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In Defense of Recruiters

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Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#31

Post by jrjarrett »

So how does someone who is a recruitee get connected with a DECENT recruiter?

All I seem to get are the body shop type places contacting me (aka Robert Half, TEKSystems). I've told them that I would be interested if and only if it would mean a step up, go on to explain my current levels of pay,vacation, sick, bonus, etc, and say if the opportunity isn't better than that, then we have nothing to talk about.

Of course they start trying to hard sell me, and it turns out these places have zero benefits.

I'd entertain discussion with someone looking for my skills that would be willing to pay for them.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#32

Post by saganus »

Is it not possible to do some sort of "phased" payment to recruiters? So instead of giving 10% of the employees salary if actually employed (or employed for at least 3 months or other variations), how about giving increased percentages depending on actual time employed. So maybe 1% of salary if employed, then 5% is the employee stays for more than 3 months, then 1% every 3 months thereafter until it reaches 10-15% or some other amount.

I would imagine that this would encourage recruiters to not do a shotgun approach (i.e. do any employee you can) as only the actually good employees will be profitable, and the others will probably end up costing the recruiter more than the first 5% he could get.

Of course I have no experience doing this and all figures are made up, but are there any obvious reasons of why this would not work? Maybe in the end the final percentage is higher than the typical market rate for recruiters (i.e. >10% maybe) but extended over a longer period so the recruiter would have to actually cherry-pick the candidates.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#33

Post by fecak »

itafroma wrote: post #26
rayiner wrote: post #11

I don't get all the recruiter hate. You're the pretty girl/handsome guy at the dance, for now. The unsolicited attention will fade with age. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I'm sure this isn't universal (though I don't think I'm the only one), but my experience with recruiters has been a series of cold emails for jobs that aren't even close to my areas of expertise in areas nowhere near where I'm located. They usually incorporate some form of "if this isn't a good opportunity for you, can you please forward it to someone else" with no attempt to actually get to know me or what I'm looki…

The forward it to someone else is probably what comes off as most offensive if you haven't developed any rapport with the recruiter. I get tons of referrals now from past candidates, but I almost never ask for referrals. I'd rather be the one not asking for them, which differentiates me from most other firms out there.

If they didn't ask you to forward, would you freely respond with what you in fact are looking for, or would the recruiter specifically have to ask that? I usually phrase my intros by saying if the opportunity I presented isn't something you are interested in, I'd like to learn about what types of things would interest you so I can let you know about only those opportunities if they happen to come across my desk. Response varies, even with that added line.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#34

Post by bostik »

rayiner wrote: post #11

I don't get all the recruiter hate. You're the pretty girl/handsome guy at the dance, for now. The unsolicited attention will fade with age. Enjoy it while it lasts.

There's a world of difference between being approached by recruiters who have been retained to find talented people, and being hounded by recruiters who are trying to place their allotted candidates where ever they can.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#35

Post by fecak »

jrjarrett wrote: post #31

So how does someone who is a recruitee get connected with a DECENT recruiter? All I seem to get are the body shop type places contacting me (aka Robert Half, TEKSystems). I've told them that I would be interested if and only if it would mean a step up, go on to explain my current levels of pay,vacation, sick, bonus, etc, and say if the opportunity isn't better than that, then we have nothing to talk about. Of course…

I wrote an article a while back on how to find a decent recruiter (http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2013/08/09/pretty/). You really can't control who contacts you, so to find a good one you'll likely have to do some outreach.

In my eyes the main thing is experience. Young recruiters who haven't made any money yet get tied up in trying to recruit everyone and they don't discriminate. They waste everybody's time - the candidate, the client, and their own. Wave 5K or 10K in front of someone a year out of school and they go bonkers - wave that same amount in front of someone who has been in business for a while, and they know how valuable their time really is.

The recruiters that are trying to squeeze round pegs into square holes haven't figured out the time management side of things yet. If they figure it out at some point, they could have a long career. If they don't figure it out in a couple years, they have to leave the industry (or bounce around between companies until they are unemployable).

Career longevity could mean that the recruiter is the best at sales and skilled at convincing candidates to take any job. But doing that isn't sustainable over years and years - your reputation will eventually catch up to you.

Find someone who has been in the business for a while with a steady work history and experience in your industry. They will be thrilled to hear from you.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#36

Post by henrik_w »

My experience of recruiters is mostly good. I spend almost no time saying no to offers that I don't like. For offers that might be good, I have a better negotiating position than if I applied for the job - I still have my current job, so they have to make a really good offer, otherwise I won't switch.

I am mostly contacted on LinkedIn, and I think, on balance, that it works well there. I've written about it here: http://henrikwarne.com/2013/08/21/linkedin-good-or-bad/

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#37

Post by fecak »

saganus wrote: post #32

Is it not possible to do some sort of "phased" payment to recruiters? So instead of giving 10% of the employees salary if actually employed (or employed for at least 3 months or other variations), how about giving increased percentages depending on actual time employed. So maybe 1% of salary if employed, then 5% is the employee stays for more than 3 months, then 1% every 3 months thereafter until it reaches 10-15% or…

This sounds a bit like contract to hire, but it's an interesting idea. It's the counterpoint to how recruiters debate the issue of guarantees.

Companies want long guarantee periods, meaning if they use a recruiter and pay 25% of salary, they want a refund if the candidate leaves quickly. Most guarantees I see are 90 days.

When a company wants asks for a six month or one year guarantee, recruiters may use the rebuttal "Well if my candidate stays for 20 years, are you going to pay me a 50% fee instead of 25%?"

It's an interesting concept to reward recruiters who provide candidates that stay for a long time. I've never seen any data to suggest that new hires that come from agencies have any longer or shorter tenures than those found through other means, so I'm not sure how a phased payment system would really help change much (other than recruiters having a vested interest in their hires staying at a job for as long as possible, which is the object of contract recruiting).

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#38

Post by mgkimsal »

Touche wrote: post #27
dreamweapon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's "attention" I guess, but is it the right kind? A better analogy might the pretty girl walking home from high school, of the rather hick-ish / paleosuburban sort -- when the older dropout pulls up in his muscle car and asks "Hey babe, wanna party?" I get about the same feeling when talking to recruiters, most of the time.

People call you to offer you a well paying job. You probably get these once a week or 2. Most people (as in humans) would kill for that attention. But us developers complain that each well paying opportunity isn't the exact one that we're looking for.

I get your point, but... they're offering a 'well paying job' to someone who already has a 'well paying job'. And they know it.

Go in to a McDonald's and start asking the staff if they want to come work at Taco Bell or Burger King. Interrupt them at home during their time off a few times. "Hey, come work for another company doing essentially the same stuff for essentially the same money - maybe 3% more!" I doubt you'll get many takers.

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#39

Post by dreamweapon »

Touche wrote: post #27
dreamweapon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's "attention" I guess, but is it the right kind? A better analogy might the pretty girl walking home from high school, of the rather hick-ish / paleosuburban sort -- when the older dropout pulls up in his muscle car and asks "Hey babe, wanna party?" I get about the same feeling when talking to recruiters, most of the time.

People call you to offer you a well paying job. You probably get these once a week or 2. Most people (as in humans) would kill for that attention. But us developers complain that each well paying opportunity isn't the exact one that we're looking for.

They offer what they imagine (based on keyword filtering, idle speculation, nose scratching, drooling, and other advanced heuristics) maybe-might-sorta be a lukewarm mutual fit between two parties who most likely wouldn't be talking to each other.

Which they then package with over-the-top smarminess and intellectual dishonesty. And for this, they add a 30-40 percent premium to your acquisition cost for any potential employer (and concomittant disincentive to hire you, or respectively, increased incentive to relentlessly grill you, check you over for ticks and fleas, etc to make sure you're worth the overhead, if they do choose to bite).

Re: In Defense of Recruiters

#40

Post by saganus »

fecak wrote: post #37
saganus wrote: post #32

Is it not possible to do some sort of "phased" payment to recruiters? So instead of giving 10% of the employees salary if actually employed (or employed for at least 3 months or other variations), how about giving increased percentages depending on actual time employed. So maybe 1% of salary if employed, then 5% is the employee stays for more than 3 months, then 1% every 3 months thereafter until it reaches 10-15% or…

This sounds a bit like contract to hire, but it's an interesting idea. It's the counterpoint to how recruiters debate the issue of guarantees. Companies want long guarantee periods, meaning if they use a recruiter and pay 25% of salary, they want a refund if the candidate leaves quickly. Most guarantees I see are 90 days. When a company wants asks for a six month or one year guarantee, recruiters may use the rebuttal…

having a vested interest in their hires staying at a job for as long as possible

Exactly what I was thinking, but of course as I'm not experienced with this I thought there could be some glaring issues with it.

I would love to see some data (even if anecdotal) from someone that tried something similar. Imagine that you can even treat some of your older, most successful employees as "passive income"; as a recruiter you made a really really good effort locating, training and making the best fit for someone, and then that someone is netting you, say, 1% of their salary every 6 months or something, for the next 5 years (haven't worked through the numbers so that might not even make sense), but replace 1% and 5 years with X and Y.

In general terms, I would like to have a recruiter in more "closer" terms. So maybe this recruiter got me a job at company A, then 3 or 4 years from now, since they really did their job and know me well, they can put me in a much better job, for say the next 3 or 4 years again, and so forth. That would mean both he and I could have continued income due to the effort we both made. He made his effort picking a really good candidate and so did I, doing my job.

Kind of like an investor. Successful traders are usually the ones that make their due diligence and thus are rewarded with the most handsome payouts. Isn't that what a recruiter should do? invest in a particular candidate and find the best place where his "investment" can payback handsomely?

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