OK, this is not the same as my other previous posts about idiotic recruitment, as in fact the exploratory email I have received from the recruiter was relatively well-targeted — minus the fact that I’m actually in USA nowadays not UK, but they obviously have a copy of my resume/CV from a while back so can’t blame them for trying out really. The reason though I wanted to bring this up is not to frame the recruiter, but to actually stop all banks and financial institutions from trying to get me a job in that area — I will be pushing this particular post through all sorts of media channels and as such I hope they finally get the message. (Need I suggest that you share this on your Twitter and whatever other social media you use? 😉 )

You might know that I have written before on this blog about why as a developer I don’t want to work for a bank — the original post is here by the way — however, I appreciate that my blog is rather small so possible that it didn’t get in front of (all) recruiters at the time… which really explains this email recently. Hopefully this will stop after this post 😀

So, a bit of context: I got this email on 22nd of May 2013 — since I’m not trying to frame the recruiter or the company here, I will not disclose who it was for and what financial institution it wad referring to, just simply want to provide a bit of context here. The above-mentioned email goes like this:

Dear Liviu,

I hope you are well?
I wanted to contact you regarding this fantastic opportunity we have working in a leading investment bank for a strong, senior developer in a great team.

My client, a top tier Investment Bank, is looking for a upper AVP/VP level Java Developer with around 4-10 years of industry experience and expert-level knowledge in Java.

You should have an excellent knowledge and understanding of Core Java (e.g. multi-threading, performance tuning), and a strong knowledge of design patterns, as well as experienced at working with databases.

You will be working in the Regulatory team, a high-performing team within the Bank – as part of a global group; and will be working on some business critical projects – working the full project life-cycle. Depending on your experience you should also be able to come in as a team lead, mentoring other business users.

In return for your hard work and accomplishments the client can offer a highly competitive and negotiable salary which includes an excellent benefits package, and bonuses. They also operate in a highly meritocratic environment, keen to help their employees prosper!

To hear more about this position please apply by posting your CV (in Word Doc) to …

*Please note you will require a Tier 1 Visa/British/EU Citizenship to be considered for this job.
This job is located in London.*

I look forward to hearing from you blah-blah-blah

All good, as I said, the recruiter here actually did their job in terms of figuring out that the job matches my skill set. However, I don’t want to work for banks — I hate the financial environment with a vengeance pretty much so given my temper and sarcastic nature I couldn’t help but send this back:

Hi XYZ,

Thank you for your email, unfortunately banks and financials institutions are at the bottom of my list of interests in terms of jobs, right below signing up for the dole, sorry.

So banks and financial companies, please get the message after this and piss off and leave me alone! Hire some bloody 9-to-5 jobsworth to maintain your 1960’s built infrastructure and to be bitched over by some fat bald guy in his 60’s who’s more worried about his fucking quarterly bonus than the state of your IT. And shove your “amazing” working environment where the sun don’t shine — it’s still an environment where the middle management paper-pushers are driving Jaguars and your engineers get nailed for not wearing a shirt and I wish you best of luck in driving yourself and your mainframe-based infrastructures into the ground. Get it?