Like every other breathing engineer in the Bay Area, I get a lot of cold emails from random recruiters. While I haven’t yet replied to one of those messages with the below, I sure am tempted at times. Feel free to modify this template for your own purposes!

Corollary: if you are a recruiter, and you find that your reach-out emails would tick some of these checkboxes, maybe it’s time to reconsider your script.

Hello,

Thank you for your note. I am not interested for the following reason(s):

[ ] You do not include the specific name of the company you represent, which a) leads me to believe you are just canvassing and b) limits my ability to filter based on companies I don’t care for

[ ] You do not call out the specific skills I have that make me a “perfect fit”

[ ] You refer to skills or interests a) substantially in my past and/or b) clearly not part of my current role or expertise

[ ] If your CEO/CTO/VP Eng/Director of ____________ thought my background sounded good, he/she should have emailed me personally

Additionally:

[ ] I will not send you any leads because I am already personally recruiting all the good people I know

[ ] Your request that we start with a “quick call” shows a clear disregard for the work style of engineers

[ ] You appear to have misspelled my name despite having my email address to use as starting point