Dear Recruiter/Employer

My resume is hanging out in cyberspace. I haven't touched in in four months, but it's still there.

Every once in awhile, a recruiter/employer sifts to the bottom of the stack and finds my lonely, not-updated-since-June resume. A resume/profile where my last four jobs use the words "Director" or "Manager." A resume where one job uses the world "million" several times in relation to budgets, development portfolio value, etc. A resume that clearly states I have managed teams, processes and people. A resume that demonstrates I have been employed, full-time for all but a year of the last decade.

There is one title that uses the word "sales" - but if you read the title and/or the line items of what I do, one would quickly grasp that in addition to my mostly marketing-management tasks, I managed sales processes, sales training. I DID NOT SELL ANYTHING.

Also, random pet peeve and useful piece of information: SALES and MARKETING ARE NOT THE SAME THING! In a perfect world, marketing support sales and the two work closely together but they are not, nor will they ever be, the same thing. (While we're on the subject, telemarketing is not marketing either).

So WHY on earth I keep getting random calls/e-mails from recruiters or employers asking me to interview for ANY of the following positions is beyond me:

-Marketing Assistant. Sorry, I'm not interested in going BACKWARD down the career ladder to the tune of 7 jobs ago.

-Sales anything. I don't sell. I don't want to sell. You clearly have not read my resume even though your e-mail to me starts out, "I'm impressed by your real esthate sales experience." No you aren't, because I've never sold real estate.

-Telemarketing call center manager. Just because the words "marketing" and "manager" happen to appear in my resume, does not mean I'm qualified for, nor interested in, a job that would also add "tele-" and "call center" to my resume.

-Entry-level anything. I am not kidding when I say I have had two phone calls in the past four months regarding an employer wanting me to interview for a marketing position. Upon further discovery, I found out it was an entry-level position. What on earth could they possibly be thinking? The first woman was a bit startled to realize what my salary requiremenet would be. I can't imagine why.

You have not read my resume very closely if you still think I am in DC. I haven't lived/worked there in (gasp!) 17 months. I could be persuaded to relocate, but saying, "since you are in the DC area..." does not fill me with great confidence as to your reading abilities.

Telling me you're interested in me interviewing for a position, but how would I rate my ability to use the Internet doesn't win you any bonus points either. Let's just dispense with the obvious - I've worked for two "dot coms," and I've had four different positions where my SOLE responsibility was online marketing/pr/advertising. It is a fair question if you haven't seen my resume, or if you were talking to me in 1997. But you have, and it's not.

Contacting me about a job that is in the $25-30k range is not going to win you any brownie points either - unless it is a part-time, work-from-home, consulting gig. Then I might think about it. I don't even have to put my salary range on my resume - even though I was chronically underpaid (this is not just wishful thinking, this is a documented fact) for my first five years out of college, the words "manager" or "director" on my resume combined with anything remotely geographically connected to DC should tell you something. $25-30k isn't going to persuade me to take a job - even one in the middle of nowhere. I'm already there.

**End of Rant** Off my soapbox.

My apologies to Heidi, who is one of the finest recruiters/headhunters I've known. My apologies also to the other fine recruiters/headhunters with whom I've had the privilege to work. This is not about you.