51–60 of 149 posts
I despise recruiters with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. That leaves me (and you) with a few viable options: 1) Use a matching service like interviewing.io or TripleByte to get connected directly with companies. (Effectiveness: Questionable but promising) 2) Use a job listing site like Indeed.com to find positions that you're interested in applying to. (Effectiveness…
Hi, I'm a recruiter. Look for job aggregators like Adzuna, Indeed, etc, which scrape all jobs on the web. When you see results, it should be easy to work out which jobs are posted by recruiters, and which have been posted directly by the company. In my (massively biased) experience, you are better off applying for a position when you've been put forward by a recruiter: * The recruiter knows what the client's salary r…
Thanks for your reply. Since you're a recruiter, do you have any tips that would help me differentiate between a competent recruiter versus a shady/ incompetent recruiter? I have worked with a great recruiter in the past, but lately I've been turned off by the whole process, I talked to one the other day and he said "Do you have any MVC experience? MVC is a big technology these days, you didn't list that on your resu…
are they putting you in front of the right companies? are they asking you questions about your needs? are they pitching you on the job (it should be worthy of a pitch), as well as vice versa? are they working with the right hiring budget?
these are the basic questions you use to judge the quality of a sales person. they have to "get it" on a relationship level, not a technical level.
Disclaimer: I've used recruiters to find every job I've had other than the first one. > I'd rather talk to a company directly. Why? What benefit do you get from that? You're not like to negotiate a higher salary than you would without the recruiter, and you're not in a better position to get hired either (over the total spend of an employee's lifespan the recruiter commission is a drop in the bucket). Some companies…
So have I. I really don't get the whole "I hate recruiters" thing. Sure there are crappy ones. Tell them you found a job if you don't want them spamming you any more.
To me, a recruiter is a tool: I tell them the kind of work I want to do, the salary I want and where I want my career to go. Then we discuss the leads they have and why I do/don't want them. If it's not working out, we end the relationship. If they aren't sending me good leads, I find another recruiter: it's not like they're hard to find. However, if they can listen and fine tune the leads, I have found that they are a great way to help me understand what I want in a job.
Last time I was looking, my recruiter (nice company: took time to understand me, bought me lunch at a nice restaurant, etc.) pointed out that he was finding tons of jobs that my skills matched, but none that paid as much as I wanted. I remembered that my current job was partially technical leadership, and that gave him the insight to look at a slightly different category and he found me a great fitting position shortly afterwards.
Hi, I'm a recruiter. Look for job aggregators like Adzuna, Indeed, etc, which scrape all jobs on the web. When you see results, it should be easy to work out which jobs are posted by recruiters, and which have been posted directly by the company. In my (massively biased) experience, you are better off applying for a position when you've been put forward by a recruiter: * The recruiter knows what the client's salary r…
I have to respectfully disagree. While this may be true for top recruiters, the SNR is very low in this field - a large majority of recruited are not helpful. Specifically I'm speaking on the hiring side of two companies. In one, we had decided to work with one recruiter who we had a good relationship with and they knew our salary requirements, needs etc. However, on a weekly basis we would get 10-12 unsolicited emai…
I have about half a dozen recruiters I trust. All of them contacted me with a cold call email after finding me in LinkedIn or elsewhere.
Yes, the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty bad, but you can essentially pattern match the good from the bad really easily based on the emails they're sending out. The bad ones look like templated emails. The good ones send personal emails clearly not sent to anyone else.
Hi, I'm a recruiter. Look for job aggregators like Adzuna, Indeed, etc, which scrape all jobs on the web. When you see results, it should be easy to work out which jobs are posted by recruiters, and which have been posted directly by the company. In my (massively biased) experience, you are better off applying for a position when you've been put forward by a recruiter: * The recruiter knows what the client's salary r…
Thanks for your reply. Since you're a recruiter, do you have any tips that would help me differentiate between a competent recruiter versus a shady/ incompetent recruiter? I have worked with a great recruiter in the past, but lately I've been turned off by the whole process, I talked to one the other day and he said "Do you have any MVC experience? MVC is a big technology these days, you didn't list that on your resu…
I would also look for ones who are investing heavily in one community. Someone who does exclusively Python in London, sponsors all the conferences, and has done for a while is likely to know which places are nice to work at, where pays well comparatively, and so on.
When I am looking for a new job, I try to think about where I actually want to work. One of the core issues I have with recruiters is that I am a developer to be placed in a development role, when in reality I have a set of wants and needs in a job that I'm sometimes not even aware of myself until I read a description and see the part that sticks out like a sore thumb to me. So, my advice is don't go looking for any old job, find the company/companies you'd like to work for and check what vacancies they have. If none, pay attention to what events etc. people from that company go to and make a point of meeting them.
I use LinkedIn as a self-advertising tool explicitly listing I am a consultant corp-to-corp which definitely reduces the amount of bullshit.
Most agency recruiters are a pain in the ass because they are not actually recruitment professionals. Sounds odd, I know, but having worked for a few firms I can tell you that many will hire SALES people rather than folks who actually want to recruit, let alone have a clue as to what the f*ck it is.
If you want to try and figure if a recruiter is going to be a tool or not, look them up or ask them what their job is. Do the do business development and account management as well as recruit? If so, ask them which half the like better. Should be a neat chat.
Bigger recruitment companies will always claim to be HR Consulting/Service firms in all their media and PR propaganda, when internally, they hammer home that they are sales companies first. I worked for one of the largest recruitment firms in the world and that is EXACTLY how they operate.
Small/mid-sized agencies tend to offer a better candidate experience because their staff aren't focused on KPIs and arbitrary activities to keep their bosses off their backs. Instead, those firms just care about closing business and doing it well so the big firms don't kick the shit out of them.
In general, most recruiters are shit. I've been headhunted more than once and man oh man has it been painful. But I've engaged in the process because the opportunity at hand was worth the nonsense. Not pursuing an opportunity because a recruiter is an idiot is cutting your nose to spite your face.
We're working on this problem at Paysa [1], trying to enable employees to find and be alerted about relevant jobs that match your skillset as they become available, in your desired locations, and meeting the pay requirements that you specify.
We're also interested in helping to solve the matching and communication problem, by putting candidates directly in contact with companies that they're interested to work with - in positions that actually match their skillsets, pay their market value, and further their careers.
Check out our salary and experience based jobs search at https://www.paysa.com/jobs, and sign up to receive job alerts as we find new jobs that match your skills/experience and meet your target criteria - around location, and salary expectations.
The comments in this thread are really interesting. I'd love to hear any more feedback/thoughts about what we at Paysa could do to provide the best job matching and communication experience from the candidate side. Feel free to email at zach at paysa.com any time.
Disclaimer: I've used recruiters to find every job I've had other than the first one. > I'd rather talk to a company directly. Why? What benefit do you get from that? You're not like to negotiate a higher salary than you would without the recruiter, and you're not in a better position to get hired either (over the total spend of an employee's lifespan the recruiter commission is a drop in the bucket). Some companies…
Misaligned incentives.
The recruiter is incented to get you to accept the position. Their compensation isn't tied to maximizing your happiness, job fit, or salary. While every recruiter I've worked with wanted to see me find the right fit, ultimately they wanted to find a position that was good enough that I would accept. An extra $15k in your salary is not material enough to the compensation of a recruiter.