Check out this timely article by John Sumser regarding the use of spam in the recruiting industry.  It’s timely to me in the sense that after being bombarded on a regular basis with spam via email and comments on our blog, I’ve been thinking a lot about the effectiveness of spam as a recruiting “tool”.

The goal of some recruiters is to find and connect with as many people as possible in hopes of filling their open positions.  One method these people use is to create queries and then send blanket emails to people who might meet their criteria.  Sometimes it works, but most of the time people are fairly annoyed by the impersonal nature of the emails.

My argument is that spamming for job seekers directly flies in the face of the ideals and principles of online social networking.  Times are changing to where people aren’t accepting the impersonal nature of mass emails and questionnaires as a gateway or criteria for finding a new position.  Job seekers want a personal experience with a direct connection to a real recruiter.  They’ll opt for this type of experience in many cases over blindly accepting responding to spam even if you are the greatest company on earth.

And this is why social networking has taken off.  To many it's a chance to connect with people in a far more personal way then just a cold online interaction.  Seeing you, hearing you, empathizing with your writing - that's what get's us interested. 

Beware Google and other companies using these techniques – you may not be getting the awesome candidates you think you are and in fact turning them away instead!