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

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

#321

Post by mcv »

celticninja wrote: post #131
nordic_nomad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not in London it isnt. £15k is below average wage, way below for London. Unless this IT job was excel monkey or perhaps keyboard cleaner original commenter is full of shit. I know trainee developers (no education but some skills) who have started off on £21k and that is low for IT in London. I find it hard to believe that any IT role in London was filled for £15k by anyone other than the most junior of people.

That low, in London?! I was under the impression that London was a very expensive city, and I'd expect salaries to reflect that. £21k in a city like that sounds bizarre. Or is it after taxes, including tons of secondary benefits?

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

#322

Post by mcv »

makerman1982 wrote: post #228
baliex wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an exaggeration. That scenario could easily play out. However, if the employer genuinely has no connection to the candidate (other than having received their CV a couple of times, in different incarnations) then I don't see why they wouldn't pursue the candidate without the recruiter being in the loop.

I can tell you why...at my Last firm, the "first submitting agency" was tied to your name on FieldGlass. You could not get around it. It was the only system you could hire thru firmwide.

How about you provide the recruiter with a fake name, and use your real name with a more accurate CV to contact the clients directly?

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

#323

Post by mcv »

retbull wrote: post #278
toolslive wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once (early 2000s) discovered during the interview the recruiter had edited the CV I sent. I showed my own copy and the interviewer and I ended up putting them next to each other and identifying the differences. It's better if you only hand out a pdf version.

pdf is still editable.

Yeah, but they're often too stupid to know how.

There was a time when I obeyed requests for a Word version of my CV, but that time is now gone.

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

#324

Post by mcv »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #179
bitwize wrote: post #118

phone rings "Hello?" "Hello, is this Cloud Strife?" (pausing a moment to consider whether even to continue) "...Yeah." "Hey, Cloud, how's your afternoon going? My name is Michael Gravitz and I'm a recruiter for Warmbody Technical Services. I came across your résumé on Dice, and I noticed you have a lot of Buster Sword experience. We've got a great opportunity for a Bodyguard role with an established, profitable compa…

> "Oh. Okay. Well, do you know anyone who's looking and might be interested in this role?" this is the part I actually hate most. I'm not gonna do the recruiter job, especially not for free. they have to get over themselves and stop thinking they are giving out 'opportunities' like they are modern messiah

If I've got a friend I know is actively looking for work, and I think the recruiter is not a total shithead, then I will sometimes mention that friend.

Of course the friends looking for work tend to be either just starting out, or have been at the same company for so long that they forgot how job hunting works. Anyone else gets something good pretty soon.

As it happens, I know a beginning (but smart) PHP/javascript developer with a bit of C# experience in Amsterdam. Likes CSS.

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

#325

Post by mcv »

s73v3r wrote: post #271
gambiting wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

£20k/year is exactly what I'm on. My problem at the moment is that I've been working just a bit more than 2 years now, and I absolutely love what I'm doing. I'm part of the engine team on a game that will be one of the biggest releases of 2016, and learning a tonne every day. I got very flexible hours, private health insurance and 30 days of paid vacation days a year. It's just the pay that's abysmal. I've got two co…

Absolutely none of that makes up for the abysmal pay, though. You can easily get a software development job making much, much more than that, with most, if not all of the same benefits.

I disagree. A job you love is a lot better than a job you hate. I agree $30k is ridiculously low, but if it pays enough to live the life you want, why should you get more if that would make you hate your life? There's no bigger blessing in life than to get paid for doing something you love.

The most important thing though is that he's learning: that means he will still be able to get better opportunities later. Once the learning stops, it's time to get out.

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

#326

Post by mcv »

timrichard wrote: post #252
roblynch wrote: post #31

Had a recruiter email me recently saying: "JASON knowledge is an advantage..." Yep. I still don't know jason

I recall one phone call where the guy said "how much do you know about Ajax?" (pronounced like the Dutch football team). There was no reason for the guy to know any different, but it amused me at the time....

Are there different ways to pronounce it? Or did he pronounce it in Dutch?

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

#327

Post by s73v3r »

mcv wrote: post #325
s73v3r wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely none of that makes up for the abysmal pay, though. You can easily get a software development job making much, much more than that, with most, if not all of the same benefits.

I disagree. A job you love is a lot better than a job you hate. I agree $30k is ridiculously low, but if it pays enough to live the life you want, why should you get more if that would make you hate your life? There's no bigger blessing in life than to get paid for doing something you love. The most important thing though is that he's learning: that means he will still be able to get better opportunities later. Once…

A job you love quickly can turn into a job you hate if you're scraping by.

Further, I seriously question that a different job would be one that they hate.

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

#328

Post by s73v3r »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #307
s73v3r wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 self aware thing I've ever seen a human being write." It was at this point that you lost me. You've clearly been lucky enough to never had a crappy job.

"You've clearly been lucky enough to never had a crappy job." I'm getting a lot of REALLY bizarre straw men responses to my posts but this one has to take the cake. You managed to turn me saying that people should stop bitching about IT recruiters calling them for offices jobs that pay well and have great conditions ito a conclusion that I have CLEARLY never had a crappy job? I...what? How? How does a human brain tak…

Once again, you've clearly never experienced a recruiter trying to get you for a crappy job. Consider yourself lucky.

And since you haven't, you really need to stop telling other people what they can and cannot complain about. Seriously, at what salary level are people not allowed to complain about work conditions any more? What exactly are the conditions that an office has to have before one can no longer complain? Free soda? A snack machine?

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

#329

Post by jbishop156 »

gambiting wrote: post #308
jsprogrammer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you at least get a portion of the sales on the game? If the game really will be one of the biggest releases next year, a 20k salary is likely nothing compared to residuals/bonuses that might accrue to you.

There's very likely going to be a profitability bonus, but at the most it's going to be half of my salary. Pretty good for a bonus,but it's not making up for the low salary over all.

If you have 2 years experience in programming, you should be looking elsewhere in the game industry. The first couple of years are rough, but after "paying your dues" for a couple years, you'll find you can jump into another game dev job without much difficulty. This is a bit more problematic if you're not willing to relocate, since UK is one of the lower-paying game dev markets. However 30k usd is far too low even for the UK for a fresh-out-of-college junior programmer.

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

#330

Post by Paul_S »

pc86 wrote: post #316
Paul_S wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Anyway, if that was the case why would they hide the name of the company?

I don't think "No" is an appropriate response to the question "A or B?"

Sorry, that comma changed the meaning of the sentence from "A or B" to "A? B?". You don't put a comma before "or". The answer to that question would be neither. It's just normal recruiter ads that tick the box direct employer despite not being such to get through the filter. If a company is using an external recruiter the recruiter will list the company name. I only ever saw this once in my life when a company used a recruiter exclusively.
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