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Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

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Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#41

Post by TamDenholm »

KoZeN wrote: post #36

tl;dr Recruiters suck and only care about arbitrary bullshit. This statement acurately describes 95% of my colleagues. I will happily accept the challenge of changing your perception of our industry. I'm a technical recruiter that covers the London market. Feel free to send me your CV. My details are in my profile. Also, feel free to have a look through my comment history. I'm not on this site to pick up leads or pus…

I have heard of you on HN before actually, a recruiter with moral integrity and a clue, i remembered it because its like finding a unicorn. My respect to you sir.

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#42

Post by koevet »

KoZeN wrote: post #36

tl;dr Recruiters suck and only care about arbitrary bullshit. This statement acurately describes 95% of my colleagues. I will happily accept the challenge of changing your perception of our industry. I'm a technical recruiter that covers the London market. Feel free to send me your CV. My details are in my profile. Also, feel free to have a look through my comment history. I'm not on this site to pick up leads or pus…

I was actually hoping to read a reply from a recruiter. Good to hear that there is someone in the IT European recruiting business with a genuine interest in doing the job properly.

How would you go regarding changing the current "95% of my colleagues suck" situation?

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#43

Post by illumin8 »

To give you an idea of the completely unqualified recruiters I've dealt with: I'm a Systems Engineer/Architect. I do hardware, Linux, UNIX, etc. On my resume somewhere it says I have experience maintaining Java application servers, Tomcat, BEA Weblogic, etc.

To this day, I still get random emails from recruiters trying to post me in a position as a Java developer. I think the only qualification for a recruiter is the ability to type "java" into a Monster search field.

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#44

Post by rlpb »

edanm wrote: post #35
rlpb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like an issue of honesty. Context is important. Questions must always be answered from the questioner's point of view. If you've finished a PhD involving mathematical modelling, from the recruiter's perspective you are definitely good at maths. So the correct answer to "Are you good at maths?" from a recruiter is simply "Yes". If he wants more details then he'll ask for it. The correct answer is no…

"Most people give long winded answers when they're trying to weasel out of giving the straight answer that they don't want to give because it'll make them look bad." It's well-known that "geeks" generally try to answer questions literally, and as accurately as possible. It's also pretty well known that the better at a field you are, the less highly you think of yourself (the Dunning–Kruger effect.) Put those two toge…

> It's well-known that "geeks" generally try to answer questions literally, and as accurately as possible.

Indeed. I do this too and have to work to stop myself. It's much easier in hindsight.

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#46

Post by illumin8 »

wccrawford wrote: post #5

You have failed to understand her job. Her clients are requiring these things. I know this, because the company I work for has had to draw hard lines on recruiters. Before that, they would send us utter crap and waste our time. Now, we don't get many hits, but most of them are actually worth talking to. She asked you all those questions because when she assumes things, her customers get really angry. Sending bad recr…

I respectfully disagree. Every reputable company I've ever been offered a job at requires references after they've decided to hire you.

Any recruiter trying to harvest references of "managers and people in authority" is just a weasel trying to fill their sales contact database.

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#47

Post by thomas11 »

edw519 wrote: post #38
thomas11 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that's a generous and tempting offer, but how would it actually work? First, they usually want to know about the work relation you had with the reference. Just inventing something is dangerous and ethically questionable, recruiters or not. Then, what if the hiring company actually contacted you?

but how would it actually work? Exactly as I propose in grandparent. Reread it if necessary. they usually want to know about the work relation you had with the reference. I will tell them that we are colleagues on-line. Although we have never met in real life, we participate in Hacker News together. Believe me, I know much more about lots of people here than many I know in real life. For example, I would heartily rec…

Thanks for your detailed response (and the original offer!).

I had understood your proposal just fine, and was wondering about the recruiters' side. I and surely most of us on HN agree with what you wrote on virtual relationships, fairly assessing a candidate based on the CV, and handling personal references with respect.

However, will such an HN reference pass the recruiter, and then the hiring person at the company? A technically clueless HR person won't be too impressed by "this guy on a web forum says my Hello World is fine". Again, I agree that in an ideal world, they would call the candidate and figure out his skills on their own, but they don't.

In any case, I'll bookmark your original post, one never knows :-)

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#48

Post by tocomment »

Is it normal for freelancers to pay recruiters a referal fee? I figure normally they have a set of contracts they're trying to fill and they're not going to submit me for anything else since they wouldn't get paid.

But what if I paid a 10 percent fee? Would they then be out there finding contracts for me? Is that something that's ever done?

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#49

Post by billswift »

edanm wrote: post #35
rlpb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like an issue of honesty. Context is important. Questions must always be answered from the questioner's point of view. If you've finished a PhD involving mathematical modelling, from the recruiter's perspective you are definitely good at maths. So the correct answer to "Are you good at maths?" from a recruiter is simply "Yes". If he wants more details then he'll ask for it. The correct answer is no…

"Most people give long winded answers when they're trying to weasel out of giving the straight answer that they don't want to give because it'll make them look bad." It's well-known that "geeks" generally try to answer questions literally, and as accurately as possible. It's also pretty well known that the better at a field you are, the less highly you think of yourself (the Dunning–Kruger effect.) Put those two toge…

Your use of Dunning-Kruger isn't quite accurate. The better you are the less likely you are to overestimate yourself, unless you are in the very top, in which case you are likely to underestimate yourself in relation to others. Basically, because people have relatively little interaction with people that are very different from themselves, most people tend to rank themselves in the 3rd quartile, whether they are from the bottom two or from the top. That is very different from not knowing what you are capable of.

Re: Tell HN: Tech Recruiters have no clue

#50

Post by berntb »

I have the impression that the British recruiters are slimier than in other places?

At least, most of the horror stories I've read about European recruiters come from England?

(My limited experience from e.g. Sweden is bett... hrm, not as bad. An article written by me would use the word "clueless" often, but just a few "sleazy" and maybe one "evil". I'd even use some positive adjectives, like "human", "working hard to learn" and "serious".)

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