Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

mocko.org.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 335 posts

Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

#126

Post by celticninja »

joeyspn wrote: post #88
ryguytilidie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it seems like the author has some serious problems. I know hundreds of recruiters having been at Google and Facebook and not a single one of them thinks like this at all. To say "now grovel and be exploited" about a process where the person will almost certainly end up with a fantastic offer for an engineering job in a comfortable office with great pay and great working conditions may actually be the least s…

You clearly don't have a clue about how things are here in the EU. Few weeks ago one of these charitable souls deceived a co-worker offering him an incredible opportunity to move to London and the result was: - £15k ($23k) less salary than advertised in the offer - No benefits (healthcare, dental, etc) - No free food/snacks/bevare at the company - No perks (equipment, etc) When questioned about this, the recruiter sa…

To be fair your friend got fucked over but predominantly because he didn't read the contract. If he was offered £40k and then a contract came and he signed it without checking, his fuck up. If he didnt sign a contract and moved cities on the word of an individual he fucked up.

If he didnt attend and interview or discuss these perks prior to signing a contract he fucked up.

If he was genuinely misled then he can actually make a complaint and pursue it but it sounds like he didnt do much checking at all.

Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

#127

Post by Bahamut »

manishsharan wrote: post #109

Spammy tech recruiters are bad but corrupt recruiters and hiring practices are much worse" I live in Canada and I am amazed at the amount of corruption/nepotism I see in IT hiring for government IT jobs. They will put out job requirements for senior java dev or web developer and you are supposed to fill out a matrix of required skill. In those supposedly mandatory skills/experiences, they will put in some weird shit…

It should be noted, this is often how the US federal government works as well, to satisfy the requirement that they consider veterans for jobs.

Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

#128

Post by karlkatzke »

I think of recruiters more as a "realtor for my skills."

It's totally OK to not use a realtor to sell your house to your coworker's son and his new wife in rural BFE for 20k $USD.

When you go to sell your mcmansion in a small town suburb for $80k USD, you might have a lawyer look over the sales contract, but you might not use an agent. There just isn't that much at risk and you probably know the person you're selling to.

When you sell your house for $120k USD in a bigger city, you almost definitely use a seller's agent and might use a lawyer. There's more risk because it's a bigger city and you're playing for more money. There's probably some negotiation involved and you don't sell a house every day so you need to know what's normal, what's legal, and where hidden traps are.

When you sell a house for $500k USD, you sure as hell use a a seller's agent and a title company and a lawyer and everyone reviews the contract. That's a lot of money to not have many eyeballs on the deal and rounds of negotiation.

Selling your skills is like selling a house. When it's not that much money and you trust the people you're dealing with, you don't need a recruiter. When you're negotiating salary and benefits at higher tiers, you need to know what's normal and what's acceptable, and that's another service a recruiter provides. They also represent you to many buyers and help you with the negotiation and feedback process. Like a real estate agent, they are a critical impersonal cutout that helps everyone maintain face during a negotiation.

Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

#129

Post by [deleted] »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #70
mbroshi wrote: post #34

I will admit I did not make it through this entire article, but it really did not ring true to me at all--just sounded like an unsupported, hostile, angry rant. >> “Fucked if we care” think the recruiters, “now grovel and be exploited”. ... >> You’re meat to them, a resource to be packaged and sold and exploited. Who's being exploited here? I think he's implying the programmers, but as someone who left academia for i…

Honestly it seems like the author has some serious problems. I know hundreds of recruiters having been at Google and Facebook and not a single one of them thinks like this at all. To say "now grovel and be exploited" about a process where the person will almost certainly end up with a fantastic offer for an engineering job in a comfortable office with great pay and great working conditions may actually be the least s…

[deleted]

Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation

#130

Post by gambiting »

nordic_nomad wrote: post #112
joeyspn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly don't have a clue about how things are here in the EU. Few weeks ago one of these charitable souls deceived a co-worker offering him an incredible opportunity to move to London and the result was: - £15k ($23k) less salary than advertised in the offer - No benefits (healthcare, dental, etc) - No free food/snacks/bevare at the company - No perks (equipment, etc) When questioned about this, the recruiter sa…

Holy god, that's a job in technology? Sounds like your typical retail wage slave situation here in the US. Even entry level tech jobs are in the $40-$50k range generally.

Lol, I'm a C++ games programmer and make $30k/year. North East of England + games industry.
Post reply on HN