[dreamweapon]

Well it's "attention" I guess, but is it the right kind?

A better analogy might the pretty girl walking home from high school, of the rather hick-ish / paleosuburban sort -- when the older dropout pulls up in his muscle car and asks "Hey babe, wanna party?"

I get about the same feeling when talking to recruiters, most of the time.

[Touche]

People call you to offer you a well paying job. You probably get these once a week or 2. Most people (as in humans) would kill for that attention. But us developers complain that each well paying opportunity isn't the exact one that we're looking for.

[mgkimsal]

I get your point, but... they're offering a 'well paying job' to someone who already has a 'well paying job'. And they know it.

Go in to a McDonald's and start asking the staff if they want to come work at Taco Bell or Burger King. Interrupt them at home during their time off a few times. "Hey, come work for another company doing essentially the same stuff for essentially the same money - maybe 3% more!" I doubt you'll get many takers.

[dreamweapon]

They offer what they imagine (based on keyword filtering, idle speculation, nose scratching, drooling, and other advanced heuristics) maybe-might-sorta be a lukewarm mutual fit between two parties who most likely wouldn't be talking to each other.

Which they then package with over-the-top smarminess and intellectual dishonesty. And for this, they add a 30-40 percent premium to your acquisition cost for any potential employer (and concomittant disincentive to hire you, or respectively, increased incentive to relentlessly grill you, check you over for ticks and fleas, etc to make sure you're worth the overhead, if they do choose to bite).

[danielweber]

They aren't offering me a job. It's a complete mismatch with my skill set, and the company would flush me in 5 seconds if I actually tried to get the job.