Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

alexchesser.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 633 posts

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

#391

Post by pishpash »

ornornor wrote: post #345
lbriner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common reasons is simply that they don't want you to go direct to the company in question and bypass their commission. If they give you too much, it is very easy to do and many companies will recruit directly and the recruiter would have no legal basis to do anything about that. On the other hand, because of commission, it is in the recruiter's interest to get you as much money as possible so you migh…

> it is in the recruiter's interest to get you as much money as possible so you might get a better offer via them Up to a point. They get a fraction of the marginal increase in salary, and they’d much sooner “close the sale” than risking having someone else fill the job to try and get an extra 500$ commission. It’s the same story with real estate agents: selling your house for an extra 20k might be a lot to you but t…

You can split the extra margin 50/50 so your motivations are exactly equal.

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

#392

Post by TameAntelope »

vanusa wrote: post #387
TameAntelope wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such that in your mind, "including referrals in your hiring funnel" == aggravated bias (in the sense above), basically. Can you show where I said anything approaching this? I do not believe this, nor do I believe I said or even suggested this to be the case.

I'm asserting the practice among those in power of favoring relatives, friends, or even friends of friends over other, more qualified candidates is a contributing factor to that diversity problem.

Not sure where in that statement I referenced hiring funnels.

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

#393

Post by honkycat »

Two years ago I quit my job, then covid kicked off and I was out of work for 6 months.

During that time I was relying on recruiters to hunt down leads for me.

Nothing was coming up! They kept trying to feed me full-stack and front-end roles, and I kept saying no thank you.

Then, I just started sending out my own resumes. And I instantly got more callbacks in the MONTHS I spent with recruiters.

I have a few suspicions:

1. The recruiters present themselves as having a "relationship" with companies, but they actually don't, they are just bullshitting you.

2. The jobs people actually want end up getting filled, so if you end up with a recruiter, you are going to be ending up with bottom-tier opportunities.

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

#394

Post by Tehchops »

onphonenow wrote: post #342
Tehchops wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real tech people Ah this fun gatekeeping meme rears it's head again. So how do you define "tech" people? Do you have a scorecard? How do they meet your assessment for "real"? Cohesive organization of atomic matter generally constitutes "real" in a lot of physics definitions. I'd argue trying to label someone a "real tech person" is a laughably subjective exercise that's so corrupted by personal bias and toxicity as…

The point folks are making here is that folks who go on these long rants, demand "hard data" for every experience, write in over formal language, say things like "corrupted by personal bias and toxicity as to be utterly useless" may not be that able / focused on just moving forward on stuff - it's all tied up in ego ego ego type things. You like the posters approach? Fine. I don't find their style (or yours) to be ei…

> "corrupted by personal bias and toxicity as to be utterly useless" may not be that able / focused on just moving forward on stuff.

It's the same recycled logic of people who want to return to the times of being able to say whatever they want, and people who are offended just "need to move on".

This kind of thinking is why homophobia/misogyny/racism is still so prevalent in tech. Dog whistles like "real tech people" or "super high need" or "people that just can't move on".

It's a lot more convenient and dismissive to associate it with some kind of lack of performance. "Oh they should just focus on the code, thank god for all the coders who never want to attend meetings and just code..."

I know you don't like my "style", but I'm afraid most organized software development is starting to become more aware of the need to be empathetic and accepting of the human element, not less, and just "getting over it and coding" isn't an acceptable answer anymore.

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

#395

Post by vanusa »

TameAntelope wrote: post #392
vanusa wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asserting the practice among those in power of favoring relatives, friends, or even friends of friends over other, more qualified candidates is a contributing factor to that diversity problem.

Not sure where in that statement I referenced hiring funnels.

I'd continue, but you're getting awful slippery.

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

#396

Post by kyawzazaw »

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,…

Great Third party headhunters can be good too

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

#397

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #354
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy. Meanwhile, I doubled my salary by responding to a recruiter. Though FWIW, I was actively looking for new work at the time.

Well, let's be honest - when you're just starting out, making $50,000/year, you can probably double your salary in one jump. If you're making $200,000/year, you're not going to double your salary, recruiter or not.

You're absolutely correct.

In my case, I doubled from $100K to $200K. I would not expect to double it again. I'd be lucky to even see 50%.

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

#398

Post by picture_view »

larkost wrote: post #368
picture_view wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently talking to a 3rd party recruiter who started asking me for detailed salary info of all my past jobs. I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable answering that, then when he pushed back I told him I’m legally not required to give him that info in my state (and the potential employer’s state.) He abruptly cut the call off and ghosted me. I decided to apply to the company directly. They were happy to talk…

It is ok that you did not feel comfortable with that, but pay negotiations are exactly why you would want to have a recruiter: they handle that for you, and are generally incentivized to get you as much money as they can since they generally get a percentage of your yearly salary as their pay. So by telling the recruiter you were not going to share that with them you were hamstringing them... of course they thought y…

So the only good candidates for a recruiter are the ones willing to let their recruiter break the law and make a salary history a requirement for consideration?

WA state law makes it very clear as a candidate I don’t need to share salary information, and by some readings of the statute it’s illegal for them to even ask.

My most recent job is at a very large public company where the salaries are well published (levels.fyi) - there was no need for me to give a detailed salary history of all my recent jobs.

If the value-add of a recruiter is getting a better negotiated salary, what is the value-minus of putting another point of failure between me and a job I want. Surely it’s possible that over time the minuses are greater than the pluses.

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

#399

Post by noirbot »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #333
hn_version_0023 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I explicitly state in my LinkedIn profile “do not contact me I’m not seeking new opportunities at this time” and I still get a half dozen a week. Recruiters are the laziest humans on earth.

Recruiters work super hard with archaic, shitty tools. You may not like their methods, but (mostly) they are anything but lazy.

Work hard, not smart, I guess...

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

#400

Post by TameAntelope »

vanusa wrote: post #395
TameAntelope wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where in that statement I referenced hiring funnels.

I'd continue, but you're getting awful slippery.

You made an assumption that turned out not to be true. That's okay, it happens!
Post reply on HN