Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time • Hacker News Board

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#21

Post by ericdykstra » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 4:49 PM UTC

w33ble wrote: post #12

I had expected this to be related to using recruiters to find jobs. I've found that to be primarily a complete waste of time as well, but I suspect the reasons are the same. To most recruiters, it's just a numbers game, as the article points out; they simply "throw engineers at companies in the hopes that one or two will stick and they’ll get their commission". In my experience, it's quite rare to find a recruiter th…

One recruiter reached out to me when I was fresh out of college, and brought me in for a meeting. He then suddenly stopped responding in an email thread and I never heard from him again.

Then again, that's a one-time experience. But my time with the recruiter was as wasteful as time spent posting my resume on Monster and other job sites.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#22

Post by arethuza » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #11

I need to write a post to discuss this at greater depth, but... I am fucking astonished at how inept most recruiters are. I mean, just awful and useless at their "jobs." If we concede the point that, especially in the Valley, technical talent is in high demand, it stands to reason that any overture to such talent needs to be persuasive, informative and intriguing. It should explain the role in reasonable detail, whil…

I had one idiot who kept phoning me about a "great position" with an investment bank that offered less money, a lot less holidays, a lot more pressure (which I interpreted as being required to be available 24x7) and less interesting work than what I currently do.

I kept asking him why I should be interested in such a role, of course, he couldn't tell me. The sheer desperation in his voice was almost enjoyable.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#23

Post by pg » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 4:55 PM UTC

A few days ago I moderated a panel discussion at the Computer History Museum with the founders of Dropbox, Evernote, and Wildfire. I asked whether it was worth dealing with outside recruiters, and they all said no. They all had recruiters working for them in house. In fact between 3% and 5% of their employees were recruiters.

They said the best source of people initially were the friends of the founders and the first employees (which is one reason it's helpful to have gone to a good CS school) and that as soon as you've exhausted this source you should start hiring recruiters.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#24

Post by getsat » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

BiWinning wrote: post #7

So where do you search for engineers if you're a startup?

You can post in the monthly "Who's Hiring?" threads on Hacker News and let them come to you.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#25

Post by ajross » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

prophetjohn wrote: post #20

w33ble wrote: post #12

I had expected this to be related to using recruiters to find jobs. I've found that to be primarily a complete waste of time as well, but I suspect the reasons are the same. To most recruiters, it's just a numbers game, as the article points out; they simply "throw engineers at companies in the hopes that one or two will stick and they’ll get their commission". In my experience, it's quite rare to find a recruiter th…

I'll often get calls from recruiters telling me they've found a position for which I'm a perfect match. And then they explain it's a senior developer position requiring 5 years of experience, when it's very clearly stated on my resume that I'm a college student looking for an internship. They just keyword search resumes.

Sort of. Remember they have two sides of the database: positions need filling and candidates available. If you reply to whatever they send you, they can drop you into the second bucket. So there's benefit to them (maybe even to you) even if the position isn't a fit.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#26

Post by yuhong » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #15

danilocampos wrote: post #11

I need to write a post to discuss this at greater depth, but... I am fucking astonished at how inept most recruiters are. I mean, just awful and useless at their "jobs." If we concede the point that, especially in the Valley, technical talent is in high demand, it stands to reason that any overture to such talent needs to be persuasive, informative and intriguing. It should explain the role in reasonable detail, whil…

If they had the skill set they'd be using it. Think "Those who can't, teach". Similar concept with recruiters. They're salespeople, not talent.

After reading Peroni's articles, I am thinking that recruiting firms need to hire great and talented recruiters instead of using incentives.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#27

Post by pagekalisedown » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

fooboy wrote: post #9

This cuts both ways: looking for work takes a substantial, non-zero amount of time, and it's extremely frustrating when startups decide to speak with you even though they know hiring you is "a long shot." Searching for work at a startup has been a protracted, fruitless process. They have no problem conversing with you and checking out your background over coffee, lunch, whatever. After a few conversations and a techn…

I've seen it done as a way to avoid openly age-discriminating candidates. You're not a long shot as long as you're young, regardless of experience.

I regret not saying anything. The company's idea was to disregard experience in favor of people who put in long hours. Unsurprisingly, the people in charge were young and inexperienced. The company no longer exists.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#28

Post by davidhansen » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:02 PM UTC

gchucky wrote: post #3

I think the title needs to be changed to reflect the gist of the post: that for _startups_, recruiters are probably a waste of time. For a more established organizations, recruiters tend to work, I think.

Except large, established organizations usually have HR departments that perform the functions of recruiters anyway.

Or at least they do in my idealized fantasy world, where the role of HR is to acquire, foster, encourage, and compensate talent.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#29

Post by fennecfoxen » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #22

danilocampos wrote: post #11

I need to write a post to discuss this at greater depth, but... I am fucking astonished at how inept most recruiters are. I mean, just awful and useless at their "jobs." If we concede the point that, especially in the Valley, technical talent is in high demand, it stands to reason that any overture to such talent needs to be persuasive, informative and intriguing. It should explain the role in reasonable detail, whil…

I had one idiot who kept phoning me about a "great position" with an investment bank that offered less money, a lot less holidays, a lot more pressure (which I interpreted as being required to be available 24x7) and less interesting work than what I currently do. I kept asking him why I should be interested in such a role, of course, he couldn't tell me. The sheer desperation in his voice was almost enjoyable.

I have one idiot who made me an offer which might have been somewhat realistic: it was at a networking company, doing C++ for APs/controllers (5 years experience wanted). I told him something like "sorry, no, I'm just leaving that field (and that city) for a little startup, I was more of an NMS guy anyway, and I wasn't using C++ - you could do a better job of convincing me that you understand my background and skill-set; I see you even are advertising for NMS positions on your company's site." I also allude to his company's competence using abstruse engineering language: "I've worked with your products before, and already faced some of these 'unique challenges' you promise."

Three months later he contacts me about the same C++ positions, with the same language. After me telling him exactly how to do his job. This time I was a little more explicit, and asked him to keep contacting me so I could make fun of him and his company to my engineering buddies. :P

Probably a bridge burned, but one I'll never use, and I don' t make a habit of this.

Re: Recruiters are, by and large, a waste of your time

#30

Post by larrik » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

csel wrote: post #5

There is a big difference between agency recruiters and recruiters within a company. I have not had any bad experiences with recruiters who work for a company (that is not an agency). In fact, even agency recruiters, there are definitely some bad apples but a lot of them generally are fairly good to deal with. If I were you, I might change the title of your post to be more specific on the type of recruiters you are r…

If you actually read the article, that distinction is completely irrelevant, since the proper title is more like "Recruiters are a waste of time for start-ups."