Shutting Down Annoying Recruiters? 612
An anonymous reader writes "My company is under attack by the leeches and bottom-feeders of the IT recruiting world. They call into our company phone directory constantly — hundreds of calls per day — trolling for names, hawking their job candidates, and refusing to hang up or stop calling, even if we curse their mothers. Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal: there is no 'do not call' list for US corporations, and it's not harassment. Through education, we've gotten our engineering group to stop answering the calls or hang up, but I was wondering if the Slashdot community has any ideas for more creative solutions to make this stop, either through technology, US law, trickery, etc."
ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Funny)
Ask if you can call them back... get their number.
Post on /.
All interested slashdotters should then call this company asking about possible job and recruiting opportunities.
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Interesting)
Company Name: Convergenz
Website: www.conv.com
Location: McLean, VA
Target Area: Washington DC Metropolitan area
Target Market: IT contracting from Helpdesk to System Administrators to LAN/WAN Engineers
Phone: 703.584.3700
These fuckers call my office on a daily basis with "new jobs which you are a perfect match". Please say Tyrone King referred you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
8260 Greensboro Drive
5th Floor
McLean, VA 22102
703.584.3700 Office
info@conv.com
Kansas City Office
8500 W. 110th St.
Overland Park, KS 66210
913.338.1800 Office
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Funny)
-CR
Give them time (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a little bit. The other
Spammers! Attack! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:4, Funny)
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Why not just give out phony info? (Score:5, Funny)
I have this buddy, Titus T. Tubesteak, who always seems to be looking for a job.
Another buddy, Smitty Jaegerwebermanjensen, is reserved for people who have trouble spelling.
Re:Why not just give out phony info? (Score:5, Funny)
The best part is you can spell it differently each time they repeat it back to you. Sound more and more pissed each time and repeat until they give up.
I agree... (Score:3, Funny)
More likely what will happen is out of work slashdot readers will call in asking if they have any jobs.
Re:ask them to hold, forever... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ask them to hold, forever... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ask them to hold, forever... (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.usno.navy.mil/telephone.shtml/ [navy.mil]
For the love of God, it won't stop!
Nah (Score:5, Informative)
Here is what to do. Tell them in no uncertain terms that they are not welcome to call. Now, if you have an ISDN PRI or similar system, you may be able to get the ANI (like the caller ID but not blockable). Then set up an asterisk box to do prefiltering. Have it recognize calls from that ANI, and route into an indefinite hold queue.
Let them have tit for tat and pay back lesing for lies.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't the universe implode or something?
Re:Nah (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
After a run-in with the hall's RA, one of the guys on my dorm broke into the closet where all the phone switching equipment was.
And routed every single call coming into the dorm into the offending RA's number.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nah (Score:5, Funny)
I had my phone line(s) through a VOIP provider who provided an awesome set of web-based tools for call management. Whenever I got a junk fax, I'd add the offending number to my call-blocking scheme, but instead of simply blocking it (actually, I had the option of having them receive a busy signal, an instant drop, or an endless ring) I would forward the number to the reception, contact number, or "to be removed" number from another previous junk fax. Every time a new junk faxer would get through, I'd add them. Later I started adding telemarketers to the mix.
At one point I had something like 100 junk faxers and telemarketers all calling and faxing one another. The best part was that the CallerID for the forwarded calls would show the originating number - there was no indication it was being forwarded through me.
It was a thing of beauty
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Re:Nah (Score:4, Funny)
There was a bug in the internally developed fax software that would cause it occasionally to forget to dial 9 before dialing out. I would see "FAX SERVER" on the caller id window of my phone, so I would just hit the transfer button and hand it off to say... the developers responsible for it. The beauty of it was it would say my name as the originater, then as soon as they pick up "BEEP - SCRATCH - GARBLEGARBLE - incomming fax"
That was quite effective in convincing them to fix the bug sooner rather then later.
I also had an amusing time when dialing someone up and getting their voicemail. You could transfer them back to themselves, giving them a voicemail message that is their voicemail greeting.
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Re:Nah (Score:5, Informative)
My solution: Route all their calls back to them. They still try to call, but at least it solves my problem.
BTW, a very relevant link: Who Called Us [whocalled.us]. If you get repeated calls from a number you don't recognize, type it in there and very likely you'll find out about those trying to call you.
Re:Nah (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you dump them into a hold queue, they will burn one of your PRI channels doing it
I would transfer them off to an 800 number or better yet - back to themselves!
Re:Nah (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Interesting)
Their job is to hold the recruiting company on the line as long as possible. Trying to go up the sales chain as high as possible. If you can afford it have a second college student for the calls to be transferred to as "someone with authority to deal with your call".
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Funny)
-Rick
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most states require only one-party consent -- so anyone who's a legitimate party to the call (like you!) can unilaterally decide to record it. (For interstate calls, federal law has a bunch of requirements like a frequent beep for *telecommunications companies* which do call recording, but those still don't apply to individuals unless you work for a telco).
Now, in terms of being able to share that recording... you're probably safer with
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:5, Funny)
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How to get to the heart of telemarketers (Score:5, Funny)
Telemarketers can be fun. I've identified several, got a few shut down, and got retaliated against one (who happened to be the phone company forcing their employees to cold call during idle time.)
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Re:How to get to the heart of telemarketers (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, people are amazingly gullible. I learned how to fight them when I worked long hours on the nightshift at a manufacturing plant. They would call all day. I would play them and get email addresses "so I could send them my resume." I was very creative. They were too. One telemarketer was able to convince the powers-to-be to get my phone service suspended. I knew I hit the heart then. And with no profanity or threats either.
Question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
I tell you what, I've gotten rid of more tele-marketers that way. They stop their script dead in their tracks and usually hang up on me without so much as another word. Mission accomplished.
However, if they DON'T hang up after that, be very afraid.
Re:Question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
At that point, I really didn't know what to do. To this day, I don't know if he was simply calling my bluff, or whether he was truly interested. I remember worrying about it later though, after I hung up on him -- telemarketers typically have your name, address and phone number on the computer in front of them, after all. Nothing happened (this was more than 10 years ago) but since then it's occurred to me that using this strategy comes with a decidedly high risk of backfire. YMMV.
Re:Question of the day (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How to get to the heart of telemarketers (Score:4, Funny)
Here's a few good starter questions:
This will (hopefully) lead to a comment on how expensive it must be to drive such a vehicle. Fortunately, you're ready with this response:
"Yeah, it used to be pretty hard. Fortunately, I've worked out a way to offset the costs. I've sold advertising space on the side of the vehicle to a local adult video store. And a strip club on the other side."
Call me suspicious. Perhaps an inside job? (Score:5, Informative)
I had heard of this tactic being used prior to the IT Tech Boom but not recently. [IIRC, it was the brainchild of the VP of a certain large database software company and also occurred at a large company which writes OSes and application software. The idea was to remove anyone who wasn't loyal. The result was a huge number of very qualified people were dismissed and morale was crushed. But I'm sure the VPs got a nice bonus anyway.]
In this case, it might explain why the company attorney isn't too responsive, when they're normally over-eager to fire off letters of reprimand.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Hi, Mr. Agency, I'd like to pay you a lot of money to call my employees repeatedly and check whether any of them feel like quitting yet. Please call several times a day so they can't get any work done."
Can you say self-fulfilling prophecy?
Re:Call me suspicious. Perhaps an inside job? (Score:5, Funny)
This is a trick, isn't it??? You're questioning my company loyalty! You just want to know if I'll bail from the company for a few dollars more or divulge company secrets!! No sir! I like it here. I like what I'm getting paid. I'm completely satisfied! Our boss is great!! I like [him/her] on a professional level!! I am loyal to all levels of management!! I signed the NDA! I don't care if you offer me 50% more!!! Death before dishonor! I'll never quit the company!!! You'll NEVER MAKE ME TALK!!!!
[click]
Re:Call me suspicious. Perhaps an inside job? (Score:5, Insightful)
My friend worked for a place that said "Don't post your resume online because we track all the job sites" and he just looked at her and said he'd make sure to post it right now just so she can catch it.
Re:ask if you can call them back (Score:4, Funny)
On the other hand, if you tell someone to "Please remove my number from your database and do NOT call again", the next call is harassment. If you are a woman, you could threaten to file a sexual harassment lawsuit because you could swear they just said something derogatory. This should work if you are a minority, as well, play the race card.
"We have a job that perfect for you!"
"Why? Because I am black? What are you trying to say, that I am not good enough for my current job?"
Forwarding their call to another recruiter might also be funny.
Take a cue from one of the comedians on the BoB & Tom show and when the recruiter calls, ask about the location of the job. Tell them that you might need the job for 'about 7 years, until the statute of the limitations runs out.' Ask if the location has extradition agreements with your current state. *grin* And while you are at it, ask if the recruiter knows of a good way to get blood out of a shirt, a lot of blood.
There's irony in this ... (Score:4, Informative)
Tell them you're looking for work and want an interview/offer and they'll stop calling for sure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Its like the saying goes - the best time to look for a new job is when you already have a job.
Re:There's irony in this ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There's irony in this ... (Score:5, Funny)
You sir, are brilliant. Yes, every time they call set up an interview over lunch. Preferably somewhere you have no intention of going for lunch. Have everyone in the company do the same. After a week or so of chasing false leads they will turn their attentions elsewhere.
I'd take the free lunch (Score:3, Funny)
You never know, you just might find a new job!
DNC list? (Score:5, Informative)
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Lie to them (Score:5, Insightful)
If your employees are still being poached, then hey, you deserve it for underpaying them.
More likely, the recruiters will stop calling your employees. (But they might ask for a job themselves.)
Re:Lie to them (Score:5, Funny)
Tell them that the employee they're currently after can't be reached because he has been trying to remove spyware from his work computer, or that he's out for a drink because it helps his code "flow".
Or tell them that he'll take your call on the VoIP system he installed, and then just hang up.
what to do (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what to do (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what to do (Score:4, Funny)
So kinda like the airhorn then.
Perhaps a sting operation (Score:4, Insightful)
no federal DNC, but private ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct, there is no Federal Do Not Call list. It's also irrelevant -- if they are told to stop calling, they must stop calling -- period. Anything else is harrassment. If you're a big company, just ring up your legal department, tell them the problem, and they'll craft a nice Cease and Desist letter. They live for that sort of thing.
Fire that lawyer (Score:4, Informative)
Right, that's precisely why they're there. However, OP said "Our attorney says the calls are perfectly legal" which leads me to believe the company attorney is the one who should be looking for new employment!
As you said, Harassment is illegal, and making many, many telephone calls which interrupt business after being told to stop is the very definition. This headhunting company has been instructed, verbally I presume, to stop contacting your company. It is time to put this in writing and start building an evidence chain so they can sue the pants off of the caller for lost productivity, misuse of resources and harassment. I'm sure a competent attorney can think of other charges to bring. But first OP needs to find one. IMO, the current attorney doesn't sound like he's earning his retainer.
Re:Fire that lawyer (Score:4, Informative)
Telemarketing refers to the use of telecommunications facilities to make unsolicited calls for the purpose of solicitation. Solicitation is defined as the selling or promoting of a product or service, or the soliciting of money or money's worth, whether directly or indirectly, and whether on behalf of another party. This includes solicitation of donations by or on behalf of charitable organizations but does not include calls where there is no attempt to solicit, such as calls received to collect an overdue account or for market or survey research.
Persons placing unsolicited live voice or facsimile calls to solicit must respect a call recipient's request not to be called again by placing the recipient's phone number on their "Do Not Call" list and removing the recipient's name and telephone number from their calling lists within 7 days of a request for unsolicited facsimile calls and 30 days of the request for unsolicited live voice calls. A "Do Not Call" request is to remain active for three years.
Toy with them... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been successful where I work.
I am pretty sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
When they call they are using company resources so they are a cost to you. A simple nastygram from your lawyer should telling them to stop or accept that you will charge them by the hour for the time they waste should work.
Or hire someone for minimum wage to waste their time. When ever they call just forward them to the min wage worker and have them just eat up as much of their time as possible. Summer is coming up so I bet some employee at your company has a teen that would like a summer job.
Re:I am pretty sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're doing it now reading /.
Meow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Meow (Score:5, Funny)
Foster: Cat Game? What's the record?
Mac: Thorny did six, but I think you can do ten.
Foster: Ten? Starting right 'meow?'
[Mac laughs - they walk up to the car, and Foster taps on the driver side]
Larry Johnson: Sorry about the...
Foster: All right meow. (1) Hand over your license and registration.
[the man hands him his license]
Foster: Your registration? Hurry up meow. (2)
[Mac ticks off two fingers]
Larry Johnson: Sorry.
[the man laughs a little]
Foster: Is there something funny here boy?
Larry Johnson: Oh, no.
Foster: Then why you laughing, Mister... Larry Johnson?
[pause]
Foster: All right meow, (3) where were we?
Larry Johnson: Excuse me, are you saying meow?
Foster: Am I saying meow?
[Mac puts his hands up for the fourth one, but makes an "eehhh" facial expression, as he is considering the last one]
Larry Johnson: I thought...
Foster: Don't think boy. Meow, (4) do you know how fast you were going?
[man laughs]
Foster: Meow. (5) What is so damn funny?
Larry Johnson: I could have sworn you said meow.
Foster: Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree?
[Mac is gut-busting laughing]
Foster: Am I drinking milk from a saucer?
[feigned anger]
Foster: Do you see me eating mice?
Foster: [Mac and the man are laughing their heads off now] You stop laughing right meow! (6)
Larry Johnson: [the man stops and swallows hard] Yes sir.
Foster: Meow, (7) I'm gonna have to give you a ticket on this one. No buts meow. (8) It's the law.
[rips off the ticket and hands it to the man]
Foster: Not so funny meow, (9) is it?
Foster: [Foster gets up to leave, but Mac shakes his hands at him, indicating only nine meows] Meow! (10)
Derogitory sexual comments (Score:4, Funny)
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"If you are a bottom-feeding IT recruiter . . ." (Score:5, Funny)
press 1 now.
Keep them on the phone (Score:5, Insightful)
It is fun, rewarding, and it hurts their bottom line.
The answer is "UUCP" (Score:4, Informative)
At a certain large veteran's hospital, telephone solicitors used to call every phone in the building, one after another, trying to sell stuff to the patients.
As it happens, the local sysadmin looked after quite a number of machines which updated each other via uucp, so he added an aggressive contact schedule for the number the telephone solicitors were calling from.
After a few hours of autodialing by a pool of uupcds, he commented out the new number and called them by voice, to see if they would now agree not to call the patients.
--dave
Fight Robo with Robo (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that robodialers are becoming more and more of a nuisance, I want to enhance my counterattack. Anyone know of a fre
Supermarket Stock Computer (Score:5, Funny)
It turned out that the call was the supermarket's stock taking system trying to phone a central depot to order more stuff. Given the simplistic nature of the system the guy's mate fixed the stock levels for lots of items to zero and then told the system to call the next number on its list. The following day they drove past the supermarket to find loads of lorries there trying to deliver things they already had. The supermarket eventually figured out what happened and tried to sue. However, given the very primitive computer laws in force at the time the case was thrown out because the supermarket had initiated the call and so legally it was assumed that they wanted to talk to the computer on the other end. Needless to say the nuisance calls stopped!
thats how recruiters operate (Score:5, Insightful)
These recruiters are incredible. I used a few a few years back and I STILL get a phone call 3 or 4x a month from a breathless desperate guy who really needs to fill soem shit 2-week temp contract. I also submitted a resume or two fairly recently only to find they went through a recruiter who told me that job doesnt exist anymore and offered me to interview for some temp job. Bait and switch?
The industry really needs to take a good look at recruiters in general. I cant see them being more efficient than in-house hiring.
Right (Score:4, Informative)
That's only a problem when YOU refuse to hang up, but I see that you've "trained" your guys to hang up. Problem solved.
Treat your employees better (Score:3, Insightful)
Extension 101 (Score:5, Funny)
This extension is hooked up to a CD player and is programmed to auto answer incoming calls. One of our audio guys has mixed up a CD containing endless "on hold" muzack and promotional messages for our company and this is left to play repeatedly in the CD player.
End result - all unsolicited calls get responded with a "I'll just connect you to the person responsible for that department" and are then transferred to extension 101 where they remain until they hang up. The best bit is that a red LED lights up on the line the marketer has called in on (indicating line in use), making it possible to time how long they spend listening to the 101 CD before disconnecting. The record so far is just over 18 minutes
I suppose if you wanted to be even more devious you could set extension 101 to divert to a premium rate number and make a bit of extra cash for every minute the dumb marketer stays listening to the 101 CD - this is probably illegal though (as most fun things are)...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt it's illegal, as you'd be the one paying the premium rates for the call.
This calls for an old trick (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you have the fax number just put together about 6 or 7 pages of whatever you like within reason and the bounds of law (i.e. don't send death threats or pornographic images), usually something inane and anonymous, perhaps lolcatz pictures. Tape all the sheets together end-to-end then insert into your fax machine, once the first part of the now super-length page comes through, loop the top around and tape it together, forming a nice infinite paper loop in the fax machine. Let this send all day if you like. On their end it will either eat all their paper, toner, or at the very least render the fax machine unusable!
Important! You obviously want to remain anonymous with this "fax" so be sure to prepend *67 to the fax number, this is the command to block caller ID.
Enjoy!
Re:This calls for an old trick (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be feasible to modify some fax software to accomplish this feat with much less effort. Get an open-source fax package like efax and let it rip. For bonus points, you can set the fail-retry timers to 0 so that it will retry again immediately when someone at the other end hits the cancel button, causing the system to hang up.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's the difference between them running out of fax paper and breaking their fax machine.
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Get a decent phone system (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hire Grandpa Simpson (Score:5, Funny)
"Now where were we? Oh yeah -- the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
Six Words: "I will not wear a Tie". (Score:5, Funny)
That's pretty sad, now that I think about it... tells you just how much recruiters think (or companies believe) a tie is worth compared to competency.
Some favourite answers (Score:3, Interesting)
Legal Solution is Obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got it. Direct all the calls to this attorney of yours, I bet it turns into harassment really quick.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No she is my Ex because she is a Bitch. Get your story straight before you fire off your pie hole.
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*slimy
*desperate
*phony
*hell
No wonder you had trouble finding work. You can barely type coherently.
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Alternately, you can make a webform th