When the contents of a recruiter’s mail message are semantically equivalent to that of the classic 419 scam – “I have this thing that doesn’t belong to me, let me get it to you and we can share in the profit” – you should take that as a hint that they are unredeemably corrupt.

Yeah, really. Here’s what an ostensible CyberCoders employee sent me:

I'm simply looking to make you aware of a great candidate that's currently interviewing at your competitor, BUT has expressed greater interest in joining a team like yours.

If you're interested in seeing his resume, please shoot me a quick reply and I'll get that over to you by EOD!

Let’s see. He has no idea who I am or what company I work for. He has no idea of what our competition is. And he strokes my ego by saying that this unnamed, probably non-existent candidate (candidate for what? developer? sysadmin? heavy metal drummer?) wants to work for us.

Jerk.

That’s why I don’t work with CyberCoders, and I recommend that you stay away from them, too.