I can't stress this enough:

Never ever call me on my work phone as a form of the first contact! 

Unless I know you and have given you permission to call me, don't. Send me an email instead.

I don't have anything against recruiters, I think their jobs are very important in the greater scheme of things.

I also never give my work phone number away, and if I have to I give my mobile phone number to people.

So it's beyond me how do recruiters think it's actually OK to call me at work. It shows disrespect to me and to the company I work for.

And that is NOT OK. Not even if you're offering me the most amazing job in the universe.

But for a minute lets say it's OK and I have no problem with the call. There are a number of things that can go wrong here:

- I'm in a really lousy mood for whatever reason

- my boss answers the phone (now I don't know about others but my current boss is very cool and has no problem with it but others may not be so lucky)

- you disrupt my coding zone. And I get REALY annoyed if I have to break out of my zone.

- I'm in a meeting or something similar

- other stuff I haven't thought of ...

If any of the above happens to be true you've just lost me as a potential candidate.

And lets get something straight: You need me more than I need you. And that translates into lost revenue for you.

So you see an email is a much better way to make first contact. Then we can talk about scheduling a call if it's needed.

Come on, be smart about it!