Unbelievable.
I received the following spam e-mail last week via HRSEO’s contact page:
Email: belsbree@getthejob.com
Name: william elsbree
Title: rep
Company: getthejob
Address: 1
City: Tinton Falls
State: nj
Zip: 07753
Phone: 732-746-2561
URL: www.getthejob.comComments:
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Talk about misguided, desperation marketing. Would this motivate anyone to buy? I’ll take a wild guess that business isn’t going so well. Either that, or the sales training really sucks.
Selling me via my company’s online contact form? C’mon, try just a little bit. I mean, it’s not even written like it’s to a human being and I don’t even have job postings on HRSEO.
I hope this was automated spam, because if a real person, Mr. Elsbree (who is an employee (I called)), did this on their own, or at the direction of a superior, it’s simply inexcusable in today’s anti-spam, transparent environment.
Two thumbs way down.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:04 am
That’s the new spam. I received similar messages when I had a contact form on my websites. Those emails were selling viagra, gambling, xxx. So putting your email address on your website, and you will receive spam. Putting a contact form on your website, and you will receive spam.
There is a website called ZabaSearch.com that reveals your personal information such as where you live. Whenever you fill out a subscription form on a website, those companies sell your information to ZabaSearch.com for all to see, including the spammers. I did a search for Joel Cheesman on ZabaSearch.com. Here is what came up.
Scary!
March 5th, 2007 at 10:09 am
One other thing. I guess this person doesn’t know about the influence blogs can have on your business. It is companies like this one, why I don’t answer my phone.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Hi Joel,
Nice catch. As you have always claimed to be a privacy advocate I’m confused to why you feel outing Bill Elsbree, a fine, extremely hardworking and dedicated employee, helps anyone other than teaching Bill a rough, yet valuable lesson.
Remember back in the day, when you were trying to make something happen for yourself, did you ever make a mistake? I’m glad there weren’t blogs around when I started out. Who knows what would have happened.
At least I know Bill Elsbree is working, which is a constant concern when building out a new national sales force. I will never admonish anyone with good intentions that may have employed a less than desirable approach. We’ll talk to Bill and the rest of the sales team to instruct them on the proper use of email for sales and marketing purposes in order to avoid this issue in the future and to warn them that there is always someone watching.
I enjoy your stuff Joel! My apologies to the recruiting and HR communities that may have received ill advised correspondence in the past, we’ll try, but I can’t promise that it won’t happen again. We have a strong, energetic and growing sales force and we can’t watch their every move. I can tell you with confidence that GetTheJob has not and will never resort to spam to market our services. I’ve been doing this a long time and our end game is and always will be aligned with jobseekers and employers best interests. Spam is not one of them.
Thanks for the notice today and please let us know if there is anything else we need to work on. We take constructive criticism well. Keep an eye on GTJ as we roll out our next iteration in a few weeks. Cool stuff!
If anybody wants to hire a good sales person Bill is available, just kidding, he’s a keeper!
Joel, let me know if you want to get together next time I’m out your way.
As I was told on my last visit to Cleveland from one of Cleveland’s finest - Have a Blessed Day!
All the best and good luck in your recruiting efforts,
Chris Amato
President & CEO
GetTheJob, Inc.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hi Joel,
Nice catch. As you have always claimed to be a privacy advocate I’m confused to why you feel outing Bill Elsbree, a fine, extremely hardworking and dedicated employee, helps anyone other than teaching Bill a rough, yet valuable lesson.
Remember back in the day, when you were trying to make something happen for yourself, did you ever make a mistake? I’m glad there weren’t blogs around when I started out. Who knows what would have happened.
At least I know Bill Elsbree is working, which is a constant concern when building out a new national sales force. I will never admonish anyone with good intentions that may have employed a less than desirable approach. We’ll talk to Bill and the rest of the sales team to instruct them on the proper use of email for sales and marketing purposes in order to avoid this issue in the future and to warn them that there is always someone watching.
I enjoy your stuff Joel! My apologies to the recruiting and HR communities that may have received ill advised correspondence in the past, we’ll try, but I can’t promise that it won’t happen again. We have a strong, energetic and growing salesforce and we can’t watch their every move. I can tell you with confidence that GetTheJob has not and will never resort to spam to market our services. I’ve been doing this a long time and our end game is and always will be aligned with jobseekers and employers best interests. Spam is not one of them.
Thanks for the notice today and please let us know if there is anything else we need to work on. We take constructive criticism well. Keep an eye on GTJ as we roll out our next iteration in a few weeks. Cool stuff!
If anybody wants to hire a good sales person Bill is available, just kidding, he’s a keeper!
Joel, let me know if you want to get together next time I’m out your way.
As I was told on my last visit to Cleveland from one of Cleveland’s finest, Have a Blessed Day!
All the best and good luck in your recruiting efforts,
Chris Amato
President & CEO
GetTheJob, Inc.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
See - perfect example - I made a mistake and sent my comments anonymously the first try.
That reminds me one that my father used to tell us kids when we were not to sure about his decisions. My dad would say, “I thought I made a mistake once, but it turned out I was wrong.” He may have ripped it off from Yogi Berra, but we loved it anyway.
Have a great day!
Chris Amato
March 5th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Chris,
There comes a point in every bloggers life where we get tired of sending personal e-mails back to companies and individuals who don’t take the time to learn proper etiquette.
I get getajob spam, too - but I notice that I didn’t get any apologies, maybe because you didn’t know about it? If we can’t correct the young lad in public, how are we to let the rest of the world know this is not acceptable?
Thank you for having the courage to speak up - but I’m not satisfied that you can’t promise this won’t happen again. Now that you have identified the problem, and admitted that it is not the getajob policy to spam, how can you say it won’t happen again?
March 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Somehow I suspect Bill will recover, or else he probably doesn’t belong in sales :)
We used to do some very limited scrape-and-mail campaigns, when we first launched two years ago. Monster in particular makes this exceptionally easy for anyone with a modicum of skill. The results were good, actually, for the number of mails we sent out. I suspect if we did it now, we could get even better results.
That’s the dirty truth in this: bulk mail can and does work.
When we did it, I followed a few rules. First, I always provided an unsubscribe link, which we respected. Second, I watched those unsubscribed rates very closely as an indicator of how obnoxious we were being. Third, I took some pains to remove duplicate entries and did not mail people more than once in a 6-8 week period.
Between all of this we saw an unsubscribe rate of about 1%, which at the time was comparable to what I’d seen on so-called double-opt-in lists. In the end the results were patchy, and I have invested our resources in other directions. That being said, I think more and better targeting would probably turn this approach into something effective.
Considering that double-opt-in has become a pardoy of itself, I think the question is not “do you spam?” but “do you bulk mail?” Whether you’re cold-calling or bulk mailing, it’s all a question of approach. If I $#@! you off right out of the gate, then I’m shooting myself in the foot, but I have had to defend my somewhat conservative views from people who want to push the lists harder to get faster results.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
There is a post at JimStroud.com about a job seeker using constant contact to send resumes to recruiters.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Poor e-mail etiquette aside, how does the service perform?
It would be interesting to see Joel compare the features and benefits of GetTheJob.com vs. say, JobCentral.
March 7th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Jim,
In response to your post, “I get getajob spam, too - but I notice that I didn’t get any apologies, maybe because you didn’t know about it? If we can’t correct the young lad in public, how are we to let the rest of the world know this is not acceptable?”
GetTheJob.com does not spam, never has and never will. I cant answer for “Get A Job” as we are not affiliated. Two distinctly different brands.