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Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

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Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#11

Post by dyeje »

It sounds like you have an idea of what opportunities are interesting to you. Refine that some more and come up with a copy paste response for recruiters. If they do not reply with useful information, then just end the conversation. Most recruiters are terrible at their job, the ones that aren't will engage you meaningfully.

Also, yes many will try to engage you on the phone and there's not really any way around that if you're starting a relationship with them. They need to get a feel for you before they can submit you to clients and phone screens are just an efficient means to do so.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#12

Post by codingdave »

I politely tell them where I am at in my career, what I would need from a position to make it worth discussing, and ask them whether they believe the opportunity they had in mind makes it worth talking to each other.

I don't share details about my salary - I just say I'm paid above market and would still need a raise. This weeds out most run-of-the-mill recruiters just looking to fill your average coder job. The ones who really have a good opportunity will tell me so and we'll talk. The one who don't usually still appreciate being told where I am at, so they know when I would want to talk.

I usually also tell them that if the current opportunity isn't a match, call me again in 6 months anyway, just in case my current project doesn't go well. This gives me a nice safety net if my job changes, and over time builds up a decent network of recruiters that I can just write back to if I ever were to want a change.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#13

Post by ratww »

I don't ignore them, but if I'm not looking I wait a week to get a batch of messages and then answer with a short copy-pasted reply. I don't think they mind, since they do it themselves.

If you're considering depending on compensation, I'd be upfront and tell them that. Ask for salary and if it's a remote position in your reply. Tell them you're busy for the phone but give them your email.

About talking on the phone, unfortunately my experience is that the ones with the best opportunities want to interview you themselves before referring. A recruiter from Germany even asked me technical stuff about my GitHub projects, and after that she decided to refer to an even better company.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#14

Post by koolba »

943_924 wrote: post #3
Trias11 wrote: post #2

I think nothing wrong in polite initial reply about the budget/pay/salary upfront with a firm notion that without that information no further conversation is going to take place. This will weed out flakes and save time for everyone.

Has that worked for anyone here? The most I get after answering a cold email/LinkedIn message with my salary requirements is something along the lines of "that's doable," and finding out later the client had an appetite for a senior with the budget for an entry level.

Never give a number. Insist that they give a number and whatever it is, reject it.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#17

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Talk to them, briefly. Don't burn bridges, but also don't waste your time (and theirs). When you identify a good one, hang on to their contact info.

How do you identify a good one? Well, I once got called by a headhunter, whom somebody gave my name to. One question he asked is where I was currently working. I told him. He said that he couldn't recruit me, because his company placed people where I was working. A recruiter with ethics? I put his name in my permanent file. If I decide I'm looking for work, he's getting a call.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#18

Post by fargle »

My company is expanding an paying recruitment bonuses. So I try to recruit THEM. I mean our recruitment dept. is hiring too! Fantastic opportunity, signing bonus, etc. And it's all actually true too.

How much are you making? I can double that!

I've made a couple good checks and a the rest stop bugging me.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#19

Post by Paraesthetic »

toper-centage wrote: post #10
TXV wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what stops these people from downloading mine or anyone's resume off LinkedIn and use that for their purposes? they wouldn't even need to bother contacting me first

Nothing. And they do already convert your PDFs to Doc for editing, often destroying part of your layout. At one job interview for a frontend developer position, I was very embarrassed to learn that the idiot recruiter had done that to my CV. My interviewer jokingly showed me how my CV looked all messed up - wrong alignment, missing icons, mixed up fonts, weird borders. All this because the recruiter wanted to remove…

Disappointing, I always flatten my pdf's so they have to do OCR on it first too, and you use a non-conventional font that looks professional, but the OCR struggles with. It stops it being worth their time

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively deal with recruiters?

#20

Post by Paraesthetic »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #17

Talk to them, briefly. Don't burn bridges, but also don't waste your time (and theirs). When you identify a good one, hang on to their contact info. How do you identify a good one? Well, I once got called by a headhunter, whom somebody gave my name to. One question he asked is where I was currently working. I told him. He said that he couldn't recruit me, because his company placed people where I was working. A recru…

Sounds more like he may lose more money than one worker is worth than a case of good ethics
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