About a week ago I got this message through LinkedIn. It looked like a common recruiter shout out, but something caught my eye. Specifically the line, “How are things going for you at Art.sy? I’ve heard the company is experiencing some difficulties so, even if you’re planing on staying if things turn around…”.

Statistically speaking, in the current economy, a high percentage of companies could be labeled as “experiencing some difficulties”. That probably holds true for any time actually. Still, I felt like I had stumbled into a psychic cold reading… “I’m getting something about the money? Do you have any connection to the money?”. It felt a little creepy.

Nathan Hurst is the founder of HireLite, Speed Dating for Hiring. He’s written a nice post titled Black Hat Recruiter Tactics and this made the list (faking a relationship).

I also noticed that this recruiter has an InMail Feedback rating of five stars. He does have a few firms that work “exclusively with [him], and no one else”. Maybe I’m just being cyncial, and lacking in trust?