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Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

mikebz.com

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Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#11

Post by davyjones »

As an aside, I hate this post for one reason and one reason only: the hyperlink at the bottom alluring like-minded techies for a job in his/her company.

And that is not just in this post. Almost every such post that talks about something that strongly resonates with a techie and then drops the..."oh...btw...we are hiring..." at the fag end.

Please do mention if you require a green card or a H1-B or something related to residence status required of the position. I am forced to open up the line of communication with a are-you-willing-to-sponsor-a-H1-B. Only two out of a whole bunch I emailed had the courtesy to reply.

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#13

Post by tomjen3 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #6
bhickey wrote: post #2

For the same reason most (if not all) real estate agents are worthless. There's no barrier to entry and there's the allure of easy money. Until the profits collapse the market will be inundated with wannabes.

There's also relatively little feedback reinforcement for the good (quality) recruiters. Since remunerative reward is based on quantity, not quality, market incentives are diametrically at odds with what both hiring managers and talent would benefit by. One solution is to not do business with or encourage the idiots in any manner whatsoever. I also jealously guard my time. If you're wasting, it, particularly on the p…

I am waiting for Google Voice or something similar to get here so that I can have all calls from an unknown number go straight to voicemail (including not actually ringing).

It is not even that I get that many calls but it would be nice to know that you won't have some guy call you.

I can't even imagine how annoying it must be for people who have business cards out there.

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#14

Post by sgdesign »

davyjones wrote: post #11

As an aside, I hate this post for one reason and one reason only: the hyperlink at the bottom alluring like-minded techies for a job in his/her company. And that is not just in this post. Almost every such post that talks about something that strongly resonates with a techie and then drops the..."oh...btw...we are hiring..." at the fag end. Please do mention if you require a green card or a H1-B or something related…

I would say the visa problem is probably the biggest contributor to the current lack of available developer talent.

If the US ever relaxes its visa laws, I foresee a big drop-off in the demand for recruiters…

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#15

Post by tomjen3 »

munaf wrote: post #10

Anybody have experience with Hackruiter or TopProspect as alternatives?

Never heard of them, actually.

But the recruiter space doesn't seem to need disruption, since it fundamentally only makes sense in a pre internet age. Today candidates can find any company they like online and apply right then and there. The same goes for any company which can contact a candidate directly (either through a his/her blog if the prospect has one or through any of a number of aggregator services).

Today recruiters are like travel agents -- mostly useless, except if you don't have the time to look stuff up yourself.

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#16

Post by georgieporgie »

I would say the example recruiter is not actually a connector. Based upon my understanding of the term, a connector has deeper connections than that, and is capable of actually putting people and concepts together in his/her head in a way that is relatively unique.

The recruiter described sounds like a more technologically advanced version of a beggar: ask everyone you ever come across for a handout, and you'll eventually get one.

Idiot recruiter story: in college, I did part-time work for the Corps of Engineers. It was basically an intership program, though with poorer guidance than you'd expect of one. I kept getting recruiter calls to work on Ada projects, despite it being nowhere on my resume. Recruiters refused to acknowledge my very relevant work experience (multithreaded C++) because they don't consider military experience, despite the fact I had nothing to do with the military...

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#17

Post by invalidOrTaken »

sgdesign wrote: post #12

It seems that every week there's a couple posts complaining about recruiters these days. It's one of the reasons why I've launched my own site to try and improve recruiting (for designers, at least): http://folyo.me

I would have read with bated breath if you'd explained the problem with recruiting, and how it can be fixed.

But instead, you just shared a link. To your paid service.

I can feel the marketing, and I don't like it.

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#18

Post by Homunculiheaded »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #9
twelve45 wrote: post #4

Nicely captures my issues with tech recruiters. The other big disconnect is that since tech is in so much flux, you want to hire smart generalists who can pick up new technologies in a few days if necessary. Most recruiters have no clue how to find "smart developers". So instead they do a google search for "Java developer looking for job" and spam you with the top 10 hits with some great insights like "OMG this guy's…

As someone who's more of a generalist than not, it's almost impossible to arrange interviews through recruiters -- most of them are only looking to match up acronym/skill/buzzword X with length of time Y. A big part of that comes from missing the technical background to properly appraise the value of those technical skills.

I find that's one of the worst things about recruiters, not only do they have a really high number of false positives, they are awful at picking out non-traditional candidates that any engineer would say "wow" to. The only possible function I can think of for recruiters is to shuffle around mediocre, faceless programmers from one large company to another.

Re: Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

#20

Post by jphackworth »

This is like complaining "Why is so much spam email irrelevant to me?" If someone cold-calls you their business model is to churn through many people who are annoyed before they find one who hires them. The great recruiters aren't going to cold-call you. So there's a selection bias.
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