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Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#111

Post by bitwize »

peteretep wrote: post #18

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…

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.

Why should I do this myself?

I hate sausage on pizza. If I order a pepperoni and mushroom slice, I'm gonna get mad if the guy gives me back a pepperoni, mushroom, and sausage slice and tells me "it should be easy to pick out the sausages if you don't like 'em".

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#112

Post by katpas »

Find a company that you want to work for and then go on the site and read through the company blog. Hopefully those posts will be authored by someone and not just the 'company'. Then find that person on social media (twitter/google/linkedin) and use that to reach out to them via email or twitter (not everyone reads their linkedin because of the spam) referencing something interesting they've been working on. That's an effective way to get an 'in' if you don't have a network there already.

Also find out if they're hosting any events or speaking at any and attend. The process is a lot easier once you've actually met someone who works there.

Though I'm a developer now I got my last job in Sales/VC when I went to see the founder speak at an event, he intro'd me to the hiring manager who rejected me initially as I didn't have a start-up network (the job was finding start-ups deal-flow for funding). I got that job as I said I could create a network in 3 days and proved it.

https://medium.com/tech-london/not-a-hacker-or-a-hipster-how...

I agree with you about the spam. I've been gradually disabling my Linkedin as a result.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#113

Post by h1srf »

A lot of people here are harping on ineffective recruiters but it really depends on the industry. As a programmer in finance, pretty much no one posts job openings. Sell-side may but buy-side definitely doesn't. Using your network or going through a recruiter are the only real avenues to finding a job in this industry. Outside of new college grads, I've never met anyone that was hired from applying for a job directly through a company's site.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#114

Post by artmageddon »

DanBC wrote: post #108
15155 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? Who is harmed? In which jurisdiction?

The recruitee is deceiving someone to gain financial advantage, which is pretty much the definition of fraud. If the potential recruitee said "I'm looking for $X" they're not deceiving anyone.

I've been in situations where, despite telling them what I'm looking for, they've pressed me to disclose my salary. I've always been honest about it, but I can recall one specific instance where I disclosed my salary to a recruiter and told them that I was seeking a particular salary, only to be told, "No one is going to give you that big of an increase." Who said anything about an increase? It's about paying what I'm worth.

I've seen how a hiring company might look at a person who wants $X, but earns lower-paying figure and think, "Well, market pay is $X, but if the company before was paying them $X-20%, we can get away with offering $X-15% or $X-10% because it's a marginal increase for the applicant and we still save money."

evilduck, below: nails it with this[0]:

"companies aren't going to tell your their actual upper bounds for what they'll pay in salary, why should you tell them your actual lower bounds? "

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11678634

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#115

Post by peteretep »

bitwize wrote: post #111
peteretep wrote: post #18

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…

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. Why should I do this myself? I hate sausage on pizza. If I order a pepperoni and mushroom slice, I'm gonna get mad if the guy gives me back a pepperoni, mushroom, and sausage slice and tells me "it should be easy to pick out the sausages if you don't like 'em".

So, uh, what's your solution to be able to find lots of company-advertised jobs again?

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#116

Post by risforrob »

Jemaclus wrote: post #16

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…

I went through this same experience over the past year and a half. At some point I intend to write a more detailed blog post about my process, but the short version is that I did a boatload of research ahead of time, and leveraged the heck out of my network. In places where I found my network to be lacking, I invested additional time/effort to build connections. I had more success through networking and personal connections than I ever did via resumes or direct submissions. I didn't work with any recruiters, so I don't feel qualified to speak to their effectiveness.

I actually have some experience interviewing.io. I initially starting using it as a way brush up on my technical interviewing skills (it had been years since I was last an interviewee vs. interviewer) and it ended up being through interviewing.io that I was introduced to Mattermark where I was eventually hired. It was a great tool to have in my job-hunting tool belt as I was able to 1) brush up on my tech interviewing 2) meet/network with interviewers (when an interview went well) and 3) do a few 1st round interviews with a couple of prospective companies.

I wouldn't use interviewing.io as my only means to land an interview with a company. Especially since everything is anonymous, and thus only in specific circumstances do you know the company that your interviewer is associated with. But it was a great way to do low/no risk interviews that at least had the potential to count as a first round interview.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#117

Post by encoderer »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #99
encoderer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never read the cover letters, nor the "objective" on a resume. I do invest a lot of time finding the right people to join our team, but in a resume, my choice to move you to a phone screen will never hinge on those details, and nothing in your resume matters much once we start actually talking. I don't mean to detract from your overall assessment -- i think you've made good points. Edit: My resume advice? Give me y…

I could not disagree more about listing only skills you've mastered. As long as you're honest about your proficiency, you should absolutely list skills apart from just what you've mastered. In every job I've ever had, skills that fell way outside the core areas that I have mastered have been critical for success, and skills that were huge parts of the job description, hazing interviews, and smack in the middle of my…

For me, it's simply about signal to noise. Adding every technology you've ever touched doesn't add much value for me. The resume is not a document I'm making a hiring decision from. I want to learn about your skill-set during our interview process, not upfront in long form.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#119

Post by p4wnc6 »

encoderer wrote: post #117
p4wnc6 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not disagree more about listing only skills you've mastered. As long as you're honest about your proficiency, you should absolutely list skills apart from just what you've mastered. In every job I've ever had, skills that fell way outside the core areas that I have mastered have been critical for success, and skills that were huge parts of the job description, hazing interviews, and smack in the middle of my…

For me, it's simply about signal to noise. Adding every technology you've ever touched doesn't add much value for me. The resume is not a document I'm making a hiring decision from. I want to learn about your skill-set during our interview process, not upfront in long form.

Big difference between adding the kitchen sink buzzwords vs. adding things you have some notable knowledge or experience with, but not mastery.

Also, since you represent about 0.000001% of the people who might make decisions based on what's on my resume, it's not really optimized just for you. It's unfortunately optimized for something like the average, and I'd expect you to be mature enough to understand candidates really can't afford to do otherwise, even if they also don't like trying to do SEO on their own background and experience.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to go through recruiters nowadays, how do you find new jobs?

#120

Post by jeff_tyrrill »

artmageddon wrote: post #93
jeff_tyrrill wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your salary involves two parties, and you are only one of them. The other party is your employer. By stating an untrue salary, you're fraudulently claiming that your current or previous employer (usually known to your negotiating counterparty) agreed to pay you the stated amount. It's somewhat like lying about a credential.

Why is the business of the new employer to know how much I was making at my previous position? If they would agree to pay me for my skillset alone, that'd be one thing, but otherwise they'll simply use the information from my previous position to give me a de facto raise. Two can play at that game. Also, I could be wrong but I don't think a new employer will contact a previous employer to specifically learn how much…

> Why is the business of the new employer to know how much I was making at my previous position?

This isn't the question that I answered. It was asked how stating a specific, untrue salary might be fraud.

Refusing to answer and giving an untrue number are different.

> Also, I could be wrong but I don't think a new employer will contact a previous employer to specifically learn how much a particular individual was earning.

Lying doesn't mean you'll get caught.

Also, be careful. For example, during a background check for one my jobs (a rather "ordinary" one), they said they couldn't verify one of my previous employers, and asked if I could send them proof. I sent W2s for both years I was employed and my offer letter, which satisfied them. Maybe some would feel that's too remote a risk to worry about, but it's not out of the question.

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