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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

alexchesser.medium.com

31–40 of 633 posts

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#31

That's a pretty big wall of text when most recruiters reach out with a single sentence or few sentences.

I like to think of it as spamming the spammers! The marginal cost of extra words in a "select all -> copy -> paste" is pretty low so I think it makes a lot of sense to be very clear and address any objections they might have in advance.

I also have found through experimentation that posting one liners like "how much?" just results in the recruiter reverting to their own script of "objection handlers"

The size and clarity of the message really does say "this isn't a conversation", "no bullshit" and "let's not fuck around here"

This is my own experience though. I've been running with it and refining for about 6 months to a year. Maybe It could be better. :)

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#33

I also recommend a response to every recruiter, but you don't need to explain your privilege, you don't need to suck up to them, and you don't need to justify your actions. "Hey ____. Before we move forward, can you provide me with the company name, a job description, and the expected compensation. Regards"

Or just a canned, "Thanks for getting in touch, but I'm not looking for a change right now."

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#34
post #7

The typical recruiting-house recruiter has a script that was given to them by someone else, has no particular job in mind for you, and does not know the difference between Java and JavaScript. They are, in short, one small step above spammers. Unless you are currently thinking about changing jobs, you should definitely ignore them. None of that applies to an in-house recruiter. Someone who works in HR for the hiring…

My experience has been the opposite. 3rd party recruiters cold messaging me have led to my last two job changes and significant bumps in salary. One of them put my salary in at a higher level than I had asked for.

In house recruiters on the other hand have not been more knowledgeable about the team they are trying to fill for. Also, I have a theory that companies that are willing to pay a huge commission check to 3rd party recruiters are more likely to pay more for talent.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#36
post #31

That's a pretty big wall of text when most recruiters reach out with a single sentence or few sentences.

I like to think of it as spamming the spammers! The marginal cost of extra words in a "select all -> copy -> paste" is pretty low so I think it makes a lot of sense to be very clear and address any objections they might have in advance. I also have found through experimentation that posting one liners like "how much?" just results in the recruiter reverting to their own script of "objection handlers" The size and cla…

I think you could get the same effect but in like 6-8 sentences, 1-2 paragraphs.

If I saw this text in a response, personally (and I'm not a recruiter), I'd move on since the person seems hard to handle.

But yeah my approach is different in the first place. I only respond to recruiters who seem to put good thought and background research into their conversation starter.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#39

Strong disagree. I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time out of sheer incompetence and disinterest. I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy. But the real secret sauce is referrals. Companies always prioritize a strong referral,…

You make a good point. This advice is strongly weighted towards people who still have multiple salary doublings left in their career ladder. At each step up the career ladder, you can afford to be more and more selective around what you're looking for.

This basic script is designed to remove or greatly reduce that time-waste from the early process.

I'd argue that it makes early ghosting a non issue, by reducing the cost of the initial and clear response it cuts through multiple layers of that dance that the spam-cruiters go through.

You're also right about referrals and I don't think this is mutually exclusive with them, instead it is a complimentary passive search protocol.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#40

Strong disagree. I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time out of sheer incompetence and disinterest. I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy. But the real secret sauce is referrals. Companies always prioritize a strong referral,…

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