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I wanted to cover an interesting aspect of recruitment agencies. They are unique in the world in that they have databases that are ‘append only’. What do I mean? Well after I recruited a programmer several years back he told all the agencies he had been using that he had taken a job and not to call him again.

Six months later he started getting more calls asking him if he was happy. He was very happy so he politely responded that he did not want another job and please can they remove him from their database. Here is a sample conversation (there were lots of repeats of this conversations between him and various agencies.)

Agency: Hello there, I am calling from ‘insert agency name here’ were just giving you a call to see if your happy with your current job as we have some great opportunities that we think would suite you.
Programmer: Hi there, I am very happy thank you very much.
Agency: Would you like me to tell you about any of the opportunities I have?
Programmer: No thanks, as I stated I am perfectly happy. Can you please remove me from your database so I do not get any more calls.
Agency: I will flag the database so your not given another call for 6 months.
Programmer: Sorry I just said I wanted you to remove me from the database.
Agency: How about we call you in 12 months?
Programmer: Hangs up

Although each conversation varied slightly they all carried the same theme. Most importantly whatever he said and even if they said they would remove him they never did. It seems any database system written for recruitment agencies does not allow candidates to be removed.

The solution
I came up with the perfect solution for stopping all this. Here is rerun but with my solutions in place.

Agency: Hello there, I am calling from ‘insert agency name here’ were just giving you a call to see if your happy with your current job as we have some great opportunities that we think would suite you.
Programmer: Hi there, I am very happy thank you very much.
Agency: Would you like me to tell you about any of the opportunities I have?

- In the background the programmer hands over the phone to me.

Programmer: One second my boss would like a word with you.
Me: Hi there, I understand you want to poach my programmer even though he has repeatedly stated that he is happy and you continue to phone him with offers.
Agency: Hangs up

After using this tactic I found most agencies stopped calling. (plus its great fun!)