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I was contacted by a recruiter about a position that is based on something I am not interested in and have marked it as such under my "I prefer not to work with" section of the SO profile.

I gave them a helpful hint about checking this before contacting SO users, but their reply was that that information is not visible to them!

At least I would imagine this would be one of the primary uses for that section?

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  • 6
    It seems likely to me that the recruiter may have just been blasting out the job information to as many users as possible, and did not read your profile that carefully.
    – kingsfoil
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 0:01
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    At least according to the reply, they did double-check after my reply and it was not visible. Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 5:54
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    Visiting your developer story does reveal the "I prefer not to work with" section. I did add a random tag to that section myself, downloaded the developer story as PDF, I do see that tag in my "dislikes". It's kind of hard to trust and believe that recruiter in my opinion.
    – Paul Karam
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 14:16
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    I believe you have encountered that rarest of birds: a less-than-forthcoming recruiter.
    – souldeux
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 14:23
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    That's recruiters for you. There are similar options on LinkedIn which are completely ignored, its simply better to just completely switch them off rather than choose the option that you're not interested.
    – Gimby
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 15:41
  • I've been told by some other recruiters that many are paid by being first submission on a position. It doesn't matter if you're placed; they still get a cut when someone else is. It's in their interests to shotgun out a job posting and hope someone will respond. Others just use bad postings to harvest contacts. It's a very shoddy way to do business, but it's been like that for years. I don't see it changing. That's the primary reason why I stick with larger recruiting firms or people I know. Unfortunately, you have responded and are now on a list of valid contacts. Watch the posts you get.
    – Shawn
    Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 3:10
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    Could such a recruiter be kicked off stack overflow talent? Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 5:07
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    Hmm, would a voting system work for that? Ie. if a given recruiter gets enough "downvotes" due to their actions, they would eventually get banned for a while from SO Talent? Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 6:40
  • @JuhaUntinen that will likely just mean that all recruiters get downvoted. It is too easy to abuse.
    – Gimby
    Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 8:48
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    @Gimby I'm not convinced that's abuse. If all recruiters get downvoted it's because all recruiters are downvote worthy and ought to be held to account so they are made to clean up their act! ;) Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 11:36
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit exactly, I would downvote everyone too :)
    – Gimby
    Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 11:41

1 Answer 1

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It is more likely that the recruiter simply ignored it (or did not give themselves the opportunity to read it during their broad advert-spamming), then low-key lied about it.

It's not at all uncommon for such people to blast out irrelevant job ads across the spectrum, because sending an email is practically free and if there's even the slim chance of an unlikely catch, then doing so is in their best interests. I frequently get ASP.NET and Java and Qt job adverts that lead with gushing praise for my wealth of professional experience in those areas (I've never used any of them!) and I see no reason for this so-called "recruiter logic" not to apply here too.

That being said, since Stack Exchange tries to make the internet better, if the behaviour continues it may be worth contacting the team to see whether some sanctions can be put in place against this particular organisation. After all, this isn't just email here!

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