Suppose I have a good friend. She is already dating a man for a month. She is still hesitating And sure I want to help her.

Suppose that evening I shook hands with a good looking man. His flow of words muted me. He had a Porsche, he had a good job and he would fly to Spain just for fun. And ..
It was like a salesman selling himself.

Suppose my friend expected an honest advice after an one directional overwhelming monologue.
What was I supposed to say?

“And here’s to you, Mrs. Recruiter
Testers love you more than you will know
Wo wo wo
We need you, please, Mrs. Recruiter
Office holds a place for those who say
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey”
[On the melody of Mrs. Robinson]

Let me get this straight: I am not looking for a job.
Another straight thing: I am badly surprised the way recruiters approach me.

It goes like this:
Hi Han,

We noticed your profile on AllConnectedNow.com. And we are looking for someone with your background.

Our customer is a well-known international company. It is number 1 in medical software in EMEA. A new product will be developed in the coming years. You can be in this team.

The candidate must have
At least 5 years of experience in software testing
4 character Test certificates
Seniority to help junior testers
At least 5 years of experience in automated testing
A background in medical software is preferred.

If you are interested about this job, please call us at 123weneedatester or send us a mail.

Regards,

Mrs. Recruiter

Some people would enjoy this mail. I don’t. Apart from the fact that my profile had not been checked properly, it is not really personalised.
Let’s say Cecilia has the same background I have in juggling. She can juggle the devilstick, pass 6 clubs, and has an act of 3 minutes. Excuse me. It was about software testing, but I only read the word background.

Let me start again. Cecilia has the same experience in software testing I have. I could start the mail with “Hi Cecilia”. And it still make sense. Another straight thing I want to share: I do not know a Cecilia with this profile. I just made it up to make my point. So if you did not find Cecilia, that’s why. By the way AllConnectedNow.com does not exist for the same reason.
I like recruiters who can spot senior testers, but I have some suggestions to connect. That’s fine with me and hopefully you.

Last months I got several friendly requests to exchange thoughts about a new job. The mails looked like the one I described. Why me? So I politely asked why they would have me in their team. The answers were .. Let me put it this way: I did not receive an answer on this question.

I felt like a number. It could be 8 or 754. So if a junior peer would ask me about this company. I am not jumping up and down for her or him. It’s just another company.

Of course some recruiters might like numbers: “I sent 100 invitations to interesting candidates this morning.”
But a company is not happy, if they get 40 junior people who are willing to do the job. But it was actually looking for senior or expert or whatever you call her or him.

In marketing Unique Selling Points are used. E.g. a company is number 1 in medical software in EMEA. Let me turn this around. As a recruiter I would look for someone with Unique Buying Points. “I noticed you have experience with medical information systems on a Windows platform.” Or even better “I noticed you tested a Dutch medical information system on a Windows platform a few years ago.” My guess is there are about several hundreds. And it is easy to reduce the scope using “information system for house doctors”. This might lead to a number close to 60 on the Whole Wide World. I would feel appreciated as a tester.

Today the world is moving fast. I ignore commercials or invitations, if they do not resonate with me. But I do remember companies which felt right or wrong to me.

“We’d like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes”
Mrs. Robinson sung by Simon & Garfunkel