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Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

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Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#151

Post by BadassFractal »

We once lost a super promising candidate at the references stage. Guy was a star, we were going to pay him 180 base for a remote position from somewhere fairly affordable. That was a lot to us as a small startup, more than any other IC was being paid at the time. He loved the team, the product, the mission, the comp etc.

We called his previous manager (not his current one), one of his references, to ask him about his experience with the candidate. His manager spoke very highly of his past direct report, we were quite happy with the outcome of the call.

Except his manager then proceeded to counter-offer the guy with 240, once he realized he was on the market, and the guy was like "Hey guys, you're awesome, the mission is meaningful and all that, but I got a family, I HAVE to take the extra 60k, sorry". That was one day away from him signing. We couldn't afford to counter-offer, so that's that.

Lesson: the engineering hiring climate is vicious right now, you might not want ask for references from your star candidates to avoid getting a last second poaching. Backdoor references in general are a lot better, but you still risk disclosing information that will lead to them getting poached.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#152

Post by ataturk »

I had to use Docusign to digitally sign an agreement for a recruiter to represent me on a gig. First time I ever signed up for Docusign. Fucking salesman began harassing me at my company e-mail address after that, trying for any to make a sale. Idiots. I have zero buying authority and used the damn product once so I could find a new job!

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#153

Post by toomanybeersies »

nashashmi wrote: post #44
patorjk wrote: post #16

> I do know that my manager called me up pissed off about the phone call he’d received, and told me to not use him as a reference in the future. It's also important for your references to know that they're your references ahead of time. You may think you have a good relationship with someone only to discover that they aren't a reliable positive reference. People also don't like being caught off guard.

Anecdote: I once listed three references. All three had favorable opinions of me. But I didn't tell any of them and they were unprepared to answer the questions that followed in a reference call. One of them was able to wing it well. Second one answered questions flatly and without enthusiasm. A third was more nervous not to hurt me than he was confident he could help me with his answers. I thought the surprise effec…

> I thought the surprise effect would be telling to my interviewers that the answers were not artificial.

I tried this once for a job interview. I didn't prepare at all besides quickly scanning the company website.

It was a disaster. The position was for a PHP developer, and I accidentally mentioned that there is a lot of crappy PHP code in the world, in a way that made it sound like I didn't like PHP (I don't, but that's besides the point).

It didn't help that the interview was with an HR person. If it was with another developer, I would've been more than happy to elaborate on my opinion that there is a lot of poorly written PHP code, and that it is very easy to write poor quality PHP, but it is possible to write good (or acceptable) PHP.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#154

Post by jayofdoom »

waitButWhy wrote: post #127
keyle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes once I've even been told that this employer requires a Word document as Resume. So I converted my full generated resume to PDF into a word document, line by line. Turns out, it was only so they could slap their info on it, reword my words and produce a PDF. I asked the employer later, they said they prefer PDF as it's easier to print.......... Snakes. They're leeches in snake skin.

Dude. It's one page of plain text. Maybe two pages. It will be transcribed by brute force in less than an hour, if need be. Probably by an unpaid intern. You either want recruiters to help do all the leg work for you, or you don't. And you either want the job, or you don't. If they have a policy of lubricating introductions under a branded letterhead, it's gonna go down that way. The file format protects nothing. And…

I've been in the situation of an interviewer, having to painfully show the skills the recruiter edited into their resume to get them an interview.

I absolutely agree with OP about being worried about edits, except I generally take it to the maximum extreme and don't use dedicated external recruiters at all when looking for work.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#155

Post by toomanybeersies »

vosper wrote: post #30
TamDenholm wrote: post #11

Being a contractor in the UK for the last 13 years i quickly learned when i first started that any recruiter that asks for references before they've even sent the CV to the client is a lying cheating scumbag and will get told outright where to go. All they are doing it looking for leads.

Recruiters in the UK are much sleazier than in the US, in my experience.

And unfortunately they tend to migrate to Australia. I swear half the recruiters in this country are from the UK.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#156

Post by toomanybeersies »

TamDenholm wrote: post #11

Being a contractor in the UK for the last 13 years i quickly learned when i first started that any recruiter that asks for references before they've even sent the CV to the client is a lying cheating scumbag and will get told outright where to go. All they are doing it looking for leads.

Same with "what other companies have you been talking to?" while simultaneously asking me to not disclose the role I'm applying for with any other recruiters.

I hate the game-theory information asymmetry bullshiting game that is recruiting.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#157

Post by halbritt »

waitButWhy wrote: post #127
keyle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes once I've even been told that this employer requires a Word document as Resume. So I converted my full generated resume to PDF into a word document, line by line. Turns out, it was only so they could slap their info on it, reword my words and produce a PDF. I asked the employer later, they said they prefer PDF as it's easier to print.......... Snakes. They're leeches in snake skin.

Dude. It's one page of plain text. Maybe two pages. It will be transcribed by brute force in less than an hour, if need be. Probably by an unpaid intern. You either want recruiters to help do all the leg work for you, or you don't. And you either want the job, or you don't. If they have a policy of lubricating introductions under a branded letterhead, it's gonna go down that way. The file format protects nothing. And…

In the past, I've been a hiring manager receiving resumes treated this way by agencies.

They always, always screw them up. The resume is hard to read, formatted incorrectly or whatever. Most of the time, I simply went by the linkedin profile.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#158

Post by dwd »

patorjk wrote: post #16

> I do know that my manager called me up pissed off about the phone call he’d received, and told me to not use him as a reference in the future. It's also important for your references to know that they're your references ahead of time. You may think you have a good relationship with someone only to discover that they aren't a reliable positive reference. People also don't like being caught off guard.

LinkedIn is also problematic as they could potentially tap common connections in your network without your knowledge.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#159

Post by drtz »

I once had a recruiter cold-call my employer's main line, ask for me by name and falsely claim to the receptionist that they had already been in contact with me about a position. The whole office heard about it within 30 minutes.

Not a good way to make friends.

Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

#160

Post by ajross »

reureu wrote: post #95

I got a call from an external recruiter: "I have a candidate who would be a great fit for your company." I'm just a lowly data scientist with no hiring power, and at that job the entire data science team was quitting. So, I mentioned that I didn't think the team was growing since it seemed to be actively shrinking with no new reqs that I was aware of. Recruiter immediately turned it around and said they could represe…

> Nope nope nope nope nope. I'm not giving you a resume that you can modify however you see fit, only to cold call and cold email it around to random people you find on linkedin.

But... that's exactly the services a recruiter provides. Someone needs to make those calls if you want a new job, unless you feel that you're such a catch that you can rely exclusively on networking with former coworkers to find you new positions. Most people rely on recruiters to grease the social wheels needed to land them interviews.

I mean, it's not a glamorous profession, nor noble, nor particularly honorable. But don't indulge the conceit that recruiters are parasites. They do jobs you don't want to, so that you don't have to.

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