My past experience with recruiters has been at a level that I put on par with my recent experiences with newbies to my team. Today I got this from a guy I know who just changed jobs through a new recruiting firm.

Recruiting Firm X is smart. They sent me a giant gift basket to my job.. one branded coffee metal big mug thinger.. two glasses and a bottle of wine.. total cost probably not very high.. but it got noticed by my co-workers and more importantly the coffee mug has their name in a fairly noticeable fashion on it.

He’s right. It is a great advertising move on their part. Especially if they had it sent to the front desk. Inevitably the overworked, under appreciated receptionist had it sit there for an hour or more. That whole time people came and went and saw the recruiting firms colours and name. Once the receptionist found the time, the basket had to be packed through the office, past a bunch of prying cubical gophers who wanted to know one thing only: who got the pressie? By the time that basket reached my friends desk, the recruiting firm had generated a great deal of buzz…which is exactly what advertising is meant to do.

What I like the most about this is that they sent booze to the work place. It’s almost a free ticket to get drunk (or keep your morning vodka and Cheerio buzz going) at work. This guy was talking about how great a marketing idea it is that the recruiting firms name is on the coffee mug when he walks around the cubicle maze during the day. I say, what a great marketing ploy to have a developer walking around the cube maze all day with a glass of wine in his hand! Who doesn’t want to be associated with a group that empowers you in that way.

Anyways…I had to get a positive story about recruiters out there on the web. There’s more than enough bad ones, let’s not forget that there might be one good one…is Agile Recruiting in Calgary it? I dunno, but I like the booze part of them already.