Why are technical recruiters so clueless? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#41

Post by gaius » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 4:53 PM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #32

tocomment wrote: post #2

I never understood why they stop communicating if an opportunity doesn't pan out? Why wouldn't they be interested in cultivating a long term relationship? That's what I think I would do if I were a recruiter. I'd keep in touch with say 200 people I know are really good and keep placing them as they switched jobs. I'm guessing at least 10 or 20 of those people would be switching jobs every year.

Because being good at your job would put you out of work. :-) If you place people into positions that they really fit with, odds are they would stay longer, ergo, less money for you. What you would need to do is sell yourself as an agent that is constantly evaluating new gigs for a monthly fee. I think that might actually work really well for devs that consult as a primary business.

But a) when they are in a position to hire people they will call you/recommend you to their friends and b) when they do move, it will earn you a much larger commission than an entry level job.

It's speculative sure, but all long-term investments are.

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#42

Post by tomjen3 » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 4:57 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #10

Why are technical recruiters so clueless? Because they are a little less clueless than most HR departments. Are there any recruiters working in technology who get it? Yes. The top 1 or 2%. The bell curve of competency for recruiters is a lot steeper at the high end, so finding one who "gets it" is difficult. So when you do, keep them. Whether you're hiring or looking, they can change your life. The problem with this…

Maybe - but it can be though to be a recruiter if you can't even get your prospect to talk to you.

And I guess there are plenty of programmers who can't be bothered to even read this spam, much less considering whether it is worth actually reading.

Going by the definition given in court by the pirate bay founders, "undesired commercial messages".

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#43

Post by Timothee » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 4:57 PM UTC

KoZeN wrote: post #26

swombat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you liking it? Don't you prefer to do development yourself? What's the hardest thing about the job? Would you recommend it to other developers?

I love recruitment, I honestly do. Primarily because of the money I make! I loved working as a developer but there was a distinct lack of social and professional interaction that eventually led to me looking at other options. It was satisfying completing a difficult project and seeing it implemented but I get infinitely more satisfaction from finding someone their perfect job as well as landing a juicy commission pay…

No offense, but the fact that the money aspect is what you like the most puts me off a bit... it feels too much like the stereotypical "sales guy".

However, it explains why I dealt with a couple of recruiters who touted their PhD in their email signature. I couldn't really understand why someone with a PhD would "end up" being a recruiter. But money can explain it I suppose. (they were still bad though)

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#44

Post by alexyim » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:01 PM UTC

This email sounds exactly like one that I got. It seriously is just spam.

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#45

Post by riffic » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

drtse4 wrote: post #9

The main problem here is that Kelly should start using some other tools/source of information instead relying only on "grep" for her job.

hah, you think the recruiter uses a shell?

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#46

Post by netmau5 » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

Funny timing on this story: I was contacted yesterday at work by a recruiter. He called my cell phone and my typical response is to not answer calls that are not pre-defined contacts at work. The guy then went to my LinkedIn profile, found my company, went to the company website, and then called my office. I gave him an earful about how unprofessional I thought it was for him to be contacting me at my job to recruit for another position and then hung up on him when he tried to backpedal saying he was just looking for referrals. In my experience, recruiters are not only clueless but also rude and shady.

I have personally known a wonderful recruiter and despite my respect for her, I have very little respect for the average recruiter. The profession itself does provide value as it is truly difficult to find good people, but the low signal to noise among recruiters themselves can just as easily make it more difficult to find the right person.

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#47

Post by nuclear_eclipse » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #27

mikeryan wrote: post #3

Shoot he should respond to this "I created the Ruby on Rails framework. My base salary is $5,000,000 a year. Looking forward to relocating to SF"

No, because he knows the recruiter will have no idea what that means. She's just reading words off a page.

Reading? Don't you mean copying?

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#48

Post by ciupicri » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:06 PM UTC

olegkikin wrote: post #37

That's why me and my friends launched http://recruiter-review.com (I hope you don't consider this spam)

Please replace the Facebook login with a more generic OpenId login.

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#49

Post by clistctrl » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:06 PM UTC

kscaldef wrote: post #29

chow wrote: post #17

TL;DR: DHH is annoyed that there are people in the tech industry who have never heard of him.

No, he's legitimately complaining about people spamming out recruitment emails without doing any research on the people they are contacting. For example, my resume on my personal website says "I am not interested in moving from Portland. Really. Seriously." My LinkedIn profile says "I am happily located in Portland, OR. Please don't bother me with job possibilities that require moving somewhere else." And yet, I woul…

to be fair, a telecommute job would not require you to relocate, so it seems pretty legitimate ;)

Re: Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

#50

Post by nuclear_eclipse » Tue, Oct 05, 2010, 5:06 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #30

dhh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just extra spice on top. I fucking hate it when people I don't know assumes it okay to make up a nickname for me.

Really? I get called Dave, David, or even Davide (I live in Italy so even David might come out as "Dah-veed") and I really don't care as long as the person is nice and respectful and otherwise pleasant to communicate with (annoying recruiters don't really count). I mostly use it as a measure of how clued-in they are about me, but even some of the people who have mistaken me for a Davide (not the statue, unfortunately…

I don't care about slight misspellings or mispronunciation, (I get it all the time with the last name of "Reese"), by my biggest pet peeve is people assuming that John is short for Jonathon, even if/after they see my named spelled with the "h"...