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You obviously don't have a lot of experience working with recruiters. They know exactly what they're doing and know which things they do are scummy. Their tactic is to fish for as many people in an organization until somebody bites.

I think the idea is great - it needs to be extended to other, configurable, phone numbers. There should also be a version for recruiters calling potential candidates.

I don't see it as vindictiveness but as some kind of "spammer's honey pot" -- while the recruiter is listening to this at least he's not calling someone on their team.

But I was disappointed about the low-tech quality of the approach; I was hoping for some kind of evolved Eliza-like HR robot that could sustain some form of conversation for some time.

If this caught on, at some point recruiters could never be sure they're talking to a real person.

- - -

I very often get calls at home, from people trying to sell me either new windows for my house or some low-cost mobile phone service.

I used to hang up on those calls, but not anymore!

Now I put them on speakerphone... and give the receiver to my four-year-old. He's very excited that someone wants to speak to him, and starts talking about his day right away.

This has transformed a very annoying experience into a great form of entertainment for the whole family (not to mention it "shifts the burden of rudeness" to the caller... how do they dare hanging up on my son!!!?!)

Training an Alice bit for this task (and similar marketing talks) should be relatively easy, especially because the marketer wants to stay on the line and will make allowances for wonky conversation.

http://alice.pandorabots.com/

http://alicebot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mitsuku-wins-loebner-...

(Sorry for mobile links)

I'm surprised it hasn't already been done.

I think it's assumed from the article (and the screenshot of the Gmail trail) that the team members have explicitly stated that they don't want to be bothered and don't work with recruiting agencies, this is a total last ditch effort.

At our ~20-person startup, we have a few recs open and I still see multiple people get calls on their mobile phones from recruiters over and over, and in the majority of these cases they don't even know how the recruiter got their number.

The job postings on the 42floors website don't have any information indicating that recruiter/agency submissions will not be considered. While the unprofessionally aggressive won't let "We do not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or agencies" deter them, not every recruiter is unprofessionally aggressive. A lot of them are persistent but capable of understanding "no" if it's delivered firmly and professionally.

Frankly, I find it amusing that the OP would take the time to set up a fake phone number but couldn't take the time to add a simple sentence to his company's job postings.

You tell them to go away. You tell them to not call you. You tell them to not call others in your company. And yet still they call. And call. And call. And email. And call. It never stops.

Two days ago I got a phonecall out of the blue.

"Is now a good time to talk?" "No, I am at work." "Just 5 minutes, blah, blah..."

I just hung up.

> I'm wondering if people look at this and think "that's awesome, I can relate! I want to work there," or if they look at this and think "that guy has no problem spending time being mean to people he thinks deserve it, I might stay away."

I look at this and think - wow, these guys have an awesome sense of humor and don't hire (usually bad) devs peddled by such recruiters. Definitely raises my interest.