The tech recruiter role/economy seems like a tremendous conflict of interest, especially when they are outsourced. They are compensated primarily as a percentage of the salary for each hire they make. Like real estate agents, they get very little benefit from hiring well and primarily from hiring a lot. If those folks don't pan out, more roles to fill and more bonuses to be had. It seems like an extremely short-sighted solution, which leads to short relationships that don't sufficiently penalize nefarious behavior.
Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
231–240 of 335 posts
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#232Earlier 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…
Healthcare is a benefit in the UK? I thought it was socialized?
The NHS provides mostly excellent free health care. (Some non-urgent but unplanned stuff can be frustrating).
But you can also pay privately for treatment. I'm not sure why you would chose to do so - you get a private room but not much else. (There's a possibility you get slightly worse outcomes)
Dental isn't free even on the NHS (although many people get exemptions) so paying gets you better dentists, with better wait times, and more cosmetic options.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes this is a rant. However, the first point is a good one. 95% of the author's [limited sample] where recruiters earning a large amount of money for doing very little technically.
You know, I like how there is this view out there that anyone who's doing classically "business" or "sales" work is not actually working that hard. I know some recruiters. They aren't the world's smartest people, but the successful ones work really damn hard. They don't make more than minimum wage unless they place people. These guys are cold calling, searching LinkedIn, crawling phone trees, and sending requests all…
I would have to add to what you've said, that turnover in recruiting agencies seems to be huge, if my LinkedIn feed is any indicator. They seem to move between jobs as much as many contract developers. And of course, some still will exit the business entirely.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#234Earlier 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.
In the UK in ~2000, the last time I was looking for a job without a reliable network, I had an awful experience due to recruiters. I'd synched up with a recruiter, they scheduled me for a job interview at a swanky gentlemans club (not a strip bar, literally a club for men), in London. I don my old school uniform, for aged 18 I had not yet bought a suit, and printed some resumes at my Mums office and headed over to St…
> she believed I'd been subjected to ageism
I would suspect more "we don't want to hire someone who thinks it's appropriate to show up in a literal school uniform to a professional interview" more than ageism, per se.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a London based developer (VR these days), I have to say that I immediately recognise the hammed up picture this guy paints of IT recruiters in the UK. I only ever found one recruitment company that I liked who I felt was consistently top notch when I was freelancing. They didn't ever call me unless I signaled I was looking for work and always negotiated better rates than I felt I was able to when I was first start…
they also did a great Hounds of Love cover
Top marks.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, I like how there is this view out there that anyone who's doing classically "business" or "sales" work is not actually working that hard. I know some recruiters. They aren't the world's smartest people, but the successful ones work really damn hard. They don't make more than minimum wage unless they place people. These guys are cold calling, searching LinkedIn, crawling phone trees, and sending requests all…
I never said they didn't work hard.
As I don't subscribe to the labor theory of value, I don't care how much effort they put in. I care about the value of the results they produce.
To a lesser extent, I also care if any of the manure that they shovel will stick to my heel.
In theory, you should be able to come out ahead by delegating job search to someone who is better at recruiting than anything else, when you are better at software than job-searching, even if you are still better in absolute terms at recruiting than the recruiter. In practice... well, let's just say that specialization only works if the single best thing you can do offers positive value to the market. If your top skill is wasting other people's time, no one is going to hire you for that.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#237Had really bad experience with recruiters in London - Lies. From "They have a free gym pass" to complete bs like salary and position. - Screwed up formatting of CV that I've sent (they wanted .doc) I've written that I have basic perl skills, recruiter changed it to good and destroyed the layout of CV making it unreadable. Good luck with perl question during the interview. - Constant phone calls with no new informatio…
I had a recruiter here in Toronto create a CV for me despite the fact that I no longer keep one (I keep my LinkedIn profile up to date and can replicate a CV if I want to, but I don’t want to). I fired him the next day, saying he was not going to represent me because he didn’t listen to me.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same nothing that does not stop the companies actually seeking their own employees also does not stop 300 recruiters from copying their posted text, stripping out the original company-identifying information, and re-posting. The noise added to the signal does make it significantly more difficult. So rather than searching a central repository of job ads for opportunities specifically relevant to you, you have to v…
> "resume in Word format" FYI, this will filter out a few companies as well. Qualcomm, for instance, insists on all resumes being Word or RTF for some reason.
From my perspective, that is Qualcomm's problem.
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are using your experience at two of of the best technology companies in the world to trash the author's criticism of the recruiting in the "IT" industry. Your comment was very tone deaf.
"You do realize that there is an entire IT Industry outside of Facebook and Google?" Was there a single fiber in your being that believed I did not...? I cannot imagine a human brain believing this is a useful post for even a single second. Yet, here you are defending it... "You are using your experience at two of of the best technology companies in the world to trash the author's criticism of the recruiting in the "…
there are literally millions of recruiters in the world. You think knowing a couple hundred means you know how they all act, or even a majority?
Re: Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation
#240IT 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.
Sure. That's roughly what I tell telemarketing operators. But a) talking about exploitation is still ridiculous; and b) what do you suggest? Do you propose passing a law forbidding unsolicited contacts? Via which channels?