Linkedin rejection goes viral
Uh oh.. recent graduate gets grilled after sending a LinkedIn request to the head of a Cleveland recruiting firm.
Ironically, the woman that sent the rejection email was named "2013 Communicator of the Year" by the Cleveland Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.
In another ironic twist of fate, she might need to sign up for a job board soon herself..
We have never met. We have never worked together. You are quite young and green on how business connections work with senior professionals. Apparently you have heard that I produce a Job Bank, and decided it would be stunningly helpful for your career prospects if I shared my 960+ LinkedIn connections with you -- a total stranger who has nothing to offer me.Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you and tacky. Wow, I cannot wait to let every 26 year old mine my top-tier marketing connections to help them land a job.
I love the sense of entitlement in your generation. And therefore I enjoy Denying your invite and giving you the dreaded "I don't know Diana," because it's the truth.
Oh, and about your request to actually receive my Job Bank along with the 7,300 other subscribers to my service? That's denied, too.
I suggest you join the other Job Bank in town.
Oh wait - there isn't one.You're welcome to your humility lesson for the year. Don't ever reach out to senior practitioners again and assume their carefully curated list of connections is available to you, just because you want to build your network.
Don't ever write me again.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26377548
Anyone else ever get a rejection on LinkedIn like this? Do bankers think about writing responses like this but then realize that they don't have the time or energy to write it?
Request sent during the wrong time of the month.
LOL
I sent invite to connect per King's idea. No word yet.
Ms Blazek clearly has self esteem issues.
This is absolutely ridiculous. I sincerely hope she is fired from her job and wish they could take that award away from her (neither are bound to happen). What she said may be true, but for God's sake help the kid out without losing your shit. The tone of this response was extremely hateful and unnecessary.
what an idiot Did she not think the kid might do this?
I really want to know her full name so I can send her a request to connect.
Kelly Blazek :)
http://tinypic.com/r/dnoco9/8
Haha, looked up 'Kelly Blazek' on Linkedin and one of the results with the same name had this disclaimer:
"Please note that I am not the same Kelly Blazek in the news who ran the Cleveland Job Bank."
She's the head of a recruiting firm, why is she so fluffed that someone wants to reach out to build a network for the sake of job searching...?!
Would also like to mention, off-handedly, that this seems characteristic for someone who runs a communications/PR/marketing job board. Not that I mean to stereotype or anything........
gotta love the "I'm the only job bank in town" line. What a fucking lunatic.
@TheKing beat me to it. If anyone finds out, no balls if we don't all send out a request.
She seems to have deleted her LinkedIn. However, the headline here is pretty awesome:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=7933265&authType=NAME_SEARCH&au…
.
This is moronic on her part. I know most of the HH's in my town and they always welcome new connections, experienced or inexperienced. There are always a range of jobs and in a town like Cleveland, you'd think this woman would want to develop a pipeline for the future if nothing else.
I'm not going to participate in the witch hunt against her, but what an idiot acting like this in a business built on reputation and relating to other people.
Shocker she is very sorry for being a super bitch:
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/02/job_bank_head_kelly…
If Sarah Jessica Parker and a medicine cabinet had a baby, it would be that.
Also, apology not accepted, AIDS baby she-devil.
somebody didn't get laid for a long long time.
chicksinfinance problems
Wow... I mean, yeah, sometimes it's annoying to get a very random LinkedIn request from someone you don't know (and they didn't bother to introduce themselves even), but she could have easily clicked Ignore, or did nothing.
You would think after countless f--kup stories of people saying the wrong thing and it going viral that people take a minute to think before they act.
Wow! She sounds like a piece of work.
She could have just ignored the request. What ever happened to manners and proper etiquette?
Definitely over the top on the recruiter's part, but if you saw the kid's email, especially the people on WSO, you guys would probably get annoyed too (maybe not to the point of putting the kid on blast). He basically skipped past any small talk and general salutations and just straight up asked for a job even though the recruiter has no obligation to help out. He basically assumed she would help. That's probably the same I as a prospective FT analyst emailed an IBD MD and did the same thing.
Here is the original email, hopefully you guys can see that point of view. http://imgur.com/bBonE3M
They gave their background and stated their interests and aspirations (to a recruiter). They did not explicitly ask for a job, and their email was not even close to deserving of that response (which, you stated). The original outreach wasn't perfect, that's for sure, but keep in mind that MOST kids coming out of undergrad do not have near the knowledge or know-how as many of the kids on here when it comes to networking/job searching/interviewing/etc.
This is a great email. She was applying to a job board, not directing an email to someone particularly. I believe in the story she responded to the woman directly after not hearing any reply.
I don't know, that email didn't warrant the response it got.
Are you out of your mind? It's just a kid looking for a job. This woman is a heartless kunt and I would feel no sympathy whatsoever if she was banned from linkedin and/or the internet.
For the record, I do like trying to help people looking for jobs and I will never tell you off for trying to friend me on LinkedIn. I may ignore your request, however. I may grit my teeth slightly. This is particularly awkward for me if you see that I've viewed your profile. Please meet with me or talk with me on the phone before adding me on LinkedIn. 3.) When 5 people find out about something, we should be as unsympathetic to her as she was to the kid looking for a job. When 5 million people find out about it, I start to feel bad for her. She is probably going to lose her business and may have to change her name. I find that a harsh but not unreasonable outcome for her. 4.) When she sent the email, she was the bully. Now that millions of people are reading about this, she is the victim of a very angry crowd and we risk becoming the bullies. 5.) Having found myself in a similar situation- receiving an FO email from a person whose livelihood depended on marketing and relationships and who I was also debating with online (not on WSO)- I opted to send a stern response and delete the email rather than post it online. I think most of us are nice, forgiving people who don't want to see someone severely hurt for sending an angry email. 6.) People usually don't realize they're assholes until it's too late.
I want to send comfort and support to the recipient of the email, but I feel a little bad for the sender, too. She dished out a great deal of ugliness to one person- perhaps without much thinking- now she has to deal with the fact that millions of people hate her.
If she were merely getting run out of Cleveland by a bunch of angry villagers with pitchforks, I would not feel bad for her.
Sure, but it doesn't warrant "Don't ever write me again."
I don't do it and this lady sounds really mean. A regular asshole might send a short FO note, but this lady really had to rub it in.
That said:
-Have you ever received a phone call from a telemarketer trying to sell you something during dinnertime? -Has a friend ever tried to give you an hourlong pitch for Amway? -Did the start of one of your classes ever get interrupted for a presentation on "great internships" only to find out later they wanted to recruit you to sell knives for Vector Marketing or paint houses?
Please don't friend random people you've never met on LinkedIn. Or on Facebook. It's obnoxious.
Big difference is telemarketers or people pitching you are selling someone who isn't in their industry. If you are on linkedin it is because you want to network. If you go to a networking happy hour you expect to be approached.
I linkedin alumni and other people in my industry and outside my industry all the time. This is how you develop relationships, contacts and expand your network. This woman is an idiot and a perfect example of someone who succeeds from lack of competition, not actually being good.
If I run a job bank I am going to expect people to randomly connect with me. Comes with the business.
I don't know. I get inundated with random connection requests because of what I do with my MSF site and I have never once shit on someone because they don't know me. Same with random emails. Many have become good contacts and those that have not, they were simple emails.
Agreed 100%. At worst I'll just ignore the PM, request, email, etc. If I'm on linkedin then getting random requests comes with the territory.
As far as the content of the response, a person should never, ever put their actual name in writing to something that they would be ashamed for the public to see.
Haha dumb bish
"Please note that I am not the same Kelly Blazek in the news who RAN the Cleveland Job Bank."
Fired?
She's a marginally more glorified hr chick lol and has this attitude?? Hahahahahaah someone really needs to put her in her place lol
There is just so much to say here. If it weren't for IP addresses and the long memory of the internet I could go on a epic rant.
This is an anonymous forum, don't be shy.
Agreed. There are definitely ways for webmasters to find out who you are through your IP address. Do any of you remember Juicy Campus? Well there was something similar to it set up specifically for Penn State after JC got shutdown, and the site owner ended up revealing all the posters names. I thought that was pretty funny for him to out people on an site designed for anonymous shit talking, but he ended up doing the same to a number posters on a popular website after taking a tech position there. I'm not saying Patrick or anyone on WSO would do the same, but it's wise to watch your words--even on an anonymous website.
Wow. And this is not the first time she has been rude via email apparently, and the "I am the only job bank" line seems to be her favorite.
There is a setting in LinkedIn to allow only you to see your contacts, too.
Evidently this lady was unaware that a 60 second fix could allow her to simply lock her connections so that only she can see them and even her own connections could not. She should study up.
-Edit, ^^ beat me to it.
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