Doostang for Recruiters?

Last week, after months of resisting, I finally succumbed to the frequent barrage of viral "Join Doostang" marketing emails that hammer my inbox.

I clicked the link, wondering whether sliced bread really had been over-rated, after all. The website looked similar enough to Linked-In to peak my interest, with that whole general networking and synergy theme to it, I vaguely wondered why I needed to start over building a whole new network on a website.

Then I saw it. Post job ads... for free? Are you kidding?

I began to gleefully fill out the form to post an ad for one of my current jobs, being careful to enter all of the information accurately. I checked off the box labeled "I am an Agency" in order to properly identify myself, and I entered the name of the hiring company as Hudson (my company) in order to protect my relationship with the client.

No sooner had I submitted my job ad than I received an automated email response from the system administator. Check it out, complete with grammatical errors:

Thank you for your job posting earlier today. We appreciate your being an active member of the Doostang community, and look forward to being an integral part in your search for talent.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform you that an increasing number of our members have been complaining recently at the increase in volume of agency postings on Doostang. Keeping the community is not only in our best interests, but also in your's. Indeed the reason many of these members joined, was that Doostang was initially started to enable our friends to share company postings, and we would like to keep that feel to the website as the company grows.

To this end, we have gone ahead and temporarily closed your position (it is currently saved in your "Closed Jobs"). If you can release the company name, please edit the posting accordingly and go ahead and reopen it. If you cannot, then the only agency positions that we currently accept on Doostang are front office finance ones - and those at a maximum rate of one a day and two a week with no reposting.

So, come to Doostang and post your ads. Just remember that if you're an agency recruiter, you'll be treated as a second class citizen and expected to work against your own interests should you wish you use their resources.