Recruitment "Harassment" - When Is Enough, Enough?

One of my colleagues asked me this morning:

"Warren - when is enough actually enough?"

My initial reaction was to don my agony aunt hat and prepare words of comfort for a possible lost love conquest, but I was wrong.

You see my colleague had just received a rather curt communication from a senior candidate, one who had only a week prior responded very positively to a discreet enquiry regarding a high-level technical appointment he'd expressed an interest in.

The email communications went something like this:

Day 1 - Monday

Recruiter: "After reviewing your profile I believe my client would be interested in speaking with you as they are looking for a Senior (description of opportunity removed to save any blushes). Please let me know your thoughts. Apologies if this is not something of interest."

Candidate: "It could be of interest. Who is the company and how much are they offering? I already work for a very reputable company, so I need to know what they offer and more details of duties etc. I don't have time to speak right now but would be interested in seeing your answers."

Recruiter: "Of course. Please keep these details confidential. The company is called (full disclosure of company name, their background, current projects, opportunity, salary, bonus, shares, benefits etc.). Salary is certainly negotiable, but the real differentiator is the equity the position offers. What salary would it need to be for you to consider?"

Candidate: " That actually sounds really interesting. I wouldn't accept a lower salary even with great benefits and shares so it would need to be £100k+. Would that work?"

Recruiter: "Thanks for replying. £100k+ basic shares is within the budget. The first stage in the process will be a telephone conversation with the CTO. Are you able to give me permission to proceed with your application? If its easier I can share your public LinkedIn profile with my client. Please confirm."

Candidate: "I give you permission to share my LinkedIn profile and represent me. As I stated, I don’t have much time to speak to you right now, but your opportunity and client are actually really interesting to me (not something I say very much) so the more information they have from me the better. When will the call with their CTO be?"

Recruiter: "As soon as they've reviewed your profile, we should get slots in the CTO's diary for the call. I'll let you know ASAP. Thanks for allowing me to represent you."

Day 2

Recruiter: "I have some good news. As I expected, my client’s leadership team really liked your profile and are keen to take your application onto the next stage. Attached are a selection of dates that the CTO can call you, which include several outside core office hours. Kindly confirm a time that is convenient for you."

Day 3

Recruiter: "Did you get a chance to review my previous email? Please confirm if one of these times work for you."

Day 4

Recruiter: "I understand you are very busy. If none of these times work for you could you suggest a better time to take the call from their CTO? To reassure you, the process after this call is short for this level of appointment and includes only one face to face interview, onsite in London."

Day 5

No reply

Day 6

Recruiter: "Hope you had a nice weekend. Did you manage to come up with a more onvenient time to take a call from the CTO?"

Day 7

Recruiter: "My client are really impressed with your profile and are politely chasing me to see if you were still interested in pursuing an application with them. I appreciate you are very busy so forgive my clients enthusiasm to schedule this telephone interview. If you have changed your mind and no longer wish to be considered, please let me know so I can update them"

 Day 8

Candidate: "I never agreed to speaking to your client. All I said was you could represent me with them. I also made you aware I was busy. I’m no longer interested. So if you could stop harassing me that would be great. After I hadn't replied to your previous emails you should have realised, I wasn't interested, so maybe learn to take the hint when enough is enough." 

So that’s the dilemma. When is enough, enough?

After how many ignored emails or non-returned voicemail messages does it take before you should "know" a person has changed their mind and does not wish to be "harassed" anymore?

I couldn’t give my colleague a definitive answer. Can you help?