Every time I read articles like these I cringe hard and feel sad about how far the youngsters of today have to struggle and bear bullshit just to get a good job and be financially independent.
People just starting out with their careers do not deserve to be subjected to such horribly intrusive and manipulative approaches from recruiters. They are freshers goddammit, you are not supposed to hire them for leadership positions from the get-go. Treat them accordingly and give them space to learn on the job; and if your firm is not capable of doing that yet, go back to hiring based on experience. I have seen way too many large companies of today try to save labor costs by hiring fresh grads and then offloading the responsibilities of C-level leadership onto them so that they don't have to pay large salaries to the experienced candidates instead.
I myself have been a victim of this pathetic practice - a large startup picked me right out of college and then made me lead the ENTIRE sales and customer experience wing of one of their divisions. With zero prior experience, zero training, just handed the reins from the get-go. This role involved hiring, training, deploying and managing literally a hundred sales executives (all of which had more ground experience than I ever did), chasing insane sales and customer acquisition targets, handling customer analytics for thousands of customers across diverse categories and segments _and_ planning and implementing outreach campaigns while desperately trying to learn the ropes at the same time. The job that I was handling was meant not just for someone more experienced, but for an _entire team_ of analysts, domain experts and mid-level managers. After a year of pushing myself and working literally 90 hours a week I gave up. This startup closed down that division the moment I left and lost ~60% of its overall valuation. From what I hear they have now fired everyone and are just looking for an exit chance. The whole thing was a F-ing nightmare that has scarred me from ever attempting to engage with startups in the future. I have joined a conventional consulting firm as an Associate currently and it's unbelievable how rudimentary things like employee training and mature, robust organization is making me feel.
To any recruiters reading this, please stop going after low-experience candidates if your organization is not specifically mature and equipped enough to holistically train them.