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

mocko.org.uk

211–220 of 335 posts

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

#211
post #115
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I turned off my voicemail because of this.

My voicemail recording is just several minutes of classical music with the occasional "All of our representatives are currently busy at this time. Please stay on the line and we'll be with you shortly." at regular intervals.

I'm fond of the Intercept tone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IC_SIT.ogg

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

#213
post #88

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…

Healthcare is a benefit in the UK? I thought it was socialized?

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

#214
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…

"Recruiter" in UK context means an independent agency, not the actual hiring staff at companies who nearly always handle themselves professionally.

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

#215

IT people talking about being exploited, particularly by unskilled laborers, well... I understand how "boring" it might be to be harassed in this way, just as telemarketing is, but - come on - a little perspective, please. Surely you'll understand that your boring doesn't trump someone's need to make money. P.S. The author talks about "us social inepts in tech". I hope he understands his article is a great banner to…

Your ‘need to make money’ does not entitle you to any of my time or forbearance, both of which are finite.

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

#216
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in the UK? If so, I'm seriously surprised this doesn't ring true. To me it exactly matches my experience both as a contractor and as an employer. As to who is being exploited here, it's the whole IT industry. They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. They may not be sending children down mines, but that doesn't diminish the fact they are terrible companies and terrible people.

I think that might be the main difference. I worked in Germany and in the US. The only time that recruiters got a tad annoying was when I was working in Germany and got 2-3 UK agencies. By far not as bad as the post makes it seem, but some slightly annoying things such as calling me on a Sunday evening, trying to give me prep speeches and overusing my name, script reading, trying to not tell me the client name, mispr…

Generally speaking, I've never had an issue with in-house recruiters.

But I've experienced many of the things this guy is complaining about from 3rd party tech recruiters (I'm in the US), including being lied to (and not coming clean until it came up a few months into the contract), aggressively being contacted, dodging questions about company details, not providing job descriptions, lying about what the company needed so I was unprepared for interviews, not telling me anything about interviews, scheduling an interview for me for THE NEXT DAY at 7 pm that was a 3 hour drive away so I had no choice but to take a sudden personal day to go to the interview (I normally wouldn't do that, but I had two friends working there, and really wanted to check it out), etc.

One agency has been sending me emails and calling me multiple times and LinkedIn connection requests from four people in the company these past couple of weeks. They've attempted to contact me at least 12 times in two weeks, and the most they'll tell me in the messages is "an iOS Developer opportunity". With no information you are not going to make me want to get in touch with you, especially when I'm not looking for a new job.

BUUUUT.... I have had a couple good experiences with external recruiters, in fact my most recent experience was very positive and they negotiated better than I would have for the first salary in my career that I've been satisfied with.

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

#217
post #171

Alright, here's another of my tech recruiter exchanges. This one got him to stop responding immediately. ------------- Hello, My name is Seth and I am a recruiter here at [redacted]. I came across your profile in our database and wanted to touch base. Are you still in the market for potential opportunities? If so, I would enjoy speaking with you soon. Please let me know if you or anyone else you know is interested. T…

[deleted]

Apparently you didn't see the original series of these; I like screwing around with tech recruiters over email. I'm sorry, I guess I thought it was self-evident that with the quotes I am responding in a completely absurd way by implying that I'm looking for prostitution work.

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

#218
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it sticks out because, in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces. And in the recruitment business it seems to happen a lot. (Omission, elision and euphemism is the British way!)

> in the UK, we're not used to people just lying directly to our faces Ahem, speak for yourself. Go check out your local newsagent's daily national press shelves. Pages upon pages of lies and spin. Hell, the Scottish versions of The Times, Express, Mail and Mirror group papers print contradicting headlines, one version for Scotland and one for England and Wales. I hate to do the "we're less gullible in Scotland now"…

As a ""cybernat"" and Wings reader, I very much agree - but that's more a sort of impersonal bulk lying, not someone calling you up personally by name and lying about job opportunities or the qualifications of candidates.

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

#219
post #48
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…

Maybe things are different in the UK, but in Canada I've never had to rely on a recruiter to find good work. I've interacted with them a few times and yes, it wasn't pleasant, but they hardly had the market cornered. My impression has been that those who rely on recruiters are unable to navigate the job market well themselves. It's not a forced reliance.

In London these days you don't have to depend on third-party recruiters, but they will contact you anyway. Wayyyyy more than I saw in either Toronto or Vancouver.

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in the UK? If so, I'm seriously surprised this doesn't ring true. To me it exactly matches my experience both as a contractor and as an employer. As to who is being exploited here, it's the whole IT industry. They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. They may not be sending children down mines, but that doesn't diminish the fact they are terrible companies and terrible people.

They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. I'm no fan of recruiters, but nothing stops you applying to the company directly, and nothing stops the company posting their own job ads.

The problem is in my experience is that:

1. Job advertised doesn't have the name of the company

2. Recruiter is CV harvesting with fake job ads - experienced that

3. Recruiter bait and switches - job is real but is an excuse to get you for something else

4. Recruiter gets wind of big company or gov organisation recruiting via competition, posts the same job spec then uses it to try and undercut while passing themselves off as the "official" recruiter. Had this with a NHS development role where the job I responded to turns out they had no business advertising for.

5. If the company is named then it's usually because said company only wants to use a recruiter. I've had this a couple of times where I've contacted a company directly but been asked to file my application with their official outsourced recruitment service.

6. Recruiter threatens "you'll never work in this town again" if you do somehow get to know who the company is simply because you ask.

Ninety nine percent of all recruiters I have dealt with have been the scum of the earth, even the so called reputable ones.

I truly hope Stackoverflow Careers destroys these businesses.

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