Just For Fun: Refusing Headhunters

Professional social media platform like LinkedIn sometimes makes headhunters offering interesting position in their companies. I even have heard that some of my friends are quite often being contacted by headhunter via LinkedIn or e-mail. It was not that many in my case, however, there are several start-up companies who offered me many interesting position. In this post, I want to “brag” a little bit of those who have contacted me 😛

RUMA

This is one of the most interesting recruitment contact I have been so far. This is how I normally respond to headhunters to turn down their offer, and perhaps you can learn some example from it.

First Contact in 2016

Dear Gilang,
 
I’m <NAME> from PT RUMA and I just saw your linkedin profile. To be frank, I find your profile is interesting as you mentioned numerous responsibility you are in charge to. You look very passionate in what you do. I also believe you are such a kind who are hard to be satisfied looking at your development. Somehow it makes me wonder: do you want to have more value in what you do and build your skill at once? If you do, have you ever heard of RUMA?

RUMA, as a digital technology based social enterprise has a unique challenge in creating our products. Rural area, scarce signal, and low spec device are some challenges that we are facing. Thus, being passionate with our social mission and highly understand in writing your code are very important aspects that every RUMA’s engineer need to have since we need to tailor every challenge because working with platform can’t be applicable to create our product.
 
In this hyper growth stage, we need your help to research, design, test, deploy, and maintain high performance, scalable, and secure software products focusing on back-end, with involvement in developing web front-end, API, and mobile applications. Your insight will make us create better service to the users so low communities could have more access in order to increase their life quality.
 
Our company, Ruma, believes that through technology, everybody deserves secure, fault tolerant, highly scalable, distributed transaction system. That’s why we always challenge ourselves to learn new technology and apply it to create impact at scale. How unique is it to work at Ruma Technology Team? Do visit our page for more insight. If you are open for discussion, perhaps we could chat by whatsapp and talk more about you and Ruma 🙂 Appreciate if you can provide me any response. Thank you and wish you to have an awesome day!

Best Regards,

A Recruiter from RUMA on October 2016

My Response

Hi Miss <NAME>,

Thank you very much for your interest. I am very honored with your compliments about my profile. I certainly know about RUMA as many of my friends are working there, either from college friends and ex-employee of my current employer. I heard about your company reputation in good environment, culture, and vision.

In my current employer, my role deeply involves in client application development, which mainly developed in native platform with C/C++. I am in charge in foundation library development to support our entire developer in developing client application. I established standardization in software construction in C/C++, as well as roadmap to continuously improving the process and base code assets.

Currently I am committing the roadmap I proposed to the company to further enhance the company capability, which if I abandon it now, it will not really ends well in my career history. Moreover, I would rather not to waste anyone’s time to proceed for recruitment if in the end I most probably to turn it down. So because of it, I am deeply sorry to turn down your offer.

I do certainly believe we share common goal to make impactful solution, where your company aims to make changes in people’s economy through accessible technology, I am also making changes here by transforming the organization and people towards a better R&D organization as the pioneer of enterprise level R&D in Indonesia.

I wish you good luck for you and your company endeavor.

Best regards,
Gilang M. Hamidy

Her Response Again

Dear Gilang,

I really appreciate your commitment through your work and responsibility and how you still communicate it to me. I believe that many had approached you but still you send your reason which shows what kind of person you are. It is very understandable from my point of view and I wish you good luck on your career and goal. 🙂

Then She E-mailed Me Again 2 Years Later

Hi again, Gilang!

Hope everything is great with you!

So, I’m contacting you again because we are still interested, though at first we know you can’t leave Samsung due to your professional commitment which we respect so much. But, hopefully an effort won’t hurt anyone 🙂

Long story short, Mapan is recently acquired by Go-Jek and we aim to grow even more rapid with this new join forces. Along with the plan, we need more troop in our Go-Jek Platform engineering team; hence I message you because we think you will be more than a fit for this exhilarating journey.

Many knows about our rapid growth, but what makes us keep going is our aim to improve the economic growth of Indonesia. 200 engineers make software decisions that trickle down to affect the lives of about 260 million people in Indonesia. Our data shows 30.000+ people with different talents able to earn money and make a living by using our service. Please see how we do it in https://blog.gojekengineering.com/

Our VP engineering is more than happy to meet up over coffee first. Let’s just talk and find out if this will suit your aspiration or not. Reply this message or shoot me via whatsapp on <NUMBER> so I can arrange 🙂

Have a great day, Gilang!

Then I Responded

Hi Miss <NAME>,

Thank you again for contacting me. It’s surely been a while since last time you e-mailed me. Yes, I read the news that GOJEK acquired Mapan/Ruma recently. It was a very hot topic in tech industry in Indonesia. My ex-manager in previous company also recently moved to GO-PAY team, Mr. <MY EX BOSS>, and he informed his ex-team about openings too.

Remembering our previous conversation, I mentioned about my professional commitment in Samsung Research and my ongoing project. Thankfully I achieved my target and goal throughout last one and half year.

At this moment, I am currently waiting for my next milestone, which is obtaining a Master degree. I am currently in the middle of process for graduate admission and the result is yet to be announced. Therefore, I am not yet able to respond to your offer as I have to wait for the result first. I think at this current moment, speaking of my next professional step is not my priority nor my focus. We will also be in an awkward situation too if we talk about opportunity in your company but the next day I have to cancel all of that because I am continuing my education.

Although I am highly hope to nail the admission and pursue my master degree, we will never know what will happen tomorrow. So, perhaps we can get in touch again after I receive the decision. Perhaps around July this year. Maybe I will contact you should I change my plan. Feel free to connect with me again too at later time 🙂

Once again, thank you very much for your offer. Best of luck for you and your organization.

And just a week after this e-mail, I received my admission from Erasmus Mundus SECCLO program 😀

She (Finally) Replied Back 2 Months Later

Hi, mas Gilang!

Sorry for my long response.

I understand your current situation and wish you luck for the study!

Hopefully Go-jek group could be the first option crossing your mind when you are ready 🙂

Best of luck!

See how responding well to headhunters may actually help them to remember you, so they may reconnect with you when a new opportunity available in the future 🙂

Traveloka

Some Contacts in 2015 and 2016

So I was contacted around 2015 where many of my fellow friends joined Traveloka. I was also in search for a new opportunity outside of a consulting firm at that time. So, here’s some contact I had with them around that time.

Dear Gilang Mentari,

I’m building a team of superstar product managers to take Traveloka’s Flight business to the global stage. Your background seems to be an excellent fit to this critical role.

Would you be interested to learn more about the role? You might have been contacted by other people, but I can share most about the company, what we do, and why you matter. Let me know if you are interested.

A Traveloka Group Leader on May 2015

Greetings Gilang Mentari,

I hope this mail finds you well. My name is <REDACTED> and I am the Staffing Specialist with Traveloka, a leading tech startup based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Traveloka was founded by ex-Silicon Valley engineers and aims to revolutionize human mobility with technology.

As the Staffing Specialist, I focus on finding the best talent in the market for Traveloka. We are currently looking for an experienced professionals like your goodself for the PM Mobile/ PM Localization/ PM Pricing.

I would like to have an exploratory chat with you to discuss further. It would be great if you could provide me with your personal Mobile Number so that I can reach out to you. I am mindful of your timetable and will work around your schedule.

In addition, it would be good to have your updated CV prior to our phone chat and my email address is <EMAIL>. I look forward to speaking with you

A Traveloka HR on May 2015

Dear Gilang Mentari,

Great to reconnect!

You came highly recommended as one of the best in the industy for a key strategic role within our group. Will be great if we can arrange something to tell you more about what we do and how you can be part of it. Do lmk your availability this or the coming week to have a quick intro phone chat and will arrange accordingly.

Looking forward to have a good chat with you Gilang.

A recruiter from Traveloka again, who was previously also sent me an opportunity offer at Ardent Capital, on January 2016

I Was Contacted Again in 2018!

Dear Gilang,

How are you? Hope you are doing well.
Let me introduce myself, I am <NAME> from Traveloka Recruitment Team. I saw your profile and I was wondering if we can arrange a quick intro chat to get to know and learn more about your aspirations.

As one of the first tech unicorns in SEA, we invest in technology by using the most modern tools, applying best practices to our work, and looking for best talents to join our Tech team to grow together and become part of Traveloka journey.

Either way – would you be free sometime this week or next for a quick phone chat? Let me know the best time and number to reach you and will arrange accordingly.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Regards,

How I Responded

Actually, I was still in a pissed-off mode at that time, because 3 years before that, they refused to let me join them lol. So I actually sent this response with a humblebrag showing “hey, I can do better without you” 😛

Hi Ms. <NAME>,

Thank you very much for your offer. It is such an honor for me to be offered to join Traveloka. I know Traveloka is a fast-growing tech company in South East Asia, a lot of my friends are also working there.

Few years ago I was also invited for interview by your Product Manager team, but unfortunately it seems that we weren’t at the same page about my aspiration as I was looking for more technical job instead of product manager. Perhaps it was because my previous credentials was from consulting business where I was expected to present my consulting skills and experiences. But that is alright for me 🙂

After several interviews, I joined Samsung Research Indonesia as software engineer as a radical switch from consulting career to engineer. I consider the move is successful and I am able to perform well as software engineer.

Your offer is definitely interesting for me especially when I want to attain higher career level and challenges. But then again, unfortunately I might not be able on the same page with your organization now as I am preparing myself for my Master study.

Currently I have already obtained admission as well as full scholarship for my master study which I cannot miss out. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I have waited for. Therefore, I have to tell that I have to turn down your offer for now as it might waste your time knowing that in the end I am not be able to join your company for now.

I hope you would understand these circumstances. Perhaps next time we can connect each other again when I have completed my Master degree. 🙂

And once again, thank you very much for your offer. I wish you and your company a good success in the future.

Best regards,
Gilang

Her Response

Hi Gilang,

Thank you for the prompt reply. Glad to hear that you are going to pursue your master degree. Let’s keep in touch, and maybe we can rediscuss this opportunity once you have finished with the study.

This is my email and do not hesitate to contact me if you have something to tell.

Wishing you all the best!

Regards,

Well, surely when I decide I will return to Indonesia later, I might contact them to look for some decent paying job 😛

FinAccel

The Email

The person who sent me this opportunity was previously an HR/headunter from other company, which he interviewed me via phone.

Hi Gilang
Kenalkan nama saya <NAMA>, Head of HR dari FinAccel, Masih inget dulu saya sempat menghubungi Gilang dan menawarkan posisi Software Engineer tapi kalau nga salah kamu lebih tertarik menjadi Data Engineer

saya bukan orang yang technical jadi ada kemungkinan saya nga bisa terlalu articulate apa yang mau saya sampaikan ini, jadi kita sedang mencari Data Scientist/Data Engineer yang dapat membantu kita untuk develop credit score untuk semua orang di Indonesia dengan bantuan data alternatif ( social media behavior, digital foorprint,etc) dan untuk project pertamanya adalah dengan membuat Data Warehouse dengan menggunakan airflow dan redshift, kalau kamu tertarik saya bisa coba mempertemukan kamu dengan Chief Data Officer kita, <NAME>

Let me know if you are interested Gilang

My Response

A bit weird since I never aspired to be a data engineer lol.

Hi Andika,

Hmm saya kurang ingat mengenai pembicaraan kita terdahulu, tapi rasanya kurang yakin saya mengatakan saya lebih prefer menjadi data engineer. Karena malah passion saya pure di software engineering. Hehe 😊

Namun terima kasih banyak atas tawarannya. Kebetulan saya saat ini sedang dalam komitmen di perusahaan tempat saya bekerja, dan saya tidak mungkin meninggalkan komitmen tersebut. Oleh karenanya saya memohon maaf karena saya harus menolak tawaran saudara.

Semoga berhasil dalam pengembangan bisnis saudara.
Salam,
Gilang M. H.

Various Others

Dear Gilang,

Hope you’re well

You came highly recommended by sources within the industry for a senior BI role within our group. Will be great if we can arrange a meet up sometime next week to tell you more about what we do and how you can be part of it. Do lmk your preference so we can arrange accordingly.

Look forward

A Recruiter from Ardent Capital on May 2015

Dear Gilang Mentari,

Please find the below Job description , this position is with Intel Penang, Malaysia /Jakarta, Indonesia ,If interested please send your updated profile to below

SI Business Development Manager

<JOB DESC>

Thanks & Regards

A Recruiter from Intel on May 2015

Halo Gilang Mentari Hamidy,

Apakah berminat apply di perusahaan kami ? 🙂

Cheers,

kmklabs.com

A very direct and simple e-mail from a recruiter from KMK Labs lol, on August 2015

Hi Gilang,

Allow me to introduce myself, I’m <NAME> from Geekhunter (www.geekhunter.co), IT Recruitment Consultant. I believe that you have received bunch of similar emails/messages. Therefore, I would really appreciate if you could just take a minute of your time to read this email.

Aware from your Linkedin profile that you are currently employed at Samsung as Lead Engineer. We sincerely hope that you already worked with the right company in which you can achieve your career aspiration throughout the company. However, just in case you still feel that there’s something missing and your current job/career/company is not yet the right one for you, please let us help you to find the right opportunity that might be the best fit for you 🙂

As the first step, we would love to know more about your expertise and interest in IT programming, therefore by giving your contact details (preferably phone number) we can discuss about this further.

Really appreciate your feedback by replying this email before the end of the week.

Thank you so much!

GeekHunter, on January 2016

Selamat siang,

Perkenalkan saya Recruiter Manager dari Formulatrix Indonesia. Sebagai informasi, saat ini kami membuka lowongan Senior Software Engineer dengan kualifikasi kuat pada penggunaan OOD dan bahasa pemrograman C# / C++ / .Net / Java untuk penempatan Semarang dan Salatiga.

Jika Saudara tertarik dan vacancy diatas sesuai dengan kemampuan atau ada rekan yang berminat, dipersilakan untuk mengirimkan CV ke e-mail <EMAIL>

Thanks & Regards

One of Three e-mail from Fomulatrix. Three recruiters sent me similar e-mail around the same week. Seems they were quite insisting lol

Hi Gilang,

Thank you for connecting on LinkedIn.

Moka (www.mokapos.com) is growing like crazy, looking to connect with someone who’re interested in solving complex big problems to help merchants in Indonesia grow. Would like to share what are some of the toughest problems that we’re working on.

Are you interested in exploring a new software engineering opportunity?

Regards,

Co-Founder, Moka

MokaPos on January 2017