All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#51

Post by Tyrant505 » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:13 PM UTC

aidos wrote: post #26

Peroni wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting concept however it won't work. The pestering calls are random agencies trying to get your permission to recruit for their roles. Give them permission and they won't pester you unless they legitimately have a good candidate. Usually a recruiter will send a maximum of 5 candidates per vacancy.

You say that, but we've sent back plenty of candidate cvs with a firm "no" the moment they arrive from a recruiter. Would be interesting to have financial repercussions for low quality cvs coming through.

Isn't the financial repercussion not hiring their candidate and credibility for the future?

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#52

Post by Peroni » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:13 PM UTC

benkross wrote: post #48

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 tran…

I was in your shoes benkross.

There are a few decent recruiters out there mate. Keep your head up and keep your dignity at all costs.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#53

Post by dsolomon » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:18 PM UTC

Personally I've found recruiters people who would excel at being used car salesmen or attorneys, except for the morals part - they're lower.

Here in DC they'll get $20-30K per person they refer that gets hired. Meanwhile the worker-bee is left trying to get $60-$65K as a developer because the company overpays the recruiter. So you try to change companys hoping for a $2.50/hr raise, only to meet up with a recruiter who'll get $30K off you if you do.

F*ck them and everything about them.

What's wrong with the recruitment industry - recruiters.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#54

Post by Peroni » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:41 PM UTC

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.

S3 are looked upon with disdain even by those WITHIN the recruitment industry. They are mind-blowingly terrible.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#55

Post by greghinch » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience, I never saw the need for working with a recruiter. I tried a few and they always sent me to those kind of shops where you can just smell in the air that everyone hates their jobs and the devs are just code monkeys churning out whatever garbage some product guy pitched. If I want a job at a company, I apply. There's enough demand (and I'm confident enough in my skill set) that I don't see how a recruiter could help me.

Frankly in my mind, if I hear about a company through a recruiter, I figure it must suck to work there, or else they'd be able to find people on their own.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#56

Post by shurane » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 3:59 PM UTC

greghinch wrote: post #55

Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience, I never saw the need for working with a recruiter. I tried a few and they always sent me to those kind of shops where you can just smell in the air that everyone hates their jobs and the devs are just code monkeys churning out whatever garbage some product guy pitched. If I want a job at a company, I apply. There's enough demand (and I'm confident enough in my skill…

Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience.

How did you get a job before you had the experience and the skillset?

I think recruiters are not that effective (at least in programming), but it seems like a 'safe' and 'obvious' investment for someone with money and no idea of how engineers think and work.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#57

Post by pikewood » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

Another issue is that open jobs become protected secrets to the extent that it becomes hard to find positions without a recruiter. It's some type of strange cyclic dependency where companies turn to recruiters because the employees have given up looking for openings on their own--which leads to job opening info residing only with recruiters (and, yes, an about us -> jobs page buried on the corporate web site), which in turn fuels the employees turning to recruiters.

I feel the glut of job boards hurts this as well. Everyone is so eager to start a site to get their own $20 job posting fee that employees are overwhelmed over where to spend their money. Postings are broadly scattered across dozens of sites, and as a result job postings get worse results than recruiters. So, companies turn to recruiters, which helps start the whole cycle up.

Then there's a different form of blacklisting--if you get hired via a recruitment agency, sometimes you can't get access to their exclusive jobs if you go looking again, for fear that the hiring company will fire them. Of course the agency will choose a portfolio of jobs over one hiring fee if the land the right company.

I was shocked to find out that in other industries, the workers pay the recruiters to find them a job.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#58

Post by greghinch » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 4:31 PM UTC

shurane wrote: post #56

greghinch wrote: post #55

Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience, I never saw the need for working with a recruiter. I tried a few and they always sent me to those kind of shops where you can just smell in the air that everyone hates their jobs and the devs are just code monkeys churning out whatever garbage some product guy pitched. If I want a job at a company, I apply. There's enough demand (and I'm confident enough in my skill…

Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience . How did you get a job before you had the experience and the skillset? I think recruiters are not that effective (at least in programming), but it seems like a 'safe' and 'obvious' investment for someone with money and no idea of how engineers think and work.

Even before then I found jobs on my own, but I was willing to give recruiters a shot. Never had one send me to a job I was remotely interested in.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#59

Post by drcube » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

I've been thinking of a new recruitment model: guaranteed employment. Suppose a recruiting agency guaranteed their recruits, as in, "We'll pay their salary for the [six months | year | whatever]. If they are acceptable, at the end of that period, you pay us back double. If they don't work out, let us know ASAP and we'll eat the cost."

The incentives are all right here. The employers essentially get a year long job interview. Qualified candidates are basically guaranteed a job. And the recruiters are rewarded for successfully meeting their clients' needs, and punished if they get it wrong. The current situation rewards harassment and puffing up their candidates' resumes.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#60

Post by wildwood » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

My Key Recruiter Indicators, based on my experiences in the US:

Good: Working with a founder of a company that's more than a few years old.

Bad: Talking to someone different each time a company contacts you.

Toxic: Talking to someone new each time, and them making you go through the same "getting to know you" interview questions each time.

Good: The recruiter sends you job opportunities that match what you've told them to look for, and what they send you gets progressively better with more feedback.

Bad: Repeatedly send you jobs that don't match your skills or interests.

Toxic: Send you jobs that don't even match your location requirements.

Good: Gives you "behind the scenes" details about postings - what skills are really required and what they're willing to train, what the work environment is like, etc.

Bad: Only knows what's on the job listing, and, if you match the requirements, will tell you whatever you need to hear to get you to agree to the interview.

Toxic: Won't even tell you the name of the company they're submitting you to.

Good: Talking openly with you about their "cut", or at least open to ideas for increasing your take-home pay. (US contracting example: how much will they increase your rate if you switch from W-2 to 1099?)

Bad: Asking you for your rate/salary range to begin with, and using your bottom-of-range number as the starting point to negotiate you down from.

Toxic: Negotiating you down on your rate repeatedly, practically at every step of the recruiting process.

What really sucks about working with recruiters is, an average-to-bad recruiter can still get you a good job. Since it's a numbers game for everyone involved, there's at least some incentive to put up with assholes, as long as there's a chance that they will find you something good.