Poor middle-aged six-figure recruitment executive Gary Chaplin was only trying to be helpful and honest when he told a prospective job seeker via email to "fuck off" for being "too stupid to get a job, even in banking." Unfortunately, the 4,000 other people he sent the email to by accident didn't appreciate his candor.

If your own company's future is as uncertain as Wachovia's, it's probably time to hook up with a few professional recruiters and go looking for work while you're still a hot (read: employed) property. The first thing you should know about tech headhunters is they're not tech people. The second thing you should know is that they're effective. The third is that #1 + #2 = #3: You'll hate them.Headhunters are paid a commission to find and lure experienced people into jobs they will probably do well at. Typically the contract is about 20 percent of a year of your new-job salary. But there's a penalty if you take the job, then leave before so many months. Their job is to identify someone better than what's in the stack of resumes, and sell that person on the job during the employer's screening and interview process. Culturally, headhunters are sales people, polar opposites to the techies they recruit. They'll feed your skills and qualifications into a process that's as opaque to you as XML is to them. But here's the surprise: It works. There are lamebrain headhunters, just as there are PHP-whackers who call themselves gurus. As a jobhunter, do unto recruiters as they do unto you:

Today Kent Brownridge, Jann Wenner's former right-hand man and the honcho of new Alpha Media, the former Dennis Publishing, shouts the praises of media headhunter Karen Danziger. She's the exec vice president of Howard-Sloan-Koller Group, and she was the one who suggested somewhat frightening former Rolling Stone guy Jim Kaminsky as the new editor of Maxim. Brownridge tells Portfolio: "Karen Danziger, the only headhunter in the editorial world that I think is worth anything, and she's worth a lot — I love her; she's my sister, shrink, priest, whatever — she gives me a list of people that I should go see, and on it is Jim, and I think, oh, well, Jim." Heh. That's how we felt about Jim too—but then Kent got all frothy on him, and hired him. We've met Karen—she's fun, mouthy, doesn't like idiots, and she dresses like the high-end version of a sharp Long Island lady. But is she all that? Your experiences sought, anonymity guaranteed.

Got to admire this smooth change-up. When a tech-recruiter cold-calls a potential candidate and the candidate turns out to run his own company, said recruiter not only offers his recruitment company's services, but even offers to undercut their prices to do personal recruitment on the QT: