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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

#81

Post by hamburglar »

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,…

Also strong disagree. I literally ignore several obviously useless recruiters a week. I occasionally humor one long enough to confirm that they know exactly nothing about me and have put zero actual thought into their inquiry. Asking “what about my resume made you think of me for this position” is usually very enlightening.

I do have an exception, however, and it’s not recruiters that are affiliated with a particular company, it’s high quality recruiters that my friends refer me to and who will work on my behalf. I had one spend a TON of time really getting to know what I was looking for, what my skills were, and what made me happy, and he looked at companies with an eye toward making both me and the company happy long term, because he knew that’s where the big payoff was.

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

#82

Post by atum47 »

Maybe once you're a respected programmer with some solid companies on your resumeé recruiters maybe nice to you. Fresh out of college, like I was a few years back, recruiters really don't care about you. They spam you likedin inbox and you email with generic messages to see if anyone bites. Back in my day they went as far as sending me whatsapp messages - the funny thing is - they don't even bother to properly answer you.

I was coming back from the south of the country to my city, a long drive, and I received a whatsapp message from a recruiter telling me about an opportunity, since I was fresh out of college looking for a job, I stopped the car to talk to them, only to find out they won't respond you right away. I only got a answer from this person like 3 days later.

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

#84

Post by mrweasel »

robin_reala wrote: post #41

Who else has real and direct insight into how much money any given role pays? Your union?

I get access to salary statistics every year via my union. They collect everything from the member, support is almost always around 80%. Just plug in area, experience, title and if you have a management role. So yeah, my answer would be: most people have insight in salary levels.

Also remember that in some countries you income is public record that can be looked up by anyone.

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

#85

Post by rthomas6 »

I wonder if it would work to respond with a link to an online form to fill out with the job details. This website would also contain your resume and descriptions/code for your software projects. Kind of a script flip, making potential employers apply to you, rather than the other way around. Obviously this will only work if you are really good, and know it.

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

#86

Post by kcarter80 »

ehnto wrote: post #78
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,…

That's the career advice I would give, build good bridges and make friends with people. Everyone is moving around enough that you'll be able to cross into new companies and skip whole song and dance prior. You also get the benefit of having a heads up on the company you're joining too. I don't have a professional network per se, just a bunch of friends I clicked with at various companies. I know if they're enjoying s…

That is a professional network.

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

#88

Post by TameAntelope »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #59
TameAntelope wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Closeness isn't a requisite for nepotistic behavior, only undue bias due to personal familiarity.

I don't think it's any less bad to hire someone you don't know all that well because you share friends than it is to hire people because they're you're close friend or a family member.

The point is that it's exclusionary to outsiders, and outsiders tend to be the exact people tech needs more of.

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

#89

Post by AlexC04 »

atum47 wrote: post #82

Maybe once you're a respected programmer with some solid companies on your resumeé recruiters maybe nice to you. Fresh out of college, like I was a few years back, recruiters really don't care about you. They spam you likedin inbox and you email with generic messages to see if anyone bites. Back in my day they went as far as sending me whatsapp messages - the funny thing is - they don't even bother to properly answer…

That's baked into the assumption of the script though. If your response is a copy and paste, who cares about the ones that ghost you after one message? Doesn't matter because the cost of interaction was quite low.

If they send the ball back after your initial response THEN you know you can open a conversation up until that point, just assume it is spam and you're spamming them back.

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

#90

Post by macksd »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #80
duxup wrote: post #12

My current approach: I don't have time ... the volume of messages is too high, and the amount of 'legitimate' inquiries are too low. And the odds of getting ghosted by the recruiter too high. If they're a recruiter from a company that I know and they WORK FOR that company, I'll respond. Having said that I think that is a good article and I really like that email.

Is there a decent way to determine that? I know there are two extremes: (a) recruiter is a regular employee of hiring company, vs. (z) recruiter works for an unaffiliated placement company. But i.e. if a recruiter is a temporary contractor with the hiring company, they'd still have an email address from that company, right?

I suppose it is possible that a temporary contractor has an email address from that company, but I think you can get reasonably high signal by looking at their LinkedIn history. Switching positions every few months is a red flag. Even if they're an independent contractor, longer-term arrangements with each client suggest better relationships and better commitment to real outcomes.

I see plenty of recruiters who just work for recruiting firms and don't hide that fact. Anyone who won't immediately tell me who they're recruiting for gets ignored. I'm sure I end up talking to the occasional contractor but you can easily filter out a lot of obvious low-hanging (and rotten) fruit).

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