All of the contract work I've taken on was via female recruiters. I hate gender generalizations, but this one seems to ring true. Male recruiters just don't know how to communicate.

I get several e-mail messages every week from recruiters. If it's someone I've never talked to, I tell them, "Hi, I'm not looking, but in the future I need to know the company, the rate and length of the contract so I know which leads are a good match for me." The volume is high enough, even when I was looking, that I'm not going to screw around with mystery blind solicitations only to find out it's crappy work. That's pretty reasonable, right?

So this dude cold e-mails me the usual crap about an "excellent opportunity with a great company," just like every other solicitation. So I reply with the sentence above, and he comes back with this...

Sometimes you need to take a chance. If you want help finding a new opportunity give me a call if you don't that's fine to.

He obviously never went to charm school. But this is typical of the responses from male recruiters. If it had been a female, they'd sell their firm, tell me what I want to know and maybe even kiss up a little (which I could do without, but they stand more to gain than I do).