Clear communication can't be automated

One of the worst things to have ever happened to humanity, at least when it comes to business and networking, is automation.  This whole "set it and forget it," notion, championed by Tech Bros who came from money and have podcasts, has led to a further degradation by people who are using programs to scrape through profiles for "relevant" keywords.

Case in point, my last ten LinkedIn requests have been from people whose bios read something like "Helping B2B businesses automate their prospects!"

Or emails that read something like:

"My team and I run direct messaging lead generation campaigns on Sales Navigator. We'd build customer target lists and tailor messaging for companies that would benefit from marketing and advertising. Want to try us?"

These are clearly automated messages, written by people who are just spamming the site, rather than looking for someone who might actually fit their profile. In most of these cases, I've responded with "Did you even look at my profile?" A few days later, the same people who messaged me, looked at my profile. No doubt they considered it a waste of their time, as much as I considered reading their LinkedIn message a waste of my time. Only one person out of the ten wrote a response, apologizing, and saying they were looking for a different person with my name. While that excuse strikes me as highly unlikely, I will give them the benefit of the doubt because they at least took the time to respond like civil humans should do.

A few days ago, a friend of mine called to gripe about a hiring process he was subjected to. A recruiter reached out via mail. He had a phone chat, followed by a phone interview with someone at the company. It sounded like it was going well. Then they ghosted him.

A month or six weeks went later, and he receives a "how did we do," survey. He told them in polite (but leaving no terms uncertain way) exactly how they did. Their response? Nothing. What was the chance they read it to begin with? Slim.

If this is the result of set-it-and-forget-it, I'd rather do it the slow way. At least you build relationships that aren't disposable.