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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

#111

Post by drusenko »

tptacek wrote: post #86
dpritchett wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg, I'm curious about the advice you give to YC founders on identifying and recruiting early employees. Based on tutorspree's job posting they need roughly the same level of technical skills as a founder but they're getting a maximum of 3% equity and a below-market NYC salary. I'd guess the founders are getting 5-10x the equity and a salary that's not too far off from the one offered above. Is this package consistent…

Equity grants are based on risk, not ability. Sometimes, very talented technical people are assuming extra risk due to opportunity cost; perhaps some other startup is offering comparable equity but has a longer runway and/or more traction. If those people are good at negotiating, they get better equity grants. A few factors play in to the gulf between founder and early employee equity: * Founders have by definition c…

One way to make sense of the risk premium is to think of the grant in absolute dollar terms. When a company is just starting out with no product and no funding, the value of the business is very low (more or less just the founding team's value). In this situation, the company is likely worth a couple hundred thousand to a couple million tops. 33% of that is likely in the hundred thousand dollars range.

Once the company has a product, funding and some traction, the business' value is now likely at least a few million to tens of millions. 1-2% of that is also in the hundred thousand dollars range.

Yes, the founders' stake is now significantly more, but it wasn't when it was granted. They built the company's value and their stock value appreciated.

When you join a startup, you have the ability to do exactly the same thing!

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

#113

Post by simon »

datadon wrote: post #56

I had a call from a recruiter once, asking if I would be interested in a Ruby on Rails position. I said no, that's not what I'm looking for. She then asked me to explain what Ruby on Rails was, how it related to other technologies and was it popular because a lot of people seemed to be asking for it. Of course I explained the best I could, to make the world a better place and all that, but it seems (as other commente…

"but it seems (as other commenters have pointed out) that there could be a real niche for techies to run a recruiting firm that know what they're talking about."

I'd love to do that. What would such a company look like?

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

#114

Post by drusenko »

tptacek wrote: post #100
dpritchett wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must've overstated my case. I've never worked in a technology startup and I'm only trying to suss out the motivations behind the different classes of players. There's plenty of ink spilled about VCs and founders, but not so much about early employees. I assume the people entering into these arrangements are rational players comfortable with their possible outcomes, and I'd like to better understand the deals. Pleas…

Early employees accept offers at startups because: * The working culture is almost always superior to that of better compensated big company jobs * The career experience at a startup is often more valuable at a startup than a bigco job; at a BigCo, you're unlikely to be able to even use a good language, whereas at a startup you might own a whole product * Early employees might not want to lock themselves down to a si…

All good points, the other I'd add is that I really think joining as an early employee is optimizing for happiness. Starting a startup is really hard and more often than not results in broken relationships, tons of debt and several months of severe depression.

As an employee at an early startup, you can still get significant upside exposure (eg make millions or tens of millions in a success scenario) while being able to "just code", have a much more normal work-life balance, and having much less exposure to risk.

If you're decently good at picking good startups to join, it is probably also an easier way to get seven-to-eight digits rich than starting your own company, since a lot of the risk is already removed.

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

#115

Post by brudgers »

Back during the housing boom, I landed two consecutive jobs through recruiters. Both were cases where the recruiter had a well established relationship with the hiring company (and needless to say were only recruiting me for that specific company).

But it took a lot of contacts with different recruiters to land each of those jobs. Among my favorite experiences was the guy who asked me, "Have you ever heard of x, inc?

"Uh, I worked for x, inc. and it is listed on my resume."

I have a couple of conclusions.

1. All it takes is no regular job, a cellphone, a computer, and an account on a resume board to be a recruiter - and it shows.

2. The vast majority of recruiters stand between you and the job because they have no relationship with the company hiring and therefor you are more expensive to hire and more of a PITA to hire because the recruiter is trying to get his cut (and if she doesn't get it, you will get the "company isn't interested" phone call from the recruiter).

3. Really good recruiters are a valuable resource, know their industry and players, and won't put just any warm body forward in hopes of a score - they will screen the hell out of you.

I learned the first question to ask a recruiter is about their contract with the employer - the good one's have no hesitation describing their relationship. The bad one's waffle.

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

#116

Post by Lukeas14 »

kabrummett wrote: post #109
Shengster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good developers are hardly ever on the market. The majority of them are happy at their current jobs, and they know they could go anywhere else they wanted because their skills are highly valued. I'm sure it gets annoying when they frequently receive emails about "Technically Forward High Frequency Trading Firms" from recruiters who happened to find them through playing buzzword bingo. These recruiters tout that this…

So great point, the best developers are never out of work. How would you recommend a recruiter network with said developers? How do we build mutually beneficial relationships? I tend not to cold call people, just because I think there are better ways to meet people but not all recruiters have that type of network. I suppose I am interested in a solution oriented debate. I hear how you don't like be contacted, how can…

Take no offense, but I think his point (and the point of the article) was that in this situation recruiters are not needed. The market of top notch developers and the companies they would want to work for is small enough to work efficiently on its own with no need for a middleman.

Imagine if someone called you everyday to help you find a local gas station and then charged the gas station 20% of all gas you bought from them in 1 year. You already know about all the gas stations within a 1 mile radius from your house and you're not interested in any gas stations outside of that.

Like the article said once you start looking at larger companies and more entry level developers the market gets much larger and could use the help of recruiters to increase efficiency.

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

#117

Post by djhworld »

I'm not sure what it's like in the states but here in the UK, recruiters are nothing more than glorified salespeople.

The problem also lies in the fact that many recruitment agents get paid a woeful base salary, the rest being topped up by commission payments based on successful candidates they pass on. So it's in their interest to ring as many people as possible and put forward as many people as they can because there's a good chance they'll get a "bite" somewhere down the line

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

#118

Post by robeastham »

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'm thinking about adding a follow feature and a map based directory to http://mightycv.com soon. It might make the service a bit more useful for those looking for good hackers to work with and hopefully help put a nail in the coffin of traditional recruiters - at least the bad ones anyway. I'm hoping that if MightyCV becomes a popular place for hackers to create and home their resumes then it might allow people to bypass recruiters completely on occasion.

It's early days, but if you're interested in what a MightyCV looks like then take a look at mine:

http://robeastham.mightycv.com

Hope you like the look of it, if so then feel free to sign up for the private beta on the main homepage.

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

#119

Post by prpon »

dabent wrote: post #97
arethuza wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The sheer desperation in his voice was almost enjoyable The first time I sent my resume out to recruiters, my phone rang nearly continuously for two days. I complained about it once to my wife. She said I should never be ungrateful for a recruiter calling. He father went through a few periods of unemployment and in her eyes a call from a recruiter was a cause for celebration. From that point on, I've always been pati…

You hit the nail on the head. In a bad economy/tech market like 2001, the recruiters were rude, unreachable and acted like Gods. After 9/11 2001, a recruiter sent me resume of few other candidates vying for the same job and asked me to write a page describing how I am better than those candidates.

Now, the tables have turned, we developers consider recruiters as dirt bags. I have no doubt that the tide will turn again. We just don't know when.

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

#120

Post by hga »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #29
arethuza wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

Sounds a bit like Ask the Headhunter's classic "Death by Lethal Reputation" essay: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/halethalrep.htm
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