Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter • Hacker News Board

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#501

Post by rexf » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 3:46 AM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #345

lbriner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most common reasons is simply that they don't want you to go direct to the company in question and bypass their commission. If they give you too much, it is very easy to do and many companies will recruit directly and the recruiter would have no legal basis to do anything about that. On the other hand, because of commission, it is in the recruiter's interest to get you as much money as possible so you migh…

> it is in the recruiter's interest to get you as much money as possible so you might get a better offer via them Up to a point. They get a fraction of the marginal increase in salary, and they’d much sooner “close the sale” than risking having someone else fill the job to try and get an extra 500$ commission. It’s the same story with real estate agents: selling your house for an extra 20k might be a lot to you but t…

Yeah, however real estate agents will close later (and for more) when selling their own home.

> Real estate agent-owned homes are on the market longer and sell for more (2005)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26840289

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#502

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

travisjungroth wrote: post #460

fecak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former recruiter here. You are spot-on about referrals, and having an insider advocating for you or just their willingness to make the recommendation starts things off at a great spot. Here's where I disagree. You haven't doubled your salary BECAUSE of your policy of not working with recruiters, but rather DESPITE this policy. Deciding to disregard any recruiter opportunity is just shutting out quite a few things tha…

Some of the replies to this comment make me crazy (should I disclose here I know this commenter?). There’s some useful information in there, that the distribution of roles behind recruiters change as the jobs become higher level. I didn’t know that. And he hedged his statements all over. And then people still reply like he’s saying if you don’t pick up a cold FaceTime call from a recruiter while you’re in the middle…

As logical, meritocratic and evidence-based as they claim to be, software developers get dug in to their emotion-based positions and wear blinders just like everyone else does.

Once someone thinks "I hate recruiters; they are useless" it becomes very difficult to change that mindset.

FWIW, I've been in industry for 30 years and all but my first job out of college came through recruiters. I tell the bad ones to quit bugging me and I work cooperatively with the good ones to find positions that I might actually like.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#503

Post by ipaddr » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

bboozzoo wrote: post #129

TameAntelope wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but if someone doesn't have the secret sauce, are you then suggesting that person is doomed? Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry, especially given our diversity problems.

> Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry Is it nepotism though? Your friends are not your family. Unless I'm missing some fine details of what nepotism means as a non native English speaker. Besides, if you are a reliable employee, I doubt any reasonable company would miss out on an opportunity to consider a strong referral. Regardless of industry.

Your friends, family and people you don't like but do a favour for are all examples of nepotism because they got the job through a non professional relationship.

Referrals are welcome. Filling the managers roles with these type of relationships makes the workers below feel they have no opportunity at those top jobs.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#504

Post by dvtrn » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:05 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #435

vollmond wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the phone calls I get from unknown numbers are some combination of scam/robo/or just immediate hang up. The only exceptions tend to be businesses responding to my initial contact (eg, trying to get a plumber out to my house), in which case I will answer unknown numbers for a day or two until we connect. Otherwise nope. This is a US mobile number that I've ported from carrier to carrier since the mid-00s. Haven…

I think they're just enumerating the entire address space, rather than buying your phone number from somewhere. But I guess I have no evidence to prove this; I have given my phone number to companies, and I get a ton of spam calls.

I think they're just enumerating the entire address space

Even when you consider most calls now for SIP/VoIP platforms (which is where a lot of these scammers get their DID/phone numbers from) are charging fractions of a cent for outbound calls, enumerating and then dialing entire NPA spaces gets prohibitively expensive after even five minutes of dialing waiting for someone to pick up, even for the most dedicated of scam call centers.

Doesn't mean they aren't dialing randomly to see who picks up, just I doubt they're dialing entire phone number spaces wholesale.

What can be observed going on is these scammers quite literally trade lists of leaked phone numbers and email addresses and they actively keep track of who responds, and who falls for their scam before sharing the list with others.

Jim Browning (a popular youtube scambaiter and infosec pro) has videos where you can watch it happening with your own eyes.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#505

Post by catillac » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:07 AM UTC

dev_tty01 wrote: post #438

ornornor wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is in the recruiter's interest to get you as much money as possible so you might get a better offer via them Up to a point. They get a fraction of the marginal increase in salary, and they’d much sooner “close the sale” than risking having someone else fill the job to try and get an extra 500$ commission. It’s the same story with real estate agents: selling your house for an extra 20k might be a lot to you but t…

Assuming it is an active real estate with lots of transactions, yes, the agent is absolutely more motivated to close the deal and move on to another deal than to get the highest commission possible on a particular deal. The situation is similar with recruiters. It is important to understand these motivations to correctly interpret what you are hearing from the agents/realtors.

I used to work as a waiter when I was in my first summer out of high school. The calculus was similar there. When it was busy the tables turned as soon as the person got up, so I would often not emphasize dessert. The added $15 on the check from dessert increased my tip a couple dollars, but regular desserts could cause me to lose 1-2 full turns of my section over the course of the evening, so with a four table section of everyone for dessert, I might lose 8 tables total, and if the average tip was $20, I’d lose $160 minus the extra $16 in tip gained from everyone having dessert. Point is, I much preferred quick turns over small per capita increases in per table tips.

In non rush times though where tables didn’t get filled when people left, it made a lot more sense to play up dessert.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#506

Post by winrid » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

qubyte wrote: post #97

Most of the recruiter traffic comes from LinkedIn, which is not particularly surprising. The very first line of my profile there reads: Please do not contact me about cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFTs, or associated technologies. Almost all recruiters who contact me on LinkedIn are talking about... cryptocurrency, blockchains, or NFTs etc. If a recruiter isn't prepared to read even the first line of my profile then I…

I told a recruiter I wasn't interested in crypto jobs and they laughed at me and said I was crazy. Pay must be high...

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#507

Post by devoutsalsa » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:30 AM UTC

kyawzazaw wrote: post #424

devoutsalsa wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I just never answer the actual phone for anyone. I don’t even bother to look who is calling.

Why not? Do you get too many scam calls or robo calls?

Anyone who knows me will message through any other app.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#508

Post by dkersten » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:32 AM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #436

jjwiseman wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario I hadn't thought about, that you might want to be aware of: I had to call 911 recently. I talked to the dispatcher, and hung up. A few minutes later they called me back to give me instructions. The call showed up as a regular Los Angeles 323 area code number. In fact, it was flagged by my phone as spam. It made me wonder whether reverse 911[1] calls, which are used to warn about hazmat situations, fire eva…

Additionally, if a neighbor is having an emergency they (emergency services) might call you to see if you are home and able to help.

I don’t know anyone that isn’t my parents age that has a landline anymore so this scenario already wouldn’t work with my friends, family or neighbours. My phone isn’t directly tied to my address in any way that might be useful for emergency services.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#509

Post by weq » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:46 AM UTC

fecak wrote: post #319

sebzim4500 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this blame shifting really happen though? I've never seen recruiters get blamed for a bad hire. I've seen them get blamed for sending people that fail at the first interview though.

A bad hire isn't on a recruiter unless they are basically lying to the employer about the hire's credentials or background, and even then it's the employer's job to vet what is being said.

Companies are stupid. Recruiters talk them into bad hires all the time, then there candidate gets a job, experience, and they get to replace them the following year, placing another person with the original company and moving the other candidate to the next.

Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

#510

Post by jacinda » Wed, Feb 02, 2022, 4:46 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #500

jjwiseman wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scenario I hadn't thought about, that you might want to be aware of: I had to call 911 recently. I talked to the dispatcher, and hung up. A few minutes later they called me back to give me instructions. The call showed up as a regular Los Angeles 323 area code number. In fact, it was flagged by my phone as spam. It made me wonder whether reverse 911[1] calls, which are used to warn about hazmat situations, fire eva…

I quite honestly think that general direct-dial telephony is only a few years from catastrophic collapse, not for technical reasons, but because people will simply defect from the system. There are too many nuisance calls, there are too many people (and businesses) falling for scams, and there seems to be nothing telcos or governments are willing to do about it. It's pretty much the same thing that's happened to Usen…

I hadn't really thought about this before, but your comment made me realize the costs that used to be associated with spam calls in the past.

Monetary or social costs were both asymmetrically in favor of the receiver because a long-distance call was expensive and a local spam call would eventually incur a high social cost (either in the innocent case of teenage prank calls being figured out by parents or the less innocent cases where the police or phone company might need to trace the source).