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The Recruiter Honeypot

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Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#11

Post by lifeisstillgood »

bartonfink wrote: post #5
TamDenholm wrote: post #2

This is really interesting. I'm a contractor so i deal with recruiters a hell of a lot. I've never come across a good recruiter to work with, 90% of them are an annoyance but harmless and 10% are outright scumbags. Its really interesting to see this honeypot information. I think recruiting is an industry thats ripe for disruption, especially for tech contractors and i've got a theory on how to do it, one day i'll wri…

I mentioned the exact same thing to someone a couple of weeks ago - I think her name was Stella, and she's been posting for a startup recently. I'm not a professional contractor like many, but I do like doing freelance gigs to supplement my day-job income. However, finding suitable gigs, dealing with negotiations and chasing down deadbeat clients make it really unpleasant given what I really want to do is make some e…

But Hollywood stars sit on set 12 hours a day, for a 16 week shoot, as does the rest of the crew.

If they only did 15 hours a week the film would not get made.

I would be interested In knowing what gigs you do take on and how the code integrates with the work being done elsewhere

if you are doing maintenace and bug fixes on a codebase you know I can see how it would work.

My apologies if this seems overly aggressive I am just interested in how this could work - we could alll fit in 10 hours a week for beer tokens

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#12

Post by starship »

"Though I averaged two interviews a day, we had only grown the team by three-four engineers each year."

Wait a second, he was interviewing 100X more people than he was hiring??? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone, or is it just me?

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#13

Post by modoc »

starship wrote: post #12

"Though I averaged two interviews a day, we had only grown the team by three-four engineers each year." Wait a second, he was interviewing 100X more people than he was hiring??? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone, or is it just me?

Depends on your pool. Small companies need to be absolutely brutal about only hiring the best people, with the best skills, and the best fit for the company. I went to a local university career fair looking for two different junior level folks. I took back over 40 resumes, made 3 follow-up phone screens, and 0 hires. 500 real interviews for 4 hires is a bit much, but in general I pass on people all the time.

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#14

Post by greghinch »

TamDenholm wrote: post #2

This is really interesting. I'm a contractor so i deal with recruiters a hell of a lot. I've never come across a good recruiter to work with, 90% of them are an annoyance but harmless and 10% are outright scumbags. Its really interesting to see this honeypot information. I think recruiting is an industry thats ripe for disruption, especially for tech contractors and i've got a theory on how to do it, one day i'll wri…

I've often thought the same thing since becoming a full time freelancer, the talent agency model. The problem to overcome is that, much like most recruiters I've dealt with, it's hard to find someone who isn't a technical developer to understand how to fill a technical developer role. There's a lot more complexity to understanding the work from the outside than there is understanding the work of say an actor. I no more want someone representing me who's saying "ok I have a guy here who has HTML, PHP, Javascript, and CSS, and I see you have all of those on your job requirements, this is a match right?" than I like hearing the opposite from a recruiter. Essentially you're going to need to find developers who want to do sales, a tough find if I've ever heard one.

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#15

Post by starship »

modoc wrote: post #13
starship wrote: post #12

"Though I averaged two interviews a day, we had only grown the team by three-four engineers each year." Wait a second, he was interviewing 100X more people than he was hiring??? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone, or is it just me?

Depends on your pool. Small companies need to be absolutely brutal about only hiring the best people, with the best skills, and the best fit for the company. I went to a local university career fair looking for two different junior level folks. I took back over 40 resumes, made 3 follow-up phone screens, and 0 hires. 500 real interviews for 4 hires is a bit much, but in general I pass on people all the time.

I've done the same (50 resumes for two positions, phone interviews with 15-20, follow-up in-person interviews with 4). That's 10X interviews. But 100X? Assuming anyone he hires goes through multiple follow-up interviews, I don't see what information he's getting from these interviews that couldn't be handled by a subordinate or by email. Evaluating someone for "fit" is impossible in a short interview like that.

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#16

Post by zeroonetwothree »

starship wrote: post #12

"Though I averaged two interviews a day, we had only grown the team by three-four engineers each year." Wait a second, he was interviewing 100X more people than he was hiring??? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone, or is it just me?

Each candidate probably had more than one interview. 100 interviews for each hire is not all that high, especially if you don't have a lot of intern conversion hires (that's why larger companies can hire more efficiently).

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#18

Post by bartonfink »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #11
bartonfink wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned the exact same thing to someone a couple of weeks ago - I think her name was Stella, and she's been posting for a startup recently. I'm not a professional contractor like many, but I do like doing freelance gigs to supplement my day-job income. However, finding suitable gigs, dealing with negotiations and chasing down deadbeat clients make it really unpleasant given what I really want to do is make some e…

But Hollywood stars sit on set 12 hours a day, for a 16 week shoot, as does the rest of the crew. If they only did 15 hours a week the film would not get made. I would be interested In knowing what gigs you do take on and how the code integrates with the work being done elsewhere if you are doing maintenace and bug fixes on a codebase you know I can see how it would work. My apologies if this seems overly aggressive…

I think you've overlooked the point that I already have a job. I'm "on set" 10 hours a day already.

Re: The Recruiter Honeypot

#20

Post by arupchak »

starship wrote: post #12

"Though I averaged two interviews a day, we had only grown the team by three-four engineers each year." Wait a second, he was interviewing 100X more people than he was hiring??? Does that seem a little extreme to anyone, or is it just me?

That's not uncommon, assuming that an initial phone screen counts as an interview.

I have had stretches where it took me talking to ~80 candidates between initial phone screens, random chats, etc over two months before finding someone to hire.

And to be clear, I am not claiming that I found the 'best' person out of 80 people. 'Best' is a very custom definition depending on the environment, role, and fit.

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