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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

#441
post #97

Most of the recruiter traffic comes from LinkedIn, which is not particularly surprising. The very first line of my profile there reads: Please do not contact me about cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFTs, or associated technologies. Almost all recruiters who contact me on LinkedIn are talking about... cryptocurrency, blockchains, or NFTs etc. If a recruiter isn't prepared to read even the first line of my profile then I…

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.

Do you have it as "Open to positions" or whatever is called? Reading this thread I feel like I'm flying under the radar somehow given my experience. Could it be US specific? I'm a FAANG engineer in Europe with a small LinkedIn network (less than 100) and I rarely get bothered

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

#443

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…

Not at all for software. You have many resources to do your do diligence and figure out what's the range. For top companies it's okay to put off the compensation talks for later.

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

#444
I’ve got a specific LinkedIn hack - my name on it is Firstname “Nickname” Lastname. If I get a message addressed to Firstname or to Nickname, I know someone actually read it before sending and I’ll respond. If it’s to Firstname “Nickname”, then I know it’s an automated shotgun blast and I generally ignore it.

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

#445
This advice is too generic to be useful.

There are two types of recruiters. Relationship based recruiters and “numbers game” recruiters.

As a recruiter that works primarily with programmers I can usually tell within moments of meeting another recruiter which type they are.

Relationship based recruiters can be a huge asset to your career.

Here are a couple tips

1. A relationship based recruiter is almost never a general recruiter, they specialize in a specific industry. 2. The best type of recruiter is one that has intimate knowledge of your field. So ask probing questions. If they know the jargon and that’s it, pass.

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

#446

I’ve got a specific LinkedIn hack - my name on it is Firstname “Nickname” Lastname. If I get a message addressed to Firstname or to Nickname, I know someone actually read it before sending and I’ll respond. If it’s to Firstname “Nickname”, then I know it’s an automated shotgun blast and I generally ignore it.

I use the Gmail + plus symbol trick when I have to provide an email address directly to a recruiter/questionable application form:

myactualemail+company123@gmail.com

When I start getting emails about completely unrelated things to +company123, I know exactly which company shared my email address.

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

#447
post #97

Most of the recruiter traffic comes from LinkedIn, which is not particularly surprising. The very first line of my profile there reads: Please do not contact me about cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFTs, or associated technologies. Almost all recruiters who contact me on LinkedIn are talking about... cryptocurrency, blockchains, or NFTs etc. If a recruiter isn't prepared to read even the first line of my profile then I…

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.

I see so many people complaining about it and I wonder if it is a US thing. I'm a FAANG engineer in Europe with a small LinkedIn network (less than a 100) and I rarely get contacted unless I open my LinkedIn profile to be seen by recruiters.

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

#448
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A bad hire isn't on a recruiter unless they are basically lying to the employer about the hire's credentials or background, and even then it's the employer's job to vet what is being said.

That's assuming the employer has infinite time and resources to interview and vet candidates. They don't, they are overwhelmed, and it's supposedly the recruiters job to make it easier, yet most seem completely clueless and useless.

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

#449

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…

The only reason a recruiter would ever negotiate your comp up is that you are asking way below market. Then they will indeed "negotiate" up to the lowest bound of the comp band for the position. Otherwise, it makes no sense to try to get a few grand more in commission at the cost of risking the whole placement. In fact, all recruiters I've ever worked with tried to negotiate me down instead of negotiating with the HM on my behalf.

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

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping your question isn't serious but just in case you don't know the difference between the two: Luck - success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions. Privilege - a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. Hope this is helpful

Privilege: being lucky enough to be born/raised in the right circumstances

Still two different things.

I come from a poor family. Nothing was handed to me on a silver platter. My career is a function of passion, hard work and luck. Not privilege.

It makes my blod boil whenever I hear this privilege nonsense.

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