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Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#21

Post by imsofuture »

nunez wrote: post #19

Yes! I love (external) recruiters. Why? Besides being incredibly interesting people, their sole purpose in life (as a recruiter) is to find you a job at the highest salary possible. Why? Their commission, and their company's profitability, is wholly dependent on it. This is important. They not only know how much you're worth in your given market, but because they are salespeople, they are likely connected to recruite…

Recruiters don't get paid if you don't get hired. They are not incentivized to get you the highest salary, they're incentivized to get you hired.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#22

Post by codingdave »

nunez wrote: post #19

Yes! I love (external) recruiters. Why? Besides being incredibly interesting people, their sole purpose in life (as a recruiter) is to find you a job at the highest salary possible. Why? Their commission, and their company's profitability, is wholly dependent on it. This is important. They not only know how much you're worth in your given market, but because they are salespeople, they are likely connected to recruite…

That is a bit of a myth that recruiters always get you the highest salary. They are competing on price, just like every other transaction in any other business. If they try to maximize salary, some other recruiter with a cheaper candidate will get the gig, and they will get zero commission because you won't get the job.

And like you said, they look for long-term value. Which means they want a reputation for bringing a good value to the companies, not always bringing in expensive candidates.

So you cannot have it both ways... if they benefit on both sides of the fence, then they cannot always be maximizing the benefit to the side of the candidate.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#23

Post by nunez »

killnine wrote: post #13
scarface74 wrote: post #9

I think recruiters are great. I've been working with them for almost 20 years. As long as they are local recruiters working with local companies. I have 20 recruiters all from different companies in my contacts. - They have always asked me for permission before submitting me to a company. - My application never goes into a black hole like it would if I were applying for a company directly. I don't think I've ever bee…

I've had trouble finding recruiters in general. How do you find yours? Or do they find you?

Find and message them on LinkedIn. Pay for the messaging plan; it is way more effective than stuffing your message in the connection request. Also, be prepared to talk salary and have a resume on hand.

LinkedIn is their tool of choice these days. StackOverflow Careers is another popular option for them. Facebook Jobs might pick up steam, so I'd experiment with that too.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#24

Post by nunez »

imsofuture wrote: post #21
nunez wrote: post #19

Yes! I love (external) recruiters. Why? Besides being incredibly interesting people, their sole purpose in life (as a recruiter) is to find you a job at the highest salary possible. Why? Their commission, and their company's profitability, is wholly dependent on it. This is important. They not only know how much you're worth in your given market, but because they are salespeople, they are likely connected to recruite…

Recruiters don't get paid if you don't get hired. They are not incentivized to get you the highest salary, they're incentivized to get you hired .

The bigger the salary, the bigger their commission is. So, yes, they are incentivized by salary as well.

Not the case for internal recruiters.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#26

Post by diggan »

uladzislau wrote: post #15

Completely opposite experience here. Nothing good ever came from the recruiters (unlike the direct contacts with the companies). Usually they are hiring for the most undesirable roles/ problematic companies, they misrepresent the roles to the candidates and the candidates to the companies. The most annoying thing is however when they cold email you saying "I have this great role for an awesome company". Without sayin…

Reading that last paragraph reminds of a recruiter we had at a previous company. She emailed me and wanted to interview me for a position, for the same company! She said I was perfect for the role and would fit so good with the company and I agreed. Seems she didn't read either my Facebook, Twitter, Github or Stack Overflow profile where I had which company I currently work for, very visible.

In the end, I agreed to have a call with her, just to show her midways that I already was in the office of the company she was recruiting for.

She felt bad for it, and then we found new recruiters. Not saying all recruiters are like this, just a fun anecdote.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#27

Post by user5994461 »

nunez wrote: post #23
killnine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had trouble finding recruiters in general. How do you find yours? Or do they find you?

Find and message them on LinkedIn. Pay for the messaging plan; it is way more effective than stuffing your message in the connection request. Also, be prepared to talk salary and have a resume on hand. LinkedIn is their tool of choice these days. StackOverflow Careers is another popular option for them. Facebook Jobs might pick up steam, so I'd experiment with that too.

and ask people around you what recruiters put them in the company, and how was their experience with it.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#28

Post by user5994461 »

nunez wrote: post #24
imsofuture wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiters don't get paid if you don't get hired. They are not incentivized to get you the highest salary, they're incentivized to get you hired .

The bigger the salary, the bigger their commission is. So, yes, they are incentivized by salary as well. Not the case for internal recruiters.

No, they are not incentivized to get you a higher salary.

It doesn't matter to them whether you make +-10k$ at the end of the year. It's about the same commission for them, they just need you to accept and move to the next candidate.

If anything they are competing on price and selling you for cheaper makes it easier to place you.

Not to mention that if they only have positions and companies that pay poorly in their portfolio, they're not gonna say it.

Re: Ask HN: Is there anything you like about recruiters?

#30

Post by nunez »

uladzislau wrote: post #15

Completely opposite experience here. Nothing good ever came from the recruiters (unlike the direct contacts with the companies). Usually they are hiring for the most undesirable roles/ problematic companies, they misrepresent the roles to the candidates and the candidates to the companies. The most annoying thing is however when they cold email you saying "I have this great role for an awesome company". Without sayin…

Ask them for the company. If they can't provide it, then move on. If you're still curious, you can take a snippet of the description of the job they provide and search for it verbatim on Google to find an entry from a recruiter who forgot to not disclose.

Either way, move on if they won't tell you who it is.

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