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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

alexchesser.medium.com

301–310 of 633 posts

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

#301
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 rela…

Sounds like it’s on you for either not being someone they liked working with or not putting any effort at maintaining contacts. Can’t always expect other people to pull all the weight.

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

#302

Ignore recruiter if they: * are a part of a large firm * use multiple fonts, sizes, or any color in their emails * send an email _and_ an InMail * text or call you * jokingly or seriously refer to themselves as a stalker * automatically substitute in your skills or past company name * ask for your resume when they can obviously download the LinkedIn pdf * don’t disclose comp * don’t disclose the company name * use tr…

How can you detect tracking pixels?

Turn off "auto-load images in emails" option in gmail. If a plain-looking email has that banner at top "click here to load images", there is a pixel-tracker in there.

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

#303
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (wh…

Does this blame shifting really happen though? I've never seen recruiters get blamed for a bad hire. I've seen them get blamed for sending people that fail at the first interview though.

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

#305

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’ve had great experiences with local recruiters who had relationships with the client companies. They will tell you the max salary you can get, the interview process, why past candidates failed, the actual must have requirements, etc.

My success rate from my application being submitted by a recruiter to a phone screen with the client company is 100%. My non rejection rate was close to that.

That’s when I was hopping around in corp dev. I have a specialty now that’s slightly more niche. I am working for by far the largest company in that niche so I don’t really need the middlemen anymore. If I ever decide to leave my current employer, no one is going to ignore my resume.

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

#306
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

All you're describing here is a professional network with 2 group of people in it - those you have beers with, and those you don't.

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

#307
post #109

I like the template but I bristle at the notion that being a software engineer is a "privilege." I have spent countless hours training and re-training myself on technologies that change every few years: don't confuse my work ethic and interest in software engineering with some sort of passive privilege that fell into my lap. There are people far smarter than me who either cannot or don't have the perseverance to stay…

Is it easier if you reframe it as "good fortune"? For instance suppose that you or an immediate loved one suddenly developed a condition which was treatable and tolerable within your current life but took up 10+ hours per week. It sounds like thus far you've had the good fortune to always be able to find the time to continuously learn and re-train.

Or if you think back to your earliest contacts with technology, whether someone gave you a book, told you the name of some tech to learn, helped you get access to a computer, etc., I think all of us who are working in tech have had the good fortune to have access to technology and resources that helped us train ourselves but I can imagine having had substantially less access earlier in my life and the deficit that could've left. So I think I've been overall very fortunate, and that's part of what's meant by the word "privilege."

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

#308

Obviously this is geared towards software development, and my personal experience with recruiters for software jobs is similar to most here. However, I sometimes help out my client's HR departments and the recruitment experience for other jobs is vastly different. Like searching for expert welders or other specific skillsets, not unlike the ones that exists in software development (+10 years java, +15 years embedded…

The uncomfortable truth is that quality doesn't matter in software. When you need something welded you need an expert. Most companies don't need or even want a candidate with 10 years of Java experience. They want someone with barely enough skills to ship the minimum portion of the feature the business will accept. It's an evolutionary process. If companies wanted high quality candidates the market would deliver a solution. In software it just doesn't matter for most cases.

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

#309
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

So you're defining closeness as not including blood relation or friendship?

You are quoting definitions which disagree with your assertion. You used the word incorrectly, and now you're doubling down on that rather than leave the word behind.

Better hope good recruiters aren't seeing this! ;)

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you detect tracking pixels?

Turn off "auto-load images in emails" option in gmail. If a plain-looking email has that banner at top "click here to load images", there is a pixel-tracker in there.

Or just a company logo..
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