Ever get contacted because someone thinks you are someone else? I get that frequently.
According to google searches there is a male model in Europe with my name, and a photographer. I get emails for both of them and got another one today.
I used to respond to them and tell them they got the wrong email to be nice, but then I realized that I am just enabling spam to those other Brian’s. Since I have never gotten an email from someone they forwarded to me, maybe they are not responding to mistaken emails like I am.
So my official new policy is not to respond to people who don’t take the time to properly identify me. I do sometimes respond snarky back on LinkedIn when there is an obvious mass email with someone else name they think is mine. I think that fair. Its ok to make a mistake, but not to waste peoples time that you don’t care about details.
In IT we are religious about details. It is very easy for a detail that seems unimportant to cause a major problem. In fact I would say we are religious about details. We double and sometimes triple check that we have things correctly. I am sure it is the same in other fields where there are costs and legal implications to the work that is done.
So why did I share this? Just to say that when you don’t know who you are speaking to, nothing you say is going to be of interest to them which is obvious. If you are a recruiter, make sure you don’t mind people putting you on their blacklist.