I made a bot that communicates with recruiters for me, and I liked it

My name is Kevin and I would like to tell you about how I got rid of recruiting spam in a simple way. I am a front-end developer with good work, standing at the head of a team of seven people. But recruiters flood me with letters to such an extent that sometimes it’s just a reluctance to go into the mail. I already know in advance that they will be there, with all these “I hope you are doing well” and “Do you have a desire to talk?”. No, not the slightest. I want to be left alone to do the tasks and do the work that I already have.

Sometimes recruiters also lure me on Facebook. Here you are, requests from those who wish to correspond:


That's how I came to the idea that it is easier to make a bot than to continue reading all this and get mad. When I created the bot, I decided to turn to the Messenger platform, because the recruiters use Facebook all the time, which means it will be more convenient for them to communicate with my virtual brother.

Now there are many tools for creating bots, and of course, there is always an option to do everything yourself from scratch, without designers. I decided not to part with Chatfuel. It is very easy to work on this platform, especially when you properly understand logic. I spent on the creation of a bot for several hours and - here it is , in all its radiant beauty!

What I focused on?

As a person who receives a lot of proposals, I have already clearly defined which criteria have more weight for me and which ones have less. As far as fishing for information I am interested in from these long, stupid letters, I’m just a rock star (do you hear, recruiters?):

Office location. At the moment I live in Chicago and would like to stay here as long as possible. Accordingly, the proposals for the move, do not interest me (well, except perhaps somewhere in Bali). Therefore, I added a question about geographical location to the repertoire of the chatbot for recruiters. By taking such measures, I was able to calmly filter requests to complete the conversation, wherever they come from.

Skills. No, really, enough already to ask me about Java, recruiters. I do not write in Java! I had a desire to also include some short check or comment that would guarantee an understanding that Java and Javascript are not the same thing. For me, it would be convenient ... and for recruiters, too (I’m not so angry, in fact). Another interesting fact about me: I am intensely looking for cool projects on React, which would give me the opportunity to improve in this area - this is another reason why I added a question about skills.

Experience. I work as a developer for four years, so it is very strange to receive letters, where it is written in black and white: "From five years of experience." Either remove this criterion altogether from the requirements, or decide exactly where you draw the line.

Salary. Also an important consideration. At first I included it in the list of filters, but then I decided that it was somehow completely unceremonious, and removed it.

These criteria were enough to make a bot that would be easy to use and at the same time protect me (as I hoped) from the debris in the Inbox.

But how to get recruiters to talk to him?

I took the link and stuck it wherever I could: on my LinkedIn page, on GitHub, on Facebook, on Slack, on Instagram. In addition, I created a letter template for Gmail, which was automatically sent to recruiters, with the following text:

Good afternoon, dear recruiter!

Thank you for your interest. If you want to tell me about any career opportunities, please use this bot. It will be easier both for you and for me: I will get all the useful information about your job offer in a structured way, and you will save time on writing text and searching for personal information that you could use to personalize the letter and encourage me open.

Thank!
Kevin

After these actions, job offers began to come to me through the bot. At Chatfuel, it looks like this:


And inside - like this:


What are the advantages of this method?
I can receive job offers and job descriptions in the format that I prefer. As you can see in the screenshot, Chatfuel allows you to sort information by fields that interest you. In the mailbox recruiters are now bursting significantly less. And I can send messages in bulk and give everyone feedback! It also reduces the likelihood that the recruiter will disappear from my field of view: I have his Facebook profile and I can even see if we have mutual friends.

Having worked according to this scheme for about a month, I began to analyze the results. It turned out that the recruiters' offers became much less annoying to me. I can post my mail again and sort the letters as I see fit. I received four suggestions that interested me. And now I know much more about the labor market: what kind of salary is paid on average, what skills are in demand - I’m going to have statistics on the recruiters' proposals.

In general, it turned out very entertaining! Even the recruiters themselves told me that they liked how I came out of the situation. Is it possible to do without it? Of course, but the chatbot makes my life much easier. Time is worth its weight in gold, the details are important, so I advise you to resort to this method.

PS Already after writing this article, I found the Reply.id tool on Product Hunt - it looks like the guys made it with an eye just for people like me. Perhaps you should try it too.