After losing their jobs at one of Seattle’s biggest tech companies, some workers find themselves facing an unexpected question: Do you want to return to the company that just let you go?

There’s a catch. Those offers, from third-party recruiters eager to place workers at the companies they just left, are for contract positions rather than staff positions. They would come with an end date, a lower salary, no benefits and no stock options. 

For workers the messages range from insensitive to insulting.

“We all just got the shock of our life, the last thing I need is for you to continue to ask me to go to a company that just let me go,” said one former Microsoft worker who was laid off in March and asked to remain anonymous during the job hunt.

Another worker who was laid off from Amazon in January and also asked to remain anonymous out of concern for future job prospects said they’ve heard from several recruiters looking specifically for people with Amazon experience.

In one response, the former Amazonian passed this message to the recruiter: “Tell Amazon if they want an engineer, they can just not fire me later this month.” 

Tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, often supplement their own recruiting efforts with third-party firms that help find interested and qualified candidates for new roles, particularly contract positions. These recruiters haven’t stopped even as those same tech companies continue to lay off workers. Amazon has cut 27,000 jobs since November while Microsoft has announced plans to eliminate 10,000 roles this year.

Because companies and recruiters cast such a wide net, workers who were recently cut are still getting caught in the pool of potential candidates — whether they want to be or not.

After the pink slip, came a crush of recruiters reaching out to offer new positions, said the former Microsoft worker. One recruiter continuously told them “you’d be perfect for Microsoft.” The worker said they had to explain to the recruiter three times that they weren’t going