Gone in 10 seconds, see you next week

We have all had had telesales/telemarketing calls to our home number. In recent years, my experience has been quite good, with only a few calls getting through. I am of course registered on telephone preference service, which stops all reputable callers. Therefore any telesales calls at home are immediately classified as disreputable and won't get very far.
I have used the famous EGBG counterscript before, it's great.

However, at work a whole new set of rules exist.

It all started a year ago when we advertised a job opening on the Internet and in a relevant publication. We had very specific requirements for the job and had expecting some recruitment agencies to pick up on it, we had written "Strictly no recruitment agencies" on the advert.

Within minutes of the job advert going live, we had a telephone call from a recruitment agency. We politely explained that we didn't want to use a recruitment agency. Minutes later another, and another and another and another. By the end of the day our responses were getting more and more curt. We were getting better at handling them.

In fact, we have something of a standing joke in the office about who could get rid of a recruitment agency the quickest.

Some of them are quite clever at hiding who they are from the outset. "I'm calling about the position advertised on the Internet, could you explain a little more...." before you realised that it was not a genuine applicant. These phone calls could take a minute or so.

Gradually, we got used to the routine and recognised the names of the agencies. The standard response is now only a few seconds. "We have no need for any recruitment agency, thank you for calling. Good bye. (click)"

To the ones that try to prolong the conversation further, I get quite rude.

Unfortunately, there is one agency in particular that I still struggle with. For starters, the sales rep is a woman. I find being overtly rude quite difficult, especially to women, so that puts us on the wrong foot to start with.

I think that I am quite clear when I say to her "We do not, and never will, have any need for any recruitment agency. Please do not call again." But she also has clever questions that you cannot say "no" to. You somehow find yourself being tricked into having agreed to a callback in a month.

She might have won the battle, but she will never win the war. Even if we did need a recruitment agency (which we don't!) the last one on earth that we would ever turn to is one that contrives, tricks and wastes your time every 4 weeks on the phone.