Why do recruiters have such trouble with such a simple task like gauging a candidate's real skills? Seriously. Here is how to do it. I'm looking for a React Developer, I ask the following simple questions: 1. Tell my about your contributions to major projects you have been involved in. (if they share their work ask more in-depth questions about it) 2. With $givenTechnologyStack, how do you usually solve state managem…
> Why do recruiters have such trouble with such a simple task like gauging a candidate's real skills? Firstly because that's not their job, and secondly because recruiters aren't just there to hire for developers and they aren't going to be subject matter experts enough to judge between good answers to questions like that and bullshit.
Most companies I've interviewed at over the years (basically all but the smallest startups) have had dedicated recruiters for developers; different people hired sales or marketing or other roles. This doesn't mean that they should be expected to be technical experts, but I do think it's interesting that the box-checking type of interviews rather than just having a genuine conversation also seem to be more common the larger the company is. It's probably not surprising, since the need for standardizing interviews is higher when you have a larger number of people performing the interviews, but it's a little ironic that the most boilerplate interviews I've had were all with recruiters who specifically only interview developers.
Then again, I also tend to get bounced around to different recruiters far more frequently with the larger companies. There have been times I've been passed around to half a dozen recruiters within the span of a month or so; one makes the initial contact, then another talks to me on the phone, then another coordinates my technical interview schedule, and then another actually gives me the offer, who then refers me to one final other recruiter to actually respond yes or no (and maybe negotiate if possible). I know some of these are probably a more entry-level position that I've seen referred to as "recruiting coordinators" rather than full-fledged recruiters (meaning that they often handle the logistics like scheduling but don't perform interviews themselves), but it still feels absurd to have to talk to so many different people for basically the same thing. My impression is that it's somewhat intentionally trying to put me at a disadvantage by making it impossible for me to carry over any expectations from one step to the next (e.g. one recruiter might say something about compensation or benefits and then the next one conveniently doesn't know what I'm talking about and can claim that no one would have told me that).