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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

#201

Post by AlexC04 »

lhorie wrote: post #130
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,…

My takeaway from the article wasn't to work with every recruiter that spams you (in the sense of actually spending time in their funnel), but rather, take the opportunity to "interview them" with a "standardized test" of sorts. As the article said, most of the time, you're not actively job searching, but you generally do care about salary data points and what sort of roles are available. For unicorns, you can find sa…

I love this response. Thanks Leo!

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

#202

Post by vintermann »

dvtrn wrote: post #57
fecak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As far as I can see, the only thing outsourced recruiters provide is blame-shifting. They're not better at judging candidates. They're not better at finding candidates. They're almost certainly worse at understanding what the company needs than the company, and worse at understanding what the candidate has to offer than the candidate.

But, if the company hires a few people they're unhappy with through a recruiter (which is bound to happen from random chance no matter how they hire), they have someone to blame. They can switch to another recruiter, and assure their further-ups that the problem has been addressed.

There are many corporate roles that are mostly about providing blame-shifting opportunities, but outsourced recruiting is an unusually pure one. Along with "networking"-logrolling, it's one of the things which I really can't stand about working in software development, and on darker days they makes me wonder if I shouldn't go be a hermit in a cabin in the woods or something instead.

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

#203

Post by nsxwolf »

Tehchops wrote: post #139
onphonenow wrote: post #64

"It is a wonderful position of privilege to be in and I’m thankful for it." Insta-delete if I'm doing hiring... ? I've found folks who actually deliver seem to have less of this type of long winded stuff.

Do you have hard data to back that up or is it just anecdotal personal bristling whenever someone says "privilege"?

I personally bristle when someone says "privilege", but I don't think a recruiter should.

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

#204

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

I pretty much always respond to recruiters that seem to have understood what I do, even if I'm not looking. They are gold.

I usually ignore the others.

The ones that spam me with positions that are clearly absolutely nothing to do with my career, I sometimes respond to asking why they think I'm suitable. And that's just for the childish pleasure of wasting a bit of their time.

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

#206

Post by TameAntelope »

vanusa wrote: post #150
TameAntelope wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually it is not; this is how the term is defined:

> nep·o·tism - /ˈnepəˌtizəm/ - noun - the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. [0]

> Nepotism is a form of favoritism which is granted to relatives and friends in various fields, including business, politics, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, and other activities. [1]

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Anepotism

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism

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

#207

Post by TameAntelope »

andrewf wrote: post #171
TameAntelope wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Family is nepotism, friends are cronyism.

Cronyism is more in politics, nepotism is more in business.

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

#208

Post by vintermann »

vanusa wrote: post #150
TameAntelope wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I once had a former team leader tell me that "I warn you, I practice nepotism", and she did not refer to familiar relations, she just meant that she favored people she knew and liked when looking for people (it included me, I guess, since she "got me in" at a consultancy when I was looking for a job).

So at least some people use the word that way.

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

#209

Post by actually_a_dog »

belval wrote: post #99
ehnto wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don't have a professional network per se, just a bunch of friends I clicked with at various companies. You might not want to label it as such, but that is exactly what a professional network is. People can genuinely be your friends and still be part of your network.

Eh, I find work "friends" to be even more ephemeral than school friends. Nobody I've ever worked with in the past has ever contacted me after I left the company we worked for. At least school friends are around for a more or less guaranteed period of several years.

Edit to add: I have initiated contact before and been well received. Nobody contacts me. It's tiring to have to do 100% of the work to maintain these relationships.

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