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

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#61

Post by yalurker » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 9:24 PM UTC

drcube wrote: post #59

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 in…

As long as we're talking incentives, your plan gives a huge incentive to fire someone just before the end of their first year of employment. At the end of the year you're faced with paying a recruiter 2 years of salary, but if you fire them you just got a year of work for free.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#62

Post by drsim » Fri, Jun 15, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

alexro wrote: post #49

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.

Agreed, if the client is wise then they'll have a fixed fee or fixed percentage agreement in place. Most agents will accept this. The contractor and client negotiating the day rate directly is the best way to make sure the agent doesn't exploit the contractor.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#63

Post by drcube » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 12:20 AM UTC

yalurker wrote: post #61

drcube wrote: post #59

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 in…

As long as we're talking incentives, your plan gives a huge incentive to fire someone just before the end of their first year of employment. At the end of the year you're faced with paying a recruiter 2 years of salary, but if you fire them you just got a year of work for free.

That's just a technicality. :P

But seriously, I think this sort of service would be aimed at employers looking for long term professional employees, not some temporary code jockey. In that case, dismissing a proven employee in order to save a years' salary would be counterproductive.

However, your criticism is valid, and measures would have to be taken to keep employers like that at bay.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#64

Post by rjau » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 3:56 AM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #39

rjau wrote: post #38

Great post, but I'm not sure how a jobs board solves this problem.. where is the innovation? We're going to shaking up the creative recruiting industry here in Australia with Dragonfly. Our beta goes live next week, keen for feedback. http://dragonflylist.com

Nice hijack attempt. Have a read of our blog to understand the vision. Good luck with your company. Protip: Disparaging companies attempting to solve the same problem as you is a dick move.

You're right that did come of a bit dickish, my apologies. But I was genuinely wondering what you were going to do to innovate. Your original blog post is pretty vague on where it is going. We're also looking to disrupt the recruitment industry here in Australia because it is similarly broken.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#65

Post by JGJones » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 6:50 AM UTC

Discrimination is far too common. I'm deaf. As soon as they ask me for my number to call me and I tell them to use email instead... I never ever hear from them again. It's very rare for one to respond to emails unless it's a new "client".

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#66

Post by maxua » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 8:51 AM UTC

(we're working on the same problem, so thanks for bringing this up).I think it is a real and HUGE problem.

There are various startups who are trying to attack it from different angles. E.g. checkout Path.to, geekli.st, branchout.

We think the solution is make matching process more efficient, with software. Instead of people recruiters trying to make a match through "numbers game" we match with algorithm and user feedback to make it better.

Check it out at monday52.com and let me know what d'you think.

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#67

Post by michaelcampbell » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 2:37 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.

Do you still use the recruiters? Why give them financial INCENTIVES for mixing good with bad CV's?

Re: All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry

#68

Post by ryanwaggoner » Mon, Jun 18, 2012, 12:45 AM UTC

drcube wrote: post #59

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 in…

You could get many of the same beneficial incentives (and few of the really negative ones that your model creates) just by splitting the recruitment fee into two parts: 50% upon candidate placement, 50% once they pass a 3-month milestone.