A few minutes ago, I got the following email message from Ed at High Tech Ventures, a recruiting firm I have trashed on my blog in the past:
Subject: Company Name specs
I placed the cto. He’s a great guy and asked me to help with a couple engineering roles. I’ve attached the job specs.
Company Name has been know as Old Company Name 1 and Old Company Name 2.
would you recommend Current Coworker Name?
any other suggestions?
Ed
Here’s what I wrote back:
I will reply to you now as I replied to you the last time you contacted me, last November:
I have asked your company multiple times not to contact me.
I have even decried your failure to leave me alone on my blog.
One of my friends commented on my blog that at one point his wife told your company that he had died just to get you to stop calling him.
Get the message?
Jonathan Kamens
As for Current Coworker Name, he is currently employed where I work, and he has not chosen to mention to me that he is looking for a new position, so whether he is or isn’t, dropping his name to me was entirely inappropriate. The fact that you felt comfortable doing that is yet another reason why people should avoid your company like the plague.
Please do not contact me again.
Jonathan Kamens
Idiots.
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its interesting that you really have nothing better to do. You should all get part time jobs then you would not complain as much.
The previous comment from “paul” was posted from the IP address 72.248.205.178, which resolves to smtp.htventures.com. Four minutes earlier, another comment was posted on my other article about High Tech Ventures, from the same IP address, this time from “john”.
Apparently “john” / “paul” is unaware that blogs log IP addresses.
I leave it to the readers of my blog to evaluate the trustworthiness of a company’s defense being posted by an employee of the company who neglects to identify himself as such.
I’ve been getting recruiter emails from someone at htventures for the past few weeks. As a rule I don’t bother with 3rd party recruiters because they’re the worst matchmakers ever, but this guy was extra persistent so I looked them up and found this. Thanks for posting it.
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I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against High Tech Ventures yesterday about both this incident and the fact that I’ve been trying without success for the past 13 years to get them to stop contacting me. The BBB isn’t anything to write home about, but something is better than nothing. I also hope to talk to another recruiter whom I trust today to find out whether there is any sort of recruiting industry organization which accepts and tracks complaints about recruiters.
The co-worker, (not me) is definitely not looking for a job and is actually totally [expletive deleted – this is a family blog 🙂 – ed.] that HTV is calling people in the company and pretending to represent him. It was almost enough to get him in trouble with his manager until he explained himself.
This is completely unacceptable behavior, and they have now been blacklisted from my list of recruiters I’ll use.