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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

#141

Post by Kalium »

AlexC04 wrote: post #17
vmception wrote: post #9

How could anyone come to this contrarian conclusion, even after reading the article it is baffling. There is a time and place for in-house recruiters and third party recruiters. This article does not identify them and obsessively takes the contrarian view with no supporting rationale for doing so.

Hey! Thanks for your feedback. I would love to try and understand what you're saying but I'm struggling a little. Can you explain what you mean by "There is a time and place for in-house recruiters and third party recruiters." what is that time and place? I honestly tried to be really nuanced (but clearly failed a little, thanks for that data point). I think it does speak to the fact that I have seen 20 years of the…

I wouldn't go so far as to say zero value, but I would say that engaging with third-party recruiters is generally an activity with a negative expected value. Generally they don't actually have or aren't willing to share the incredibly useful real and direct insights you wisely point to.

Personally, I've found that high quality messages from recruiters are usually painfully obvious. They lead with the name of the company and show evidence that the recruiter read my profile. These are so rare that I completely skip any kind of bot-ish response to handle them.

Most of the responses I can expect to the kind, compassionate, empathetic script you've so helpfully provided will not contain all three data points requested. At best, we can expect to get a JD and maybe a company name. Comp is usually withheld and the cycle goes around again.

Treating the recruiter-spammers as humans, unfortunately, does not really seem to produce the results we would all love it to. It mostly seems to be treated as proof that the spammer has hooked a fish and just has to reel them in.

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

#142

Post by stakkur »

I have to say--none of this advice would be actionable in all my previous experiences with recruiters.

The truest statement is the one the author makes up front: >Recruiters are just cold calling

More accurately, they're contacting a lot of people who's profile contains their search keywords. No recruiter is contacting only you for a req they're trying to fill.

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

#143

Post by OJFord »

derwiki wrote: post #114
dewey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's just that you might as well just ignore it and not cause any additional noise.

Not GP but I can’t shake that it feels rude, even if expected. But more practically: if I decline after the first, I don’t get the other 4 emails they have queued up for me

I replied to a first follow up (~'I don't think I'm a good fit', nevermind anything else) this morning as it happens. Almost always ignore; took one as far as interview a few years ago, which I never heard back from (no result/feedback) until a week or so ago! But I might make that a policy, if they 'just check in' after the first email then may as well try to head it off there I suppose.

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

#144

Post by Kalium »

joezydeco wrote: post #136
Kalium wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hey ____. Before we move forward, can you provide me with the company name, a job description, and the expected compensation. Regards" I've found that this makes 80-90% of recruiters go completely silent. For some reason, asking for this basic information scares off the vast majority of recruiters. I'm genuinely unsure what I - or they - get out of dragging this out into a screenful of blah blah blah.

They go silent, or they also give a canned response about being competitive in the market when it comes to comp (without naming a number). If they do name a number and you reply it's too low, they again go into a canned response of "we're willing to reach (++x) for the right candidate", which is just as much bullshit as before. You'll complete an interview cycle and get the lowball offer of (original x). TLDR they'll…

Sometimes I say something like "I'm glad to hear you're competitive! I'm currently being offered $REAL_BIG_COMPANY_NUMBER, so I look forward to our conversation." Generally this ends the conversation.

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

#145

Post by Tehchops »

I don't know if it needs to be this elaborate. I like the idea though.

However...

> Can you send along the company name, a job description and, total compensation details for the role you’re reaching out in reference to?

Should be table stakes. I've started having to walk away from any recruiter that insists on a 15 minute call without providing these details up front. I wish there was some collective awareness around the fact that if someone took a 15 min call with every recruiter ping they got, they'd be on the phone 5-8 hours a day.

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

#146

Post by sebastianconcpt »

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"

This is what I'm doing so far. I typically answer stating how I would like to work and hint my conditions and let them know that I'm happy to follow up if they see a fit.

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

#147

Post by ehnto »

FredPret wrote: post #137
ZhangSWEFAANG wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant that he dosen't have a huge professional network, just something slightly informal.

That is a professional network.

I was just trying to articulate what I see as a difference between a purpose built career network and a network of actual friends from work. There is a difference between those two types of networks not captured when you call them both a "Professional network".

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

#149

Post by silisili »

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,…

Same. Sorry for any good recruiters out there, but these people are generally used car salesman like scum. Multiple keep emailing my work address even after asking them numerous times to stop. One I worked with on a potentially good role - acted like my best buddy, constantly texting and calling for weeks, and when I decided not to take the offer, just ghosted me. Not even an 'OK thanks anyways'. I think even an annoyed reply like 'Sigh, OK' would have been more professional.

Anymore I just ignore them all.

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

#150

Post by vanusa »

TameAntelope wrote: post #88
CoastalCoder wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Actually it is; it's how the term is defined.

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