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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

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

#261

Post by subsubzero »

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,…

Strongly with you on this one. I have had recruiters from the UK reach out to me(I'm based on the west coast in US) from agencies and made the mistake of replying to one. Complete waste of time and total incompetence on their side. I have a rule like this(recruiters have to be from the company they are soliciting for):

- If I am interested in the company I will reply right away.

- Somewhat/not really interested ignore first email they send out and if they followup a reply I then email them stating I am not looking for work now but could change my mind in the future.

- Not interested in company at all just ignore the unsolicited response.

I have also completely given up on startups as the comp they have been getting back to me with is 50-70% lower than my TC and its a waste of my time. Your time is the most important resource you have, don't waste it on unsolicited responses from recruiters in positions that are not right or companies you have no desire to work for.

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

#262

Post by codegeek »

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,…

There are 3 types of recruiters:

1. Internal company recruiters. They couldn't care less about contacting you directly unless things have changed in today's market (My last interaction with in house recruiter was circa 2010).

2. Scummy recruiting farms where they hire a bunch of people on commissions and they spam anyone and everyone

3. Recruiters who actually have relationships with a customer, prospect good candidates like a salesperson, keep their pipeline full and understand the hiring needs. They work diligently to find good candidates who fit the job description. They do exist but are rare unfortunately.

I have no problem with #3 above and I have worked with some great ones in the past and right now as a hiring manager, working with one who is trying to find a senior level candidate for a while now (lot of work there).

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

#263

Post by jedberg »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #133

Bad career advice I received early in my career: Don't talk compensation until late in the interviewing process after you've already convinced them to hire you. Compensation is the first thing I bring up now. "I currently make X salary, Y annual bonus, and Z equity. This position will need to exceed all 3 by at least 20% before I even consider it. Does that sound doable? If not, let's not waste any more of each other…

If you're going to start with salary, at least don't tell them what you currently make, because that will instantly be their baseline. Just tell them what you desire and don't tell them that it is 20% or whatever more than what you currently make.

But really you shouldn't start with giving a number. They already have a huge advantage because they negotiate salary all day and you do it once every few years. Just ask them for the range and make sure the minimum is above your X+20% number. If it's not, let them know that their range is too low, and if they won't tell you, say, "thank you, next".

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

#266

Post by ravenstine »

codegeek wrote: post #262
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,…

There are 3 types of recruiters: 1. Internal company recruiters. They couldn't care less about contacting you directly unless things have changed in today's market (My last interaction with in house recruiter was circa 2010). 2. Scummy recruiting farms where they hire a bunch of people on commissions and they spam anyone and everyone 3. Recruiters who actually have relationships with a customer, prospect good candida…

My exact experience. I've had one actual great recruiter that was in the #3 category, one okay recruiter from #2 who a #1 recruiter farmed out to, and then dozens and dozens of sleazeballs from #2.

For the most part, I just say ignore recruiters entirely, unless the job is for a great company and there are no red flags, instead opting to network and send emails directly to people in charge of hiring.

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

#267

Post by saberdancer »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #133

Bad career advice I received early in my career: Don't talk compensation until late in the interviewing process after you've already convinced them to hire you. Compensation is the first thing I bring up now. "I currently make X salary, Y annual bonus, and Z equity. This position will need to exceed all 3 by at least 20% before I even consider it. Does that sound doable? If not, let's not waste any more of each other…

Agreed, but it depends a lot on how much you value your time.

When starting out, you are usually not going to be low balled as you are cheap. Your time is not worth as much either and you are trying to climb the ladder.

Once you get to proper level of compensation, your time becomes much more valuable and the number of offers that meet that level of compensation become much lower. This means your best call is probably to move to talking money first.

Of course, you might miss out on some opportunities but you'll save a lot of time.

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

#268

Post by andrewnicolalde »

obmelvin wrote: post #230
kodah wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. This is a massive privilege. A lot of companies interview in a way that I couldn't pass years ago, so I depended on external recruiters to get me jobs. This was basically how I made a living in the South without a CS or CE degree. The universal truth I see throughout every career advice thread is always…

Yes, it's interesting to see how many people here are 100% against 3rd party recruiters rather than recognizing there are those good and bad at their job - just like anything else. My best friend from growing up had a 3rd party recruiter go completely out of their way to help him, and he was very appreciative of that.

What form did the help take?

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

#269

Post by ehnto »

azinman2 wrote: post #176
ehnto wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

To me all you’ve described is a professional network with strong and weak ties.

The difference is the intention behind the relationship I suppose. I don't think it matters if we disagree, it was an off the cuff statement. I see a difference, I consider it important. No one else has to.

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

#270

Post by fecak »

ozim wrote: post #251
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…

I think only true part in that description is "Exec roles are often handled and retained by recruiting firms". But that is level where normal developers are not finding themselves. I am senior developer but I don't imagine being approached for exec level role. There are different worlds of recruiting - world where I am is low level spamming that I get every day and most of it is just predation on unhappy people that…

All of my recruiting work was retained for the last 5-10 years I was in business, and I wasn't recruiting executives. I'm not saying that is the norm (it definitely isn't), and you are correct that senior developers will not be approached for executive roles.

Higher level candidates will probably attract higher level recruiters, because the amount of time to place someone making $100K is the same amount of time to place someone at $500K, with the only difference being a $25K fee for the first person and a $100K fee for the second.

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