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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

alexchesser.medium.com

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

#51

Post by mrweasel »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #11

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"

Yep, at least tell me who your recruiting for. I have a list of companies I don’t care to work for, so let’s not waist time on those.

A number of recruiters are also just bad at their job. I worked as a .Net developer 12 years ago, but most recruiters apparently aren’t smart enough to figure out that not only is my knowledge horrible out of date, it might also not interest me anymore.

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

#52

Post by andrew_ »

I run a small agency in addition to my full-time gig. Every time a recruiter sends me a message I respond with a script that includes criteria for work that I'll do, work that I won't do, and interview limitations. I also include an agency hourly rate which makes most of them run for the hills. Every great once in a while I'll get a short-term contract out of it.

The lone full-time contract I took on came about from recruiter contact, but he wasn't one of those keyword carpet bombing mooks. I've only ever landed one full-time job without a referral in 20 years in the industry. Referrals and niche market sites (e.g. AngelList) are the way to go.

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

#53

Post by habeebtc »

I make a habit of responding to each and every recruiter.

The ones who send me jobs I am way overqualified for, or simply don't pay enough, I tell them my current compensation package with the advice to send relevant offers in the future.

Realistically though, every external recruiter I have talked to since I got into my current big tech company has been a waste of time. They can't usually touch my comp package, and only the other big tech companies are likely to be able to (or internal recruiters).

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

#54

Post by dogman144 »

throwaway202202 wrote: post #19

This may be familiar by now but developers are very lucky. I left computers to move to investments, make 500k+/year but I envy the stability and choices that developers have. If I lost my job tomorrow it is not clear I could find another similar job. You have lots of options. It looks like the situation will remain this way during our lifetimes (you never know), but you should at least appreciate it.

Great take. I turned down a path into finance to go computers, and did so to target the reverse of what you notice.

Few other jobs offer pay and stability similar to a Dr. or Lawyer without the working hours and with geo-flexibilty. Few other jobs offer a shot at a massive personal liquidity event without the direct exposure to a recession like in finance. Few other jobs offer this pay for what's basically a trade without a tough physical lifestyle like working in O&G.

If more "normal" people went into engineering, as in the normal white collar types who are smart but go into MBAs/MDs instead, I think we'd see interesting social impacts as more people discover that you can do flavors of digital nomad work without being the stereotypical tech bro. I think this is just starting to happen with MBAs who go into TPM roles.

Eng paths re-enanble lifestyles that I feel were lost post-1970 for much of the general working population. Now, you can live and work nearly anywhere. No requirements to suck it up in Cleveland, NYC, whatever for the kids because of good schools and a good local white collar job. If you want to pack up and go to Europe, you can grab a visa from big US tech there, or small startups. Just meet the right recruiter. Wild stuff.

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

#55

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #11

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"

Yep, short and sweet. If they can't answer that then they aren't worth your time.

Works most of the time for me.

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

#56

Post by dboreham »

throwaway202202 wrote: post #19

This may be familiar by now but developers are very lucky. I left computers to move to investments, make 500k+/year but I envy the stability and choices that developers have. If I lost my job tomorrow it is not clear I could find another similar job. You have lots of options. It looks like the situation will remain this way during our lifetimes (you never know), but you should at least appreciate it.

I think this means that your compensation reflects the cost to your employer should you decide to quit.

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

#57

Post by dvtrn »

fecak wrote: post #49
anonygler wrote: post #26

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,…

Former recruiter here. You are spot-on about referrals, and having an insider advocating for you or just their willingness to make the recommendation starts things off at a great spot. Here's where I disagree. You haven't doubled your salary BECAUSE of your policy of not working with recruiters, but rather DESPITE this policy. Deciding to disregard any recruiter opportunity is just shutting out quite a few things tha…

Deciding to disregard any recruiter opportunity is just shutting out quite a few things that you probably won't hear about otherwise

and

that policy is doing nothing to advance your position (career, earnings, etc.)

Are readers supposed to read this as a suggestion that missing out is synonymous with losing out? I kind of take exception to these phrases because it strips a lot of agency out of otherwise exceptional people who are more than capable of navigating their careers to where they want them to be, maybe not necessarily where you as a recruiter think they should be.

Seems to me the market is very strong for employees and those with in demand skills and experience to back them up are probably missing out on job x but probably aren’t losing out by any equal measure-all other considerations being equal. One of the most common refrains I've been hearing right here on HackerNews in response to the 'Great Resignation' isn't that people are leaving the workforce, they're just finally leaving jobs they've been wanting to anyway and taking their labor elsewhere.

So

That said, what does it really matter if someone decides they want more autonomy in who they decide to interview with? Shouldn’t we be encouraging more of this?

Especially given some of the fees that come with hiring through a recruiter?

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

#58

Post by AlexC04 »

eatonphil wrote: post #36
AlexC04 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd love to see your version of the same thing. The exact response isn't really as important as writing something that is authentic and in "your voice"

You're probably right that a different response would work well for you.

Though if a recruiter wasn't willing to read through that for the ~$30k payday I'd represent if they are successful, maybe that's one that I don't want to work with either.

But we all gravitate towards people who we think we'd fit with. Maybe someone skips over me for coming across as a stuffy and a lot of work and maybe someone else says "finally a type-a jackass like me! we're gonna crush this thing"

ha ha ha

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

#59

Post by CoastalCoder »

TameAntelope wrote: post #43
anonygler wrote: post #26

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,…

Ah, but if someone doesn't have the secret sauce, are you then suggesting that person is doomed? Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry, especially given our diversity problems.

I think the popular definition of "nepotism" is hiring one's family or close relations. I doubt anyone is advocating that.

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

#60

Post by picture_view »

anonygler wrote: post #26

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,…

I was recently talking to a 3rd party recruiter who started asking me for detailed salary info of all my past jobs. I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable answering that, then when he pushed back I told him I’m legally not required to give him that info in my state (and the potential employer’s state.) He abruptly cut the call off and ghosted me.

I decided to apply to the company directly. They were happy to talk to me because my experience was a really good fit for them. I come to find out that the recruiter emailed them saying that I was a poor candidate and that he suggest they don’t talk to me. Luckily they didn’t listen to him.

I am also done with 3rd party recruiters.

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