I stopped answering the phone to unknown numbers because of this.
I turned off my voicemail because of this.
Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
21–30 of 335 posts
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#22And yet they are our only weapon against business owners who are just as clueless but lack the incentive to pay a competitive wage. When it comes to salary negotiation, it's nice to have Shithead in your corner.
Why not have a lawyer help negotiate on your behalf instead? Employment contracts can get complicated enough that you might want to consult with one regardless.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#23At least in the US, the whole recruiting industry hit its nadir during the dot-com bubble of 2000. I remember getting a cold-call from a recruiter, "Hey, got a great gig at a soon-to-IPO startup for a Solaris and Linux guru", "No thanks", hang up, the phone next to me rings, same dude, literally just dialing up the extension tree. My boss at the time had a strategy where whenever a recruiter called offering "top notc…
Reminds me of an ex-boss of mine, who got a visit by a couple shysters from an SEO company.
His first questions was: "What's your company's name again?"
clickety-click!
"Then, would you mind explaining why your company is not right on the top of a Google search?"
It was a mighty short visit.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#24Ha ha - that was a funny read. You've got a talent for words, forget this new fangled DeVelOps thing you've been doing for 15 years and get into comedy writing.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#25I've started using more of Gmail's features to help control this.
First, there is the actual email address itself: Gmail ignores periods and anything after a + (plus sign). So every new site I sign up for gets a different email address, usually my normal email plus a postfix named after that particular site. This way, when I get emails from recruiters saying they found me through LinkedIn, but are actually using a form of my email address I've only used on Github, I know immediately what is going on.
And second, I just mark them as spam. Because they are.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#26Graduated in 1993, started contracting in 1995, and pretty much been at it ever since then. I have no issue with agents. They make my life easier.
The only and ONLY rule I have is that the employer knows exactly the rate I am getting and is happy with the rate they are paying the agent. I've seen contractors walk out on jobs once they find out the margin the agent is getting. An honest relationship is key.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#27Coderstack (which is dead now) used to only accept direct job posts.
I wonder if a similar service would gain traction again. Because all of the job boards for UK have 90% recruiter spam really.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#28This is mostly an angry rant, pretty amusing to me how upset the author actually becomes at times, I think its quite harsh. I did like this idea towards the end of it: "To employers – ask your staff to help find new hires. Offer a bounty – enough to get their attention, say a fortnight’s salary. It’s a lot less than [a recruiter] would cost. And their incentives are all positive: no-one will hire an idiot if they hav…
This is completely common in America. Is the London job market scene just messed up?
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#29Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#30US recruitment (at least around tech hubs) does seem a lot more civilized than the UK situation - most opportunities I see are directly advertised. I left the UK five years ago, and I still get most of my recruitment spam from UK agents. Someone clearly needs to educate those guys about aging their databases - someone who was in the market for opening level PHP gigs in 2001 is probably not still looking for opening level PHP gigs in 2015.