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Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

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41–50 of 147 posts

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#41

I appreciate the idea - I've had some bad experiences with recruiters myself, and the temptation to shame them to the world certainly has some raw emotional appeal. But I've also had wonderful experiences with recruiters, that resulted in great jobs that lasted for years. So I have some concerns: 1) Specifically seeking out bad reviews is likely to attract angry rants. Yelp has their share of bitter people lashing ou…

I completely agree. Public shaming lists aren't advisable.

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#42

Fun reading, however why not turn this into an authoritative source for something akin to a donotcall registry? If something like that got some traction, and you were able to secure some endorsements from big tech players, these irritants would become less of an issue, and recruiters would be more effective in their efforts instead of wasting time with people who don't want to be bothered.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#43

I appreciate the idea - I've had some bad experiences with recruiters myself, and the temptation to shame them to the world certainly has some raw emotional appeal. But I've also had wonderful experiences with recruiters, that resulted in great jobs that lasted for years. So I have some concerns: 1) Specifically seeking out bad reviews is likely to attract angry rants. Yelp has their share of bitter people lashing ou…

We actually asked ourselves the same questions. The natural evolution of this tool would be to allow for reviews of recruiters/agencies.

Regarding point 1) there are ways to fight unjustified negative reviews (e.g. "I didn't get a job, this agency sucks!"), similarly to how they do on websites like Yelp. This is more of a community guided effort (unless we start actively moderating reviews, which is an option).

For now we're focusing more on building a sort of index of "horror stories" involving recruiters but before releasing the data we'll make a big effort not to publish biased content or blatant lies.

For point 2) We absolutely agree and we are still discussing how to release the data so that "nobody gets hurt", at least individually. You can keep in touch with us by adding your email address to the form (even if you don't want to share any story, although it would be much appreciated). Feel free to use a temporary email address or an alias.

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#44
This whole proposal sounds just like one that a spoiled teenager would make.

Instead of feeling lucky to have a skill highly sought after, and to live in an economy that can afford to not only pay good money, but that will even send people out to throw that money after you, you still find reason to complain.

Set aside, I am aware, that there are crappy jobs, companies and people around, that want to scam and screw you.

But overall, that situation is quite a luxury, ... complaining about that is even beyond the proverbial first world problems.

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#45
@chprmc good idea to have an anon way of collecting the data.

In the UK we have a list of "spammy recruiters" who consistently disrespect "unsubscribe" requests and send useless/unrelated emails see: https://github.com/drcongo/spammy-recruiters

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#47
post #41

I appreciate the idea - I've had some bad experiences with recruiters myself, and the temptation to shame them to the world certainly has some raw emotional appeal. But I've also had wonderful experiences with recruiters, that resulted in great jobs that lasted for years. So I have some concerns: 1) Specifically seeking out bad reviews is likely to attract angry rants. Yelp has their share of bitter people lashing ou…

I completely agree. Public shaming lists aren't advisable.

Don't worry, it won't turn into a public shaming list, we already thought about that. We will update the form to make this clear.

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#48
- me, not looking for job - headhunter contacts me on linkedin, tells me I'm perfect match for "data science" job - me, aerospace engineer and autodidact embedded hacker - keeps pushing - tell him, ok let's have a call at xx time - sends me a calendar invite with the wrong time and my name spelled wrong - tell him, wrong time and my name is spelled "Sebastian" - tells me: "I'm sorry I have to cancel the call, I don't think you are a good fit personality-wise." - AND NOW I'M SAD I DIDN'T GET THE JOB I DON'T WANT WTF

Funniest thing is that I misspelled my online-handle when I registered at hacker news ...

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#49

This whole proposal sounds just like one that a spoiled teenager would make. Instead of feeling lucky to have a skill highly sought after, and to live in an economy that can afford to not only pay good money, but that will even send people out to throw that money after you, you still find reason to complain. Set aside, I am aware, that there are crappy jobs, companies and people around, that want to scam and screw yo…

Maybe an overstatement. Bad recruiters are essentially scammers, not trying to throw money at anybody but just hoping to score a commission without working.

Re: Ask HN: Dontrecruit.me – A website to collect stories about bad recruiters

#50
post #30

I am green to working with recruiters. What should I watch for? I already do not like the experience but I don't know if that's a problem with me or them.

There are a lot of guides to help you figure out whether a recruiter is serious or not. A recent thing that happened to me was that a recruitment agency refused to let me have a chat with their client before I provided some references. It seemed weird and I really didn't want to waste my references not having even just a verbal confirmation that they were interested in hiring me. I really thought they were asking in…

Earlier discussion of the "don't give your references to a recruiter" point on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17412060
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