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

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

#151

Post by Peroni » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 2:28 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #61

Here's my most recent recruiting cold call: Him: Hello, I need to speak to the person who manages your servers. Me: Uh, who is this? Him: I need to report an issue with your servers. Are you the person who manages the servers? Me: What kind of issue? Him: Do you manage the servers? Me: I manage the office. What's the issue you need to report? Him: Oh! I'm calling because I understand that it's very hard to find good…

Anyone who is cold-calling isn't a good recruiter.

I completely disagree. The most successful recruiters always need to generate new business in order to stay successful and whilst it's great to pick up business from recommendations, often you are left with no option but to pick up the phone and start introducing yourself to people.

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

#152

Post by Peroni » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 2:38 PM UTC

kabrummett wrote: post #47

As a technical recruiter I am not shocked by this post but I am a little frustrated with the large brush that is painted on the industry as a whole. I mean, I have worked with some BAD Developers, everything they write breaks the minute it is in production, you can never pry them away from the foosball table or lunch room, they smell and can’t speak in complete sentences BUT I still recruit for technical talent becau…

To attempt the argument that there are bad developers in comparison to the amount of bad recruiters is weak. Less than 50% of developers are actually incompetent whereas more than 90% of recruiters are useless.

I'm a Tech Recruiter in London and I work hard to keep myself in that 10% bracket and I blog regularly about the horrible state of the recruitment industry. Most of the arguments on this page are valid and the large brush we've been painted with is deserved.

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

#153

Post by danssig » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 2:50 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #104

It is outrageous when they take 20% of the billing rate (or more) hour after hour, every hour. All for sending a few emails, making a few phone calls, and arranging the interview. Among the middlemen in all industries, tech recruiters do the least work, and are least knowledgeable of the industry they work in - a real estate agent for example, does far more work than a recruiter, and could actually be very helpful. T…

Actually, I would pay up to 25%... for the first (6 mo or less) contract. They got me that, how ever they did it. But I got me the extension so why do they expect more than just a payrolling fee for the extentions?

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

#154

Post by dspillett » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 3:05 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #61

Here's my most recent recruiting cold call: Him: Hello, I need to speak to the person who manages your servers. Me: Uh, who is this? Him: I need to report an issue with your servers. Are you the person who manages the servers? Me: What kind of issue? Him: Do you manage the servers? Me: I manage the office. What's the issue you need to report? Him: Oh! I'm calling because I understand that it's very hard to find good…

I usually respond to conversations like that with "you started this conversation with a blatant lie, why the hell should I trust you enough to do any sort of business with you?". They often call back almost immediately in the hope of someone else picking up the phone instead of me.

Other common lies are "I'm a personal friend of Mr Anderson" (Mr Anderson doesn't exist, we made him up and listed him in a couple of places as our resources/personnel manager) or "I was talking to earlier today" (that one is particularly fun when they state they were just this minute talking to someone I has been sat opposite me talking to nobody for the last hour or few).

I've stopped being nice to them. I don't even make an effort to be professional.

Some companies will call repeatedly, day after day, sometimes several times a day. The only way to get rid of them I've found is immediately asking to talk to their boss to discuss being taken off their lists and demanding to talk to their boss until you get to or then hang up. And if that fails find the company's address and send them a letter by registered post stating that we do not want to deal with them, will not give them any more of of our time for free, and that any further calls will result in them being invoiced for our time at our consulting rates (we've gone as far as that twice, both times we heard nothing else from the company in question afterwards).

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

#155

Post by dspillett » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 3:15 PM UTC

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #87

atomical wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was the first developer hired at an early stage startup and I knew no one in the metro area where I eventually ended up working. It's unfair not to give someone a shot to interview based on a perceived notion that the best hires only come from your personal network.

Having a good resume with skills A,B and C: 5-10pts. Interview confirms that your resume wasn't full of BS: 10-20 pts You can perform skills A,B,C on a whiteboard or laptop interview session: 20-50 pts 1 year of seeing you exhibiting skills A,B, and C under real world conditions and interacting with other people: 100-300 pts No matter how unfair this seems, if you have the same skills as someone in my network, they h…

I wouldn't say that was unfair. Ability in the right areas, demonstrated first hand, is a perfectly valid filter and the ranking you give it with your scoring system seems fine to me (unless the difference between the low and high ends is dependent on how much you like them!).

Yes you might lose someone who could be a star, but no system is perfect.

Hiring someone just because you know them is simply wrong, but giving them a chance because they've shown you an aptitude relevant to the position should not be seen as unfair IMO.

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

#156

Post by danielk015 » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 11:07 PM UTC

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…

"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."

As a recruiter myself, understanding the what it is like to be a developer and connecting on the "what makes them tick" level is important. Going to meetups and getting immersed in the startup scene is great, but going the extra mile will have long lasting impact. I am a non technical guy, but over the years, I have tried my best to learn code myself. HTML, CSS, Ruby. Just leveraging the vast amount of learning tools on the internet makes this possible. Although I might never be an employable programmer, I have had a lot of great chats with developers on my own experiences and that breaks the ice and creates trust immediately.

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

#157

Post by yuhong » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 12:41 AM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #145

yuhong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The ultimate issue here is that demand for recruiters (in London at least) far outweighs the talent pool so companies choose to hire decent sales people and mould them into recruiters. Due to the sales culture involved, monetary incentives are the only thing decent recruiters are interested in. If you find a talented and successful recruiter I can guarantee they are earning close to six figures a year (some earn a lo…

Of course, moulding technical people into recruiters would be much better.

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

#158

Post by AppSec » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

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-…

Did you happen to see if he remembered that initial call first?

Sometimes those "cold call" type (almost want to use the word drones) just phase out the after they hear no.

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

#159

Post by knotty66 » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 5:56 PM UTC

ramchip wrote: post #140

knotty66 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just last week I was sent a job requiring C++ and extensive Ball and Builder experience. It took me a couple of minutes to figure that one out ...

Borland Builder? I didn't know that still existed...

Yeah - the recruiter didn't know it had ever existed!

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

#160

Post by livingwithgeek » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

As an in-house Recruiter at a startup, I thought I'd throw my $0.02 in.

The bottom line: you're right. There are a LOT of "bad apples" out there spoiling the names of the decent Recruiters. One person here said they've never had a call from a good Recruiter; that's because we know better. I don't call people for jobs they're not suited for. In fact, I rarely call Techies at all; you don't answer your phones.

Anyway, it's NOT always the Recruiter that sucks, as I demonstrated here: http://bit.ly/pokYV1

Loved this discussion though. Thank you all for solidifying so many of my beliefs.