We’ve all been there with tech recruiters: Someone you've never talked to calls while you’re having dinner with info about a great job opportunity. You might be interested, but wow, what a terrible time to call. Cold-calls from recruiters can be the worst. Even if you’re not about to shove handfuls of food into your face, those strange area codes popping up on your phone can be annoying. Should you answer, or let it go to voicemail? Emails, though easily the most passive form of engagement for recruiters, can also get annoying, especially when multiple recruiters reach out about the same job. It’s usually an indication the recruiting firm has placed a premium on filling that role, and while the multitude of emails is flattering, you have to wonder if they even bothered to look your online profiles over at all. Speaking of online profiles: Recruiters have begun reaching out via social media, too. A new trick is to find candidates’ social media handles, and reach out via services such as Facebook Messenger or Twitter Direct Messaging to engage them. Many consider this an invasion of privacy; we tend to think of social media as a safe place for private interactions, and someone reaching out blindly about a job opportunity might burst your bubble a bit. There’s also direct texting. Many recruiters are starting to simply text candidates with information about a job, or invite them to call or text back. If social media is an invasion, is texting even worse? After all, this is the way most people communicate with loved ones, friends, and co-workers; having someone reach out blindly via text might feel a step too far for you. And then there’s the dreaded video chat request. Be it FaceTime, Skype, or another video chat service a recruiter has found you on, random video chat requests are downright annoying. The recruiter probably wants to move you right into an informal interview to gauge interest and check an item off their list, but wow, is that presumptuous. We’ve encountered all these methods from tech recruiters, but we want to know: which is the worst you’ve encountered? Did you get a random text (or worse, a series of texts!) that annoyed you, or maybe the incessant emails are the bane of your existence. Let us know in the survey below. All responses are anonymous (of course), and we’ll be publishing results in a future article, so stay tuned!