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All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

hackerjobs.co.uk

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Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#41

Post by madaxe »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6
citricsquid wrote: post #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 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

Those rules work to a degree, but I posted two jobs on Hacker Jobs and then spent the next two weeks telling recruiters to get bent, as they apparently didn't waste time in finding the site and mining it.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#42

Post by pja »

_b8r0 wrote: 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...

Ah, S3 group. The recruitment agency that for some reason feels it necessary to trade under more than twenty different brand names. One of the contractor bulletin boards in the UK puts up a list of the current ones every now and again IIRC. Purely as a public service to their readers you understand.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#43

Post by Alestra »

Yep! Dead on target. A very impressive article. But, Cheese and Peas, Steve, the recruitment mafia has probably put a contract out on you - so cool.

The only thing you didn’t say directly though clearly indicate throughout is that no one (employers nor recruiters) cares about the candidates or their careers. Great article - it’s about time someone said it out loud. Congratulations on your website and business, it looks great and certainly has the right idea.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#44

Post by Peroni »

Alestra wrote: post #43

Yep! Dead on target. A very impressive article. But, Cheese and Peas, Steve, the recruitment mafia has probably put a contract out on you - so cool. The only thing you didn’t say directly though clearly indicate throughout is that no one (employers nor recruiters) cares about the candidates or their careers. Great article - it’s about time someone said it out loud. Congratulations on your website and business, it loo…

Thanks for the awesome words.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#45

Post by talmand »

As a front-end developer who recently just went through the job-hunting process I can say that, for the most part, my biggest complaint on the US side for recruiters is that they have no idea what I do for a living. Never mind the fact that most of the job postings are seemingly written by people who have no idea what the job actually is. I really got tired of explaining that Java is in fact not the cool nickname for JavaScript.

I found my new job through a recruiter. He approached me and I found him to be quite good at his job. He talked with me first to get a feeling for my competency level and then suggested two positions with clients he has worked with before. One of them turned out to be my new job.

I think I talked to around ten recruiters total and only two of them knew what they were doing. The others really, really needed to find a new line of work.

I won't go into details of the oddities of my job hunt because I'm sure many here have similar stories. I just wanted to say there are recruiters out there worth knowing, if you can find them or if they find you.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#46

Post by vonmoltke »

"I've come across many employers complaining that recruiters have actually copied their job postings word for word despite not engaging said recruiters to represent them."

I have been hit by this, and I believe I may have lost one or two opportunities because of this. My first hint of this practice was during a phone interview when the hiring manager said something to the effect of, "your recruiter will get in contact with you". Not "our recruiter", not $NAME. I got the distinct impression that I had been put in front of this company unsolicited.

From then on I started Googling for reqs that recruiters sent me that I was interested in. I soon discovered a pattern of recruiters copying open reqs, sticking a contract period on them [0], and posting them on job boards. I have seen multiple recruiters do this for the same position, sometimes with the actual company posting the same position on the same boards. A few even manage to leave the company's name in the posting. This more than anything drove me away from job boards, except SO Careers and the HN threads).

[0] These are all full-time regular positions.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#47

Post by ViktorasJucikas »

pja wrote: post #42
_b8r0 wrote: 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...

Ah, S3 group. The recruitment agency that for some reason feels it necessary to trade under more than twenty different brand names. One of the contractor bulletin boards in the UK puts up a list of the current ones every now and again IIRC. Purely as a public service to their readers you understand.

To spare curious readers some time here it is: http://forums.contractoruk.com/general/58258-sthree-group-in...

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#48

Post by benkross »

I am a technology recruiter and I have to say that I can't disagree with 90% of the post. Unfortunately agencies have been started by people with little class on only desire money. I have always known that I will leave the business and I care more about my reputation than anything else. Like an infection, I am trying to espouse my style and philosophy, one built on trust, understanding of technology and LOBs and transparency. I don't want to chase I want to become a hub that people seek.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#49

Post by alexro »

drsim wrote: post #18

Recruitment agents work particularly well for contract developers, the ethics notwithstanding. Permanent is a whole different ball game that I'm not going to touch on. TLDR: The model isn't broken, it could use some optimization. Everyone likes to bash a recruiter. And, some guy who takes 80 quid a day out of your pocket for months should be an object of derision, no? Look at the flip side: agents act as stimulus for…

Isn't it like the recruiters are just bloody businessmen? They will snatch your (contractors) portion too if they can, and they can. So they suck money from both parties.

It's a shame really that the employer and contractor don't negotiate directly.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#50

Post by dsolomon »

gouranga wrote: post #34

The easiest way to kill this is to use stackoverflow jobs or emptylemon or something like that. The moment you involve humans in the process, you're going to get asshat middlemen. Other equally bad forms of asshat middlemen: car sales, estate agents and letting agents and buyers - they are all the same. The whole point of computing is to automate, solve problems and get rid of middlemen but we seem to have failed to…

I've found the jobs section on Stackoverflow to either be

(a) company looky-loos doing a market survey to see who's available with what skillsets for a cheaper price (the buzzword for this is topgrading), or

(b) a company with an actual opening but you've got to dig so much to find really what the job & compay environment is that interest is lost in the process

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