned. Probably won't happen again.

4. Even with the consideration of the above, this is like trying to find a soul mate by asking every girl at the bar for her number. The difference with blogs is that they've not only asked you for your number (direct email), they've secretly forced you to wear their t-shirt asking others for their numbers. And shortly after I remove that imagery from my head , I don't like the concept.

-Rob

11 - Vince, you know that what you're doing is a good thing - and isn't the same as what happened to my blog. Your site (at least that section of it) is specifically designed for people to post jobs - and if this person had gone there to post a job, it would have been fine (and welcome). But to do it here isn't right, IMHO.

BTW, I think I am going to add a link to that site on my blog so that people know where to go to post or find jobs.

Rock

12 - I think part of the decision on this is what the context is. In this case where you stated that this comment was unrelated to the blog entry, I think you're right in classifying this as spam. In the case where it was a comment to an entry that was actually discussing jobs, maybe it would be appropriate. I know this makes it more difficult to handle, harder to create an automatic rule when you need some intelligense in the decision making process.

13 - To me the mail was a nuisance and not much more (unless it was like the incident I blogged about at http://www.controlscaddy.com/A55A69/bccaddyblog.nsf/plinks/CBYE-63CUAR
).

The bigger issue is the posting on the blog. If this person had written me and asked me if I would not mind posting it I would definitely consider it. But here is a big problem there. People then start emailing YOU their resumes thinking that this is a job you are advertising (even if you flat out disclaim this when you post it) or thinking you may have jobs for them. I speak from experience on this.

Nathan, I am not sure if I am in agreement on the licensing issue as an authenticated user is an authenticated user. I am sure I just need some more background on the openNTF example. If this were cut and dry, there would be no need for the utility server model.

14 - Grey,

You have to distinguish between immoral and unethical. Something may be ethical but that does not make it morally correct, especially with so many different definitions of immoral. My point is still that this individual was stealing bandwidth with the posting as he/she did not ask permission. That is unethical and some might view it as immoral.

But I can stretch it the other direction and say we all essentially do this by posting on blogs and linking to each other. We are accelerating our google visibility. I had asked Rocky to include my link as the "Business Controls Caddy" instead of using my name. And guess what? he benefits as well as I do (if not more at this point) as his site will show up as more than half the results from google typing that term in.

The difference in the latter is that we all do this with a tacit understanding, while the recruiter posted totally off topic to get his company the business.

15 - So far, good discussion - thanks folks

BTW, I sent a followup email to this person and apologized for overreacting and told them that I have removed their block from future commenting, but that the original comment would stay blocked. I also told her about this entry, and invited her to respond, if she wanted. I am trying to give the benefit of the doubt.

In general, I see that the reactions are mixed towards this - from acceptable, to mildly offending or "lame", to pond scum. That's very interesting, isn't it?

I do want to respond to one post, in particular - Nathan. First, he asked if my response was different towards this one than other spammers - he states,

"Rocky, the thing that is interesting is that you probably just delete general spam comments, but because this particular post was actually targetted at your audience here, it gained an air of legitimacy and you took the time to respond to it negatively. Doesn't that strike you as a backwards reaction?"

Actually, no it doesn't. Here's why I responded differently than "general" spam. First off, general spam is almost always spoofed, so responding is fruitless. Because this person left legitimate credentials, and because this person could have been naive enough to think this was OK, I thought it was appropriate to respond and let them know that this in fact was not appropriate. Now, as I stated earlier I did overreact in the tone of my response, but I do not feel the intent of my response was wrong.

And yes, if it had been an email I would have reacted differently - I can say this with confidence because I get emails like this all the time. I just feel it is very wrong to basically "hijack" my blog and use it as a free recruitment poster, with no thought of recompense for me.

As an ancilliary question: Would it be a good thing to set up a place for people to post legitimate job offers, for free? Or would that be more trouble than it is worth? Does LotusNotesJobs.com and the like already fulfill the purpose?

BTW, I have also had a bad experience with a tech recruiter before as well, which also partially explains my visceral response - it doesn't make it right, but it does help to explain it.

Also, should there be "rules of engagement" for blogging - for both bloggers and their readers? We have something similar in the BP Forum, and I know many newsgroups and forums have something similar - is it time for the same thing in blogging?

Rock

16 - You just hit on one of my 'soapbox' items. I have absolute and total disdain for technical recruiters as I have only met one that I considered to have more ethics than a used car dealer or insurance salesperson.

My favorite line is always "I have a job that, based on a review of your resume, is a perfect fit for you". My response always became "How many people did you use this line on today?". I remember taking 6 hours off from work some years back to go into Atlanta for a job interview only to have the person doing the interviewe slam his fist down on his desk in anger. You see, this "recruiter" sent me for an interview with the total opposite skillset of what was needed. Now I also fault the interviewer for not reciewing resumes before agreeing who to interview for the position.

I am now much older and wiser. I interview the recruiters and refuse to sign any 'exclusivity" agreements until I do more reserach and find out how many recruiters are trying to fill a position, find out who is offering the best rate, and which ones have actually spelled Domino correctly in their posts/wriiten the posts to reflect the state of technolofy (you know, like the ones who require "5+ years experience with Lotus Notes & Domino 6.5.2").

17 - I don't think this recruiter should be cut any slack. It is kinda weird (and unbelievable) that she should say that the market for candidates is saturated, and that is why she is resorting to hijacking blog threads (in a massively buoyant market maybe we would be more forgiving, but now it is patently untrue). I think that Rocky's response was right, and he shouldn't feel any guilt about it. I've seen blog owners get really pissed off with people asking for Notes technical help that was off-topic for a particular blog entry, and it sounds like this recruitment issue was really wide of the mark.

The 'nice' response from the recruiter was just manipulation - it ends with asking him to bear this recruiter in mind if he should decide to look for a change of employment. It came as absolutely no surprise to me to hear that googling for that recruiters name should turn up multiple instances of this behaviour. Maybe this particular recruiter is the first off a new training course

Recruitment agencies are pretty close to pond life. I just had dinner with a friend who was sent 35 multi-agency candidate resumes, and panel-interviewed seven of the candidates, only to find that there was misrepresenation and duplicity, and ended up offering the post to none of them. It sounded like it was a royal waste of time and money, and they are now starting all over again.

As for receiving e-mail about job offers - all of the spam I get is less appropriate than that (thankfully it is still no more than 5% of my inbox).

18 - Chris, thanks for the response. I want to leave my blog as open as possible, because I don't want to do anything to impede the ebb and flow of information and discussion. But, this is really getting frustrating.

Incidentally, I just Googled this person's name, and I learned a couple of things:
1) this person appears to be a woman, not a man - the first name isn't a name I recognize as feminine, so my apologies.
2) It appears this person does this, A LOT, across many different forums and blogs. This person is (obviously) a technical recruiter, and this seems to be a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Rock

19 - I got this one too in email. I'm afraid that I feel the same way about the recruiters. These guys consider technical people commodity resources to be priced by the pound. They deserve exactly what they get. Inexperienced and poorly qualified newbies who claim many times the level of skill they have and are struggling to enter the business.

I've wasted hundreds of hours on these people and no longer even bother to explain the difference between consulting (and thus being responsible for an outcome) and contracting (being paid for time spent regardless of outcome).

My standard answer is: I get $1500 per day, with notice. If you have more than 10 days in two months worth of work, I drop that to $1200. Period, end of sentence.

20 - Yes I did indeed stereotype the recruiters and hopefully one day my view will change. I consider the email less of a problem than the blog posting, but still a nuisance. especially if the recruiter did his homework about who he/she was e-mailing. Now if Portland Northern california were the target...

21 - Add me to the list: I got the mail too. It didn't bother me too much, as I just binned it.

I don't know about anyone else, but I get similar mail all the time, and in every case so far the recruiters have been bull***ting me... the jobs they actually have are either unbelievably junior positions or of absolutely no relevance to my areas of "expertise" (chortle).

Moral of the story? Well, most people know that technical recruiters tend to suck. This sort of cross-posting just emphasises that. Check out Paul Rollo's post about "Microsoft WebSphere" for more chuckles

22 - Well, if the person is doing this over a multitude of blogs and discussion threads, then it is too much like "cross-posting" to me.

But, being recently in need of a job, I probably would have welcomed the information. So I don't really know which way I lean.

I guess I would prefer an email asking if they can post the info, and if I agreed, then I could post it. As it sits, posting it on several blogs comments sections is too much like "cross-posting" to me.

At least it's relevant, and I wouldn't call it immoral because of that. It's just kinda annoying.

-Grey

23 - Rock, it's your blog and you make the rules. If you think it's wrong then block her and all of her ilk. If you're not that bothered then leave it on.

"Rules of Engagement" across the board make no sense to me. However, if you want to have some on a blog by blog basis then why not. Just make sure they are easily accessible and be prepared to spend some time being a moderator.

The bottom line is, you make your blog what you want it to be. If people like it then they'll come back. If they don't then they'll ignore it. But it will be an accurate reflection of your values and principles, which surely is the most important thing ?

This is, of course, my opinion

24 - P.S. if you have jobs to offer: http://openntf.org/jobs
Or should i just close it down? :(.

25 - Your response may have been a bit terse, but reflects what I wanted to write to this individual last night when, returning from vacation, I found the same message in an unwanted e-mail. I decided to sleep on it.

This is a difficult quandry as we want to leave our blogs open for comments, but do not want to be subjected to this type of nonsence. LNDCentral had a porn spamming problem early on and has to close off anonymous comments. Because he is using php, this was relatively cheap and painless. For those of us using Domino, this becomes more difficult because we are then getting into licensing costs.

I am thinking about adding code to the template to check posters to see if they are "trusted" posters and if they are not to hold a post in limbo until approved (kind of a whitelist). But then again, determined spammers will figure this out.

As a business partner, I have a utility server license through the value package. I am beginning to wonder if this is the way to go to handle this type of problem.

Did he not hear of Notes.net?

Bottom line, his post was wrong and unethical as he was using YOUR bandwidth to advertise a job without compensation.

26 - In my opinion this is nothing else as just headhunting. In the background of the posting, this is just spam. OK, in the blog-community you find competent people - but simply posting some job offerings somewhere in the middle of a blog comment is imho not professional. So I question if this is a serious offer.

Just my 2 cents.

Matthias

27 - Chris, feel free to check the licensing terms. The purpose of the Utility server is precisely to give a license-unlimited server for users who are the server owner's customers, employees, contractors or suppliers. Just exactly like I said. IBM has *never* charged licenses for authenticated users who have no business relationship with the server owner.

Rocky, as I said, it's your blog and if you want to remove the comments, that's completely your perogative. I probably would have, too, if it were mine.

As for all the negative comments about technical recruiters -- well, I hear smack talk like this about them all the time. But I really don't get it. The market has shown time and again that there's no really effective way to recruit talent by any other means. The shortest distance between two points is a middleman. I wonder if all those people who gripe about recruiters would get behind my old idea of the NotesGuild, which would be about the only way you're going to be able to build an alternative to achieve the credible connection between jobs and talent without someone in between.

28 - Off topic sort of: Hassan..I blew it. I meant to look you up when I was in Port of Spain last week to say hello. Next time we will have to get together for a lime...