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

blog.tutorspree.com

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

#31

Post by ajross »

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…

It's time for some tough love: If you're getting shot down repeatedly after technical interviews, then maybe you need to expand your search to other areas. That's not a process problem: you're not getting the jobs you want because they don't think you can do them. So the solution to avoid wasting time is not to apply to jobs for which you aren't qualified.

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

#32

Post by mikeleeorg »

BiWinning wrote: post #7

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

I totally agree with Nate75Sanders. And to build on that, when creating your marketing plan, think about allocating a portion of that effort into recruiting and building a brand that's attractive to the people you seek.

Zappos has built a great brand that attracts candidates. I've known people who've read Tony Hsieh's book, then wanted to join them.

There are lots of startups that not only have some good buzz in the press, but also have outspoken founders & employees that - whether they've consciously thought about this or not - have crafted a desirable impression of their company. What attracts you doesn't necessary attract someone else, but I've heard colleagues saying they'd love to work for Justin.tv, Hipmunk, AirBnB, Quora, Codecademy, DuckDuckGo, etc.

Some of that is because they personally love & use those products. And some of that is because they love & follow the cofounders.

Share with the world your thoughts, your culture, and how your product is making the world (or at least, your industry) a better place, and you'll have a better shot at attracting great people.

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

#34

Post by jamiequint »

This is basically an argument that contingency recruiters are bad. You should differentiate this in the title from in-house or contract recruiters (retained search). Contingency recruiters, as you've noticed, have no incentive to filter out junk because they can just take a throw it at the wall and see what sticks approach.

Also, there are a ton of bad recruiters, just like there are a ton of bad engineers. There are awesome recruiters out there and the sample of those who have cold called you rather than going through trusted channels is likely strongly biased towards the bad.

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

#35

Post by lotharbot »

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.

I've gotten similar e-mails and calls recently, based on a resume I posted to a job site 5 years ago, trying to match me to positions with requirements I don't remotely match. Further, I'm now a full time stay-at-home parent, which is my dream career. What's sad is, when I tell recruiters this, on occasion they'll still try to convince me of what a great fit their position would be.

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

#36

Post by snorkel »

z5h wrote: post #16

I had an idea of making recruiters put their money where their mouths are. Want to represent me? That'll cost you $2000/year. If you find me a great job in the next few years you you get many times your money back.

Recruiters would not consider such an arrangement unless you're a celebrity of the industry with a stellar resume. The candidate pool is too large to spend time and effort trying to place a single candidate in a great job.

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

#37

Post by gujk »

Recruiters are marketplace makers, not matchmakers.

A recruiter is completely incapable of determining who is a good fit or of asssessing talent, and traditional compensation models (x% of annual salary, paid on hire) are not aligned with succession outcomes for business.

Recruiters are superior to staff at one thing: maintaineding a Rolodex. They have no ability to choose competently from that Rolodex, though.

If you have good PR and a good jobs page, you don't need a generic recruiter.

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

#38

Post by oneplusone »

sgdesign wrote: post #33

If it's a designer you're looking for, skip recruiters and check out my project: http://folyo.me It'll cost far less than a recruiter, and I'll refund you if you don't find someone.

Are you using the same model as dibbble, or why are you not accepting signups?

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

#40

Post by fooboy »

ajross wrote: post #31
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…

It's time for some tough love: If you're getting shot down repeatedly after technical interviews, then maybe you need to expand your search to other areas. That's not a process problem: you're not getting the jobs you want because they don't think you can do them. So the solution to avoid wasting time is not to apply to jobs for which you aren't qualified.

I wish someone had told me this sooner, because after going through the above scenario again and hearing "we'd love to hire you if you had a bit more experience" for the umpteenth time, I realized you're right.

Thanks for the tough love--I'm going to focus on getting that experience.

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