[HN Gopher] A Note About Recruiters
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A Note About Recruiters
Author : bozhidar
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-11-03 13:15 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (batsov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (batsov.com)
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I think we have this post/rant every few months on this site, so
| let me explain how recruiting works.
|
| There's 3 types/market for recruiters and they almost never
| overlap.
|
| The first are "body shop style" recruiters. It's basically a
| numbers game where they try to cold-call as much people with
| githubs/linkedin or blogs that reference programming. They don't
| know programming (not even what's the difference between
| languages or front-end/back-end) and are looking for a list of
| buzzwords. They'll send copy-pasted messages (you can tell
| because it references tech you never used or never even claimed
| to have used). If you respond (and really you shouldn't) you
| won't be able to get any relevant information about the position
| because... they don't have it. These recruiters are often
| contracted by external firms in "best value countries" and are
| given canned response to message you. That's probably what the
| author encountered.
|
| Second type are professional recruiters. Their salary is by
| commissions will often be a percentage of your salary. They are
| knowledgeable about programming and tech (often former engineers
| who wanted a break from coding!). They typically are looking to
| match specific profiles to specific jobs at client companies.
| This goes all the way to recruiters specialized in C-Suite
| executives (and you can picture the commission finding a CEO will
| bring in). Their messages will be personalized and you shouldn't
| hesitate to reply back even if you aren't looking for a job. They
| know that most great software engineers are almost never openly
| looking for a job so their goal is to be on good terms with a
| large number of talented developers so that the minute they start
| looking for a job they can match them with positions. You'll know
| when you encounter one.
|
| Third type is basically referrals. A players attract A players,
| smart companies know it. Make sure your referral bonus is a
| percentage of total comp. It's probably the most effective way of
| recruiting (it has an insane signal to noise ratio). But you only
| get access to that type of network by... bringing value and being
| part of it in the first place!
| zulrah wrote:
| The worst mistake I made was accepting linkedin invites from
| recruiters. I expected that it will increase my chances to get
| offered some kind of job but most of them never even wrote to me.
| And my linkedin absolutely filled with spam
| hunglee2 wrote:
| "You can't just send random bullshit and expect meaningful
| results"
|
| Unfortunately, this is entirely incorrect. The reason random
| bullshit occurs at all is precisely because it CAN produce
| meaningful results. The fact that it more often does compared to
| any other method is the reason why it is characteristic of tech
| recruiter behaviour.
|
| It is matter of energy conservation.
|
| Think of it like this: Recruiters can go one of two paths.
|
| A)Carefully read resumes / profiles, up-level on tech know-how,
| even do a bit of programming as OP recommended. This is a ton of
| up front cost and therefore only those who can afford to risk the
| energy would do it.
|
| or
|
| B) Send lots of random shit, with low up front cost, accept low
| ratio return and only deal with the positives that come back.
|
| The risk is front loaded in Option A, which is why it rarely
| happens. The recruiters that do do this, will basically be
| popular for the short time, but not last long as they get
| outcompeted by recruiters doing Option B.
|
| It's not ideal but neither is global warming
| mateo411 wrote:
| I think there is a possibility of doing something in between A
| and B. 1. Select good candidates based on
| relevant criteria. 2. Spend 1 or 2 minutes reviewing
| each candidate with the Technical Hiring Manager who needs to
| fill a role. 3. Send the filtered candidates a templated
| message asking if they are interested.
| rendall wrote:
| A moment of empathizing will make it clear that option A is not
| an option. If I were a recruiter following that method, I would
| take 5-10 minutes to read someone's Github and only then send
| them a carefully crafted email that takes another 10 minutes,
| which will be ignored by all but 1 in 100?
|
| I'm fine with ignoring unsolicited emails and politely
| declining phone calls.
| kedikedi wrote:
| This sounds very similar to how one can do online dating
| the_mar wrote:
| This guy must be so fun at parties. Seriously do appreciate the
| opinion of some guy who has never hired anyone. Yes, you mr
| Bozhidar, despite your name aren't the god's greatest gift for
| humanity. Nobody cares or should care that you "state in your
| resume.." - seriously how hard is it to ignore the message?
|
| "built technical recruiting" - give me a break hun. you should
| know the reason why most companies do not offer post-interview
| feedback
| almeria wrote:
| _Take the Time to Actually Research Someone_
|
| Nice sentiment, but it's never gonna happen.
|
| Recruiters are spam bots, period. Their job is to smash square
| pegs into round holes. Use them or don't use them... but the
| sooner everyone on both sides of the hiring equation realizes
| this extremely basic and obvious fact, the better.
| igneo676 wrote:
| This feels like a fundamental mismatch between his expectations
| as an internal recruiter vs external recruiters
|
| > built the technical recruitment operations in the last 3 start-
| ups I worked for, so I feel I'm somewhat qualified in the subject
| matter
|
| Sure, your startup might have some very tight requirements for a
| position and the ability to research candidates before
| conversations. That's precisely what you should do since time is
| limited and (presumably) you're not hiring for a TON of positions
|
| But an external recruiter needs to match X jobs to Y candidates.
| It almost doesn't matter what the tech stack is at that point,
| you probably have an open position to fill that'll match that
| person. It's a numbers game and it's a "Please respond to me at
| any cost" game.
|
| And often, even if you did research, there are so many false
| negatives that it didn't even matter to begin with. I've had
| targeted recruiters reach out to me that are amazed when my
| current position doing $CURRENT_TECH isn't completely
| representative of my skills and I'm actually a viable candidate
| for $NEW_JOB_WITH_OTHER_TECH
|
| The only real response here is to cut em some slack or ignore
| them. Guides like these don't help
| ordiel wrote:
| For (some startups) it makes sense, especially if you onlu want
| a code monkey (for which I would recomend recriuters to go to
| colleges) but their teams (or they themselves) impose this
| stupid "minimum X years of experience". I've known golks with
| years and years of experience who know no shit, so if anything
| those years prove they are willing to suck it up bit no muvh
| more; as I have also knows some fresh college graduates who are
| a fucking bomb.
|
| Now saying its a numbers game also makes sence yet they
| (recriuters) are ignorimg the fact that each one of those
| "numbers" they turn into an interview will require 2 or 3 hours
| from the developers who will actually serve as a filter... I
| (personally) am tired of having to interview people who from
| the first 10 minutes I know won't be a good fit just because
| the recruiter is playing the "numbers game"
| Imnimo wrote:
| All of this is perfectly reasonable advice, but I think it'll
| fall on deaf ears. The jobs these bad emails/messages are
| advertising are often terrible, and while making a better pitch
| will let you attract the interest of better candidates, those
| same candidates will surely not accept the terrible job you're
| offering, so why bother?
| peakaboo wrote:
| Why would a recruiter spend time and effort on reading everyone's
| cv and writing personal letters to every candidate? They won't be
| able to reach more than 10 people in a day doing that, and
| probably will get 0% responses anyway.
|
| I also get these spammy job ads every day but I understand why
| and I can't offer a better method that actually works better. If
| you were in their shoes, would you do differently? Only if it
| worked to be different. So far it doesn't seem to work.
|
| Just today I got an email from a recruiter with her playlist so I
| would know her mood. So yeah. Recruiters try all sorts of things
| but it's very hard.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Count me among those who has more sympathy than anything else for
| recruiters. Finding a job is hard. There's so much uncertainty
| and fraught communication and rejection for reasons out of your
| control. What if finding jobs _was_ your job? (That being said,
| the recruiters I've dealt with have been very professional and
| helpful, so I don't mean to imply they are to be pitied, just
| that the realities of it are just as unpleasant as the realities
| of being a job seeker)
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I'm generally sympathetic to them because they have a very
| difficult - yet very important! - role.
|
| The only time I've ever been really angry at a recruiter was
| when I came across a snarky LinkedIn post written by a
| recruiter (and upvoted by many others) that went something
| along the lines of "Joe contacted me because he had found
| himself out of work. However, I checked our internal database
| and found that we had reached out to him many times and he had
| never once responded to our inquiries. It was with great
| satisfaction that I told Joe, 'I'm sorry but we have nothing
| for you at this time...'"
|
| I try not to put negative thoughts out there but I wish... very
| very bad misfortune on this particular recruiter.
| hizxy wrote:
| All this complaining about recruiters is so stupid. Yo...they can
| help you get a job. Get paid more money. Get that dream job.
| ldbooth wrote:
| _Some_ recruiting, like some sales jobs and like many things in
| life, is a numbers game. And there is zero cost for the bulk
| messaging campaign on the way to the 1 /50 affirmative response
| they will get. If there is a way to solve this inefficiency, it's
| well worth building a better solution.
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| Cold calls/letters from recruiters are a waste of time. I've
| never had a cold call or letter from a recruiter that resulted in
| a job.
|
| If you have any talent at all, reaching out through your
| professional network is the way to go.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Anecdata...
|
| My current job was from a cold e-mail.
|
| Though FWIW, I was actively looking for new work at the time,
| so the recruiter just had good timing.
|
| But the recruiter also had a good e-mail, including the salary
| range, which was slightly above the band I was expecting.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Even more anecdata - I counted it up recently and I've had 10
| different jobs in a little over 30 years. Half I found
| randomly through recruiters and the other half were from my
| "professional network". Consistently, every single
| "professional network"/"referred in" job turned out to be a
| complete nightmare and every single "through a recruiter" job
| turned out to be - well, better than the other ones, anyway.
| By far my most negative employment experiences have been the
| ones where I was actively recruited in by somebody I knew
| from my past.
| ferdowsi wrote:
| Recruiting is tough. Thinking about my last job transition, there
| was probably a golden period of two weeks where I was truly open
| to all recruitment possibilities. By the end of those two weeks I
| was starting to move into the offer stages. So realistically I
| can't blame the frequency and volume of recruitment
| communication; it's possible a followup message would have struck
| at exactly the right moment.
|
| That being said, for senior engineers surely it's more likely
| that recruitment will be more driven by referrals by trusted
| colleagues? I don't think I've seen referral bonuses rising at a
| commensurate rate.
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