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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

#591

Post by cortesoft »

bitcharmer wrote: post #575
schwartzworld wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this conversation is that people feel attacked by the term, like it undermines the hard work they've done or their intelligence. It doesn't necessarily mean everything was handed to you on a silver platter. It's ok to acknowledge the ways in which you were dealt a good hand (if, in fact, you were).

Yes, saying that people like me achieved success due to privilege is misleading and hateful because it dismisses our hard work and tons of sacrifice to get where we are now. But sure, call it a privilege. Thanks to discourse like this the word already lost its meaning. The only thing that I got dealt a good hand is that by accident my passion and hobby can bring me a tonne of money. Where is my privilege here? Sadly…

Why does it bother you so much when people say you have privilege? Your privilege is that your passion and hobby is in high demand... most people don't have that. They have hobbies like fishing or golf or gardening, and those things aren't in high demand. If you had been born 200 years ago, your passion might also have been something that wasn't in high demand.

I don't see how that concept upsets you. No one is saying you did anything wrong, or that you haven't worked hard. We are just asking you need to accept that some of your success is due to luck, and your luck is a privilege.

Why is this important? Well, it is important to have an appreciation that not everyone had the same luck, and other people not doing as well in their careers is not necessarily because they haven't worked as hard as you.

Once you accept that, the next logical step is to realize that those of us who have been lucky (like me and you, who were lucky enough to have our skills be in high demand) should think about ways we can help those who haven't been so lucky.

A healthy society takes some from the lucky ones to help the unlucky ones. This doesn't mean that everyone should get the same reward, or that you don't deserve success or praise for your skills, just that there is some humbleness in not thinking you are better than someone else who is not as successful.

The fact that you get so angry when anyone points out that some of your success is based on chance and was not just because you worked harder is troubling. Why are you so defensive? Is it because you want to be able to think all of your success is based on your own hard work and therefore you don't need to share any of your success with the less fortunate?

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

#592

Post by pwinnski »

TameAntelope wrote: post #331
pwinnski wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! ;)

What is my assertion, in your own words?

I'm with you on your core assertion, about leveraging personal social networks in hiring leading to reinforcing systemic racism and cultural biases.

But in this context, you used "nepotism" to mean "people one knows" and then leaned even further into saying it didn't mean "close relationships" but any relationships. That's just not what that word means, not how it's commonly used either. So that assertion is wrong.

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

#593

Post by cortesoft »

xenocratus wrote: post #472
schwartzworld wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Utter nonsense. If you put enough mental grease into that sort of interpretation everything can be classed as a privilege, in which case the concept is irrelevant.

Yes, any bit of luck you have that makes your life better is a privilege, because it is something that makes your life better than someone who didn't have that luck. They didn't do anything wrong to deserve not having the luck, it was just chance.

This doesn't make the concept irrelevant. It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. You don't have to apologize for it, but you also shouldn't think you are better than people who weren't lucky.

Understanding this is important, because if you think that your success is entirely based on choices you made, you might feel like people who aren't successful are that way entirely based on their choices, too. Realizing that luck plays a big role is the first step towards understanding that those of us who have been lucky should help those of us who haven't been as lucky, because they don't deserve to be miserable just because they had bad luck.

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

#594

Post by 3minus1 »

mikece wrote: 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…

A software engineer does not have to deal with surviving on a median personal income of $36K. Or know what it's like to have to stay in a toxic job because it's difficult and risky to find a new one. Or what it's like to suffer health consequences from years of manual labor. And probably a lot of other things I don't realize because I never had to deal with it. I work very hard at my job, but I know I have these blindspots which is why I consider myself privileged.

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

#595

Post by TameAntelope »

pwinnski wrote: post #592
TameAntelope wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is my assertion, in your own words?

I'm with you on your core assertion, about leveraging personal social networks in hiring leading to reinforcing systemic racism and cultural biases. But in this context, you used "nepotism" to mean "people one knows" and then leaned even further into saying it didn't mean "close relationships" but any relationships. That's just not what that word means, not how it's commonly used either. So that assertion is wrong.

I cited two separate definitions, at this point you're disagreeing with not just me, but my citations as well, which makes it hard for me to take what you're saying here and make any changes to what I understand the word to mean.

I'm not sure a) why you think you have authority here, or b) why it's such a sticking point to the point that you've continued this conversation for over an entire day.

I think at this point the only real option you have is to admit the word must have either evolved since you learned it, or you may have learned it wrong/incompletely.

My use of the word "nepotism" was correct here, but more importantly, what the fuuuuuuck does it have to do with my larger point? This is, literally, the definition of pedantry.

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

#596

Post by faldore »

tjoff wrote: post #436
jjwiseman wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario I hadn't thought about, that you might want to be aware of: I had to call 911 recently. I talked to the dispatcher, and hung up. A few minutes later they called me back to give me instructions. The call showed up as a regular Los Angeles 323 area code number. In fact, it was flagged by my phone as spam. It made me wonder whether reverse 911[1] calls, which are used to warn about hazmat situations, fire eva…

Additionally, if a neighbor is having an emergency they (emergency services) might call you to see if you are home and able to help.

No post body was provided.

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

#597

Post by Johnny555 »

tjoff wrote: post #533
Johnny555 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one time my neighbors called for help (their car wouldn't start and they needed to go to urgent care), they txt'ed first, then called. Though I would have picked up when they called (and it would have gotten through my do not disturb settings) because their number is in my contacts.

Not saying that your neighbor would call you, but that the emergency services would call you on your neighbours behalf (and it will not be from a number you recognize).

I've never heard of that happening, but yeah, if the neighbor calls 911, and then EMS calls me for some reason, I'm not going to answer since 99% of the time it's a spammer.

If they leave a voicemail, I'll get a transcript.

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

#598

Post by cercatrova »

d23 wrote: post #577
cercatrova wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can simply quote a much higher amount instead. Boost your own salary by 100% and ask for that. When I was still working, that's what I used to do, and lo and behold, I 8x'ed my salary within 5 years.

Again, as others have repeatedly said here, this is a textbook example of why that’s a bad strategy. 100% sounds like a ton to you. How could it not? My last top offer was literally 2.5x what I was making. Never in my wildest dreams would I have been able to pick a number that high and say it with a straight face.

That's if you don't know the market wages, but it's pretty clear for engineers through levels.fyi and other sites.

Or you can ask for their expected compensation range instead as well.

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

#599

Post by TameAntelope »

labcomputer wrote: post #587
TameAntelope wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to talk to the people in charge of your hiring pipelines if it takes 300 resumes to find one qualified candidate... Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5.

I thought you wanted companies to cast a broader net. Now you're saying that it's too broad? > Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5. Do you hire for tech roles? Software engineers, data scientists, analysts and the like? Also, having 3-5 people make it through your process isn't meaningful. You can always find n people make it all the way t…

The experience you have is part of the broken system that discriminates against qualified candidates because of their race and gender. I'm not surprised you and everyone you know conducts yourself in this discriminatory way, it's all too common in the industry.

You have to proactively attempt to break this cycle in order to make any real progress, and a few ways to do that include being intentional about how you find qualified candidates (growing your recruitment pipeline to source from non-traditional groups), and changing your interview process in ways that allow for candidates who are qualified to move forward together, rather than do some kind of false stack ranking of your candidates, creating this incorrect notion that "only one" person for any given role is qualified, which is objectively untrue.

Stack ranking is bullshit when applied to employee performance, why would it be anything but bullshit when applied to the interview process?

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

#600

Post by Gannyn »

Love reading reviews about recruiters! I'm a recruiter and the CEO of HireScale. Many of the pain points described in this forum are ones I set-out to solve at HireScale.

Let me just start with agency vs. in-house recruiter types. In-house isn't always practical for employers so agency has traditionally been the fall back when flexibly is needed. Not anymore!

Freelance recruiters are the solution because they have authorization to represent the employers' brand and are being paid for the service they provide.

Agency recruiters are not authorized to represent brand (except retained) and only get paid if they make the placement so they don't disclose the brand until they've got their "fish on a hook".

My theory is the gig-economy can fix this while providing more value to the employer, recruiter and the candidate (transparency goes a long way). For any hiring managers reading out there, when a flexible option is needed, freelance recruiters offer a much better option.

I agree that it's a good practice to build relationships with recruiters. I also think it's important to do business with the companies where you agree with their practices, methods and principles.

Why support a bad practice so go ahead and ghost agencies.....Cyber and many others like them were built for hiring practices in the 70's or 80's (think kelly secretaries/ temporaries). Today's talent market is much more sophisticated.

Check-out the HireScale Recruiter Marketplace. Follow our community to interact with in-house and freelance recruiters only(branded to the employer 100% of the time)

Website: https://www.hirescale.io/ LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hirescaletalent

Gannyn

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