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Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#21

Post by aeling »

dat66 wrote: post #20
codegeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. The issue is that those "Recruiters" who just spam you are not the ones I am talking about. I actually have worked with recruiters who are well connected in the industry and hire only for positions that are a good fit for the candidate. I have found at least 3 jobs in my past using those "good" recruiters. So I know that they work but are very hard to find. Needle in a Haystack.

How do we find good recruiters? I've worked with a few recruiters but never left with a good impression.

I had extremely positive experiences with Triplebyte, FWIW.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#22

Post by dat66 »

To answer your last question - they persist because they can make money.

I understand that recruiters who work directly for the hiring manager/firm provide value by filtering candidates. Unfortunately, jobs often get posted to multiple job sites by multiple secondary recruiters, exacerbating the need for filtering. Candidates can waste time dealing with multiple recruiters for what they think are different positions, only to learn that they are the same spot.

The industry could streamline this problem - and make the experience better for candidates - by eliminating paid referrals from secondary recruiters.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#23

Post by codegeek »

dat66 wrote: post #22

To answer your last question - they persist because they can make money. I understand that recruiters who work directly for the hiring manager/firm provide value by filtering candidates. Unfortunately, jobs often get posted to multiple job sites by multiple secondary recruiters, exacerbating the need for filtering. Candidates can waste time dealing with multiple recruiters for what they think are different positions,…

As a candidate, the first question to ask a recruiter is: Are you a direct vendor/working directly with the client ? If the answer is No, I don't deal with them anymore. I only want direct vendors i.e. no extra layers.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#24

Post by kemiller2002 »

Development Manager here. I will tell you exactly why. It is a LOT of work to find people. I'm not shy in the community either. I go to user groups and job fairs. I have always been the "You find people by pounding the pavement" sort of person, but it takes an immense amount of time. Between all my other responsibilities, it just becomes too difficult to manage at times. I try to get people without using them, because they are extremely expensive, but it probably frees up another 10 hours a week of my time that I can spend on other things that are as equally (or more) important.

This is on top of the fact that it is emotionally draining. Every person you talk to as a manager that you try and get to work for you is a sales pitch. To get people that you really want, you need to be engaged and energetic and positive about the workplace, even if you feel down. On top of this, reading resume after resume is actually draining. There are many, many that are poorly written, and you have to slog through them, because 1. you want to see if that person really is any good, 2. sometimes you don't have a large enough pool that you can just immediately discount someone. Having someone clear out the first round of all of that saves quite a bit energy.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#25

Post by scarface74 »

That's the problem. Anyone can apply for a job from anywhere. I find recruiters extremely valuable and I have about 10 companies that I work with regularly.

For context, I keep a spreadsheet everytime I look for a job, so any stats below are accurate.

1. My resume never goes into a black hole. I always know the status of my resume.

2. I always know the salary they are willing to pay before I start the process.

3. Recruiters generally get me to the top of the pile because I have a a track record of doing well in interviews with them.

4. I know more about the interviewing process because they debrief candidates after their interviews so they can warn me what to look out for.

5. I know what technologies are a must have and what technologies are a nice to have.

Recently, I've seen both sides of the coin from the same recruiter. I got my current job from going through him. Now I work with him to hire developers.

So the stats from my last job search in 2016 using recruiters. All of this was in a two week span.

jobs applied for: 16

recruiting agencies: 8

phone screens: 11

Hiring suspended/Req Closed: 4

offers: 2

in person interviews: 3

rejections: 1 (I took myself out of the running for all the others)

I would have never had that success rate randomly applying for jobs on a job board.

I had 6 phone screens in one day all with different companies.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#27

Post by gt_ »

seem_2211 wrote: post #13

I am a recruiter (albeit for salespeople), and I think there are a few big value points that we provide, when we do our jobs right. 1: Filtering. The downside of the internet making it easy to apply for jobs is that the candidates that do apply, don't tend to be the candidates you want. If you put a job up on Monster / Indeed etc, you're going to get a lot of candidates who aren't remotely qualified for what you're l…

Reading these comments has made me feel very stupid for treating recruiter messages like spam. Better late than never! I have been off the job market for almost a decade and things appear to have changed a lot.

Do you have any advice for working with recruiters, beyond basically doing the opposite of what I have been doing?

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#28

Post by charlesdm »

xmt wrote: post #15
seem_2211 wrote: post #13

I am a recruiter (albeit for salespeople), and I think there are a few big value points that we provide, when we do our jobs right. 1: Filtering. The downside of the internet making it easy to apply for jobs is that the candidates that do apply, don't tend to be the candidates you want. If you put a job up on Monster / Indeed etc, you're going to get a lot of candidates who aren't remotely qualified for what you're l…

This. I've stopped applying to companies directly because it takes too much of my time and the response rate is too low. With a recruiter I'm pretty much guaranteed at least the first round of interviews with just a 15 minute phone call. I imagine it's gotten to that point for a lot of job seekers.

Maybe if you can find a good one, but I've given up on them. Frankly, most (for candidate and company) are horrible and should've been fired years ago.

One exception to my experiences was a guy working internally at Google in Switzerland that I had contact with, who hands down was great.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#29

Post by javi830810 »

seem_2211 wrote: post #13

I am a recruiter (albeit for salespeople), and I think there are a few big value points that we provide, when we do our jobs right. 1: Filtering. The downside of the internet making it easy to apply for jobs is that the candidates that do apply, don't tend to be the candidates you want. If you put a job up on Monster / Indeed etc, you're going to get a lot of candidates who aren't remotely qualified for what you're l…

I agree with the values you mention they are "supposed" to provide. But in reality Filtering, I dont think they do it correctly. At least in Technology.

See technology nowadays it's a lot about buzzwords, and usually recruiters just look for keywords inside resumes. If you dont have one of those keywords, you're off the hook.

Technology hiring, could have another layer of analysis. For example every developer knows that if you've been doing mysql, and php, and web development. You probably can manage a CMS like Drupal or Wordpress. A recruiter would dismiss you for not having one of those in your resume.

Maybe this is good. Maybe not, my point is, job hiring is not only plain resume reading, and they usually dont go beyond that.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there still recruiters?

#30

Post by bcheung »

For me, as a tech worker, I've found recruiters to be extremely convenient. They have found me opportunities I have not otherwise come across and have helped me negotiate for the highest pay. They also can get your foot in the door more so than individually. Whenever I contact a company directly it usually never goes anywhere. Recruiters keep me posted on what the status is throughout the process instead of me wondering if the company even read my email.
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