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All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

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Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#2
> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting the need for reliance on their industry. It's very early days but in my view at least, the demise of the industry is only just beginning.

What are you doing different? Would be interested to read about it.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#3

> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting the need for reliance on their industry…

Good question.

We are still pretty much at MVP stage but you can hopefully get a hint in our intro blog:http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog/2012/3/25/when-jonny-met-stevie

Long story short, all job boards with a tiny number exceptions are catering primarily to the recruitment industry. Our priority is currently, and will always remain with the direct employer and the job seeker.

As the site grows we will be adding features that don't currently exist on any job board we know of with the intention being to elevate HJ to the point where people can use it as a more effective alternative to recruitment companies.

Once we have a more clearly defined timeframe for our future iterations, I'll create a blog post highlighting more details on how we plan to achieve the above.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#4
"The reality is that passive racism and ageism is still extremely active within the recruitment industry."

I agree this is an issue in the industry, but I believe this point is a serious issue at the companies end rather than the responsibility of the recruiters. Surely the reason it is easier to "sell" white European candidates is that is what the companies want, and the people they end up hiring, this is completely unethical clearly, but recruiters are reacting to this. I am sure if recruiters could submit any C.V. regardless of age and race and still make the money they would.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#5
post #4

"The reality is that passive racism and ageism is still extremely active within the recruitment industry." I agree this is an issue in the industry, but I believe this point is a serious issue at the companies end rather than the responsibility of the recruiters. Surely the reason it is easier to "sell" white European candidates is that is what the companies want, and the people they end up hiring, this is completely…

I don't doubt that there are some employers who are as much to blame as recruiters but I firmly believe that in London at least, most tech companies would be as open to a non-UK candidate as they would to a UK national.

The point I was making is that racism and ageism are rampant purely because it's easier to sell UK based experience than it is to sell foreign experience whereas anyone who truly understands the technicalities of what the candidate has achieved in their career would pay no attention to the geographical location of said achievements.

Call it passive racism if you prefer.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#6

> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting the need for reliance on their industry…

It may be exaggerating if I claim that http://jobs.usethesource.com/ is "doing something even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry" but it does have some pretty simple rules:

1. To post a job you have to have high Hacker News karma

2. You can't be a recruiter

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#7
post #6

> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting the need for reliance on their industry…

It may be exaggerating if I claim that http://jobs.usethesource.com/ is "doing something even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry" but it does have some pretty simple rules: 1. To post a job you have to have high Hacker News karma 2. You can't be a recruiter

I personally love this site but the biggest barrier to entry is that you're preventing a massive amount of the market from advertising. Our goal is to raise the standard across the board.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#8
There's a great three part series[1][2] (well, parts one and two are great) at the Kernel magazine on recruiters as well as an expose on the top recruiting scams[3].

[1] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2401/tech-recruiter...

[2] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2403/tech-recruiter...

[3] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2404/the-10-sleazie...

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#9
post #8

There's a great three part series[1][2] (well, parts one and two are great) at the Kernel magazine on recruiters as well as an expose on the top recruiting scams[3]. [1] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2401/tech-recruiter... [2] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2403/tech-recruiter... [3] - http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2404/the-10-sleazie...

Spotted that. Todays post was an updated version of a very old blog post I wrote a year ago. The Kernel inspired me to get back to what I love doing which is exposing the industry for the giant cesspitt it is.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#10

> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting the need for reliance on their industry…

I'm hoping that http://jobstractor.com is doing it's bit to disrupt things. I actively try to filter out jobs from recruiters (some improvements to that coming next week actually) and focus on the more word-of-mouth jobs you perhaps wouldn't always find unless you had the right contacts.

I think the things recruiters have in their favour is a big network of job seekers and employers. The lower barrier to publishing a job brought about by social media can I think help disrupt that model. There's a way to go though and I think recruiters will always play some part even if that role changes.

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