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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
551–560 of 633 posts
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#552I'm not a developer and I don't get much of this emails but I always try to keep all doors open and not to burn any bridges.
I've learned a lot from just talking with recruiters, I got a lot of good advice on how to improve my CV, etc.
I landed my current job thanks to a recruiter that was persistent and didn't forget about me :)
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#553Earlier 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 haven't received any robocall, cold sales attempt or spam SMS in years. I'm also EU based, maybe it's another side effect of non-existant privacy laws in US?
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
The preferred outcome of the company is making a successful hire, so they will go high enough to make sure they get a great candidate, or if they can't afford that, will go to their max budget. And if they don't then you don't want to work there anyway. There is no situation where you will say a high number and they will move up to meet you if that number was greater than their max budget to begin with.
1: Interviewee: I want X. Company: Sorry but that's above our max budget. Interviewee: What can you offer me? Company: Y, Y Interviewee: OK, I can consider it if you promise me a reasonable revision in a year. 2: Interviewee: Whats your offer? Company: Z, Z Interviewee: That's too low. I want X. Company: You're asking for X when we offered Z. That's too much of a difference and it doesn't sound reasonable to us. We f…
Can't tell whether it is sarcasm or not. A "Company" might get insulted, but, lucky you, you talk to a hiring manager. Who is just a person, not an entire organization, and who is not spending that X out of their own pocket.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 haven't received any robocall, cold sales attempt or spam SMS in years. I'm also EU based, maybe it's another side effect of non-existant privacy laws in US?
My understanding, from the last time I looked into this, is that the US does have decently aggressive laws against spamming people without offering them ways to opt out and some prior relationship, but a bunch of the spam originates in places outside the US and its immediate allies, so shutting it down becomes nontrivial.
I have, in fact, gotten periodic spam calls, though only once or twice an SMS - usually trying to solicit me about my car's insurance policy having issues (I do not own a car).
I sort of wish I could convince my Android phone to treat all calls to my direct number from anyone but GV as spam, because I have never given that number to anyone.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#556Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's assuming the employer has infinite time and resources to interview and vet candidates. They don't, they are overwhelmed, and it's supposedly the recruiters job to make it easier, yet most seem completely clueless and useless.
I said bad "hire", not bad "interview" - this was by design. If a company makes a bad hire, it's not (generally) because the candidate was presented, but rather a flaw in their interview and vetting process. The "how" of the candidate appearing is mostly irrelevant at that point.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd bet your LinkedIn isn't optimized at all for discovery. Populate a skills section with languages and tools you use, and you'll often see an immediate uptick.
The companies paying in the BigTech compensation range don’t care about what languages or tools you are using. The same recruiters see I work for BigTech and they are still sending me “exciting opportunities for .Net leads paying up to $150K”.
They may not care about what languages and tools you are using when they hire you, but that's how they find you. They aren't on LinkedIn search for "Software Engineer" in most cases - at least I wasn't.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
1: Interviewee: I want X. Company: Sorry but that's above our max budget. Interviewee: What can you offer me? Company: Y, Y Interviewee: OK, I can consider it if you promise me a reasonable revision in a year. 2: Interviewee: Whats your offer? Company: Z, Z Interviewee: That's too low. I want X. Company: You're asking for X when we offered Z. That's too much of a difference and it doesn't sound reasonable to us. We f…
Can't tell whether it is sarcasm or not. A "Company" might get insulted, but, lucky you, you talk to a hiring manager. Who is just a person, not an entire organization, and who is not spending that X out of their own pocket.
Not sarcasm.
The hiring manager is a person representing a company, which is exactly why they would find their downplaying the offer (because they were hoping to increase it somewhat to meet the candidate in the middle, so they had to start low because they want to keep some gap there) embarassing and feel insulted.
They may not be spending out of their pocket but they are spending out of their budget.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#559Strong disagree. I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time out of sheer incompetence and disinterest. I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy. But the real secret sauce is referrals. Companies always prioritize a strong referral,…
This is the key to success. Even if you think a company is bad, but you have a good network that sends a referral your way, it will probably save you.
If the job was good and you liked working there - and you had the right attitude - then it's your job. Recruiters and even companies make it harder for a resume to get to the hiring manager than it ever used to be.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#560This post doesn't go far enough. One of the best things a programmer can do to better their career is to talk to no technical people. Talk to recruiters. Just pick up the phone. Then, learn to politely decline. Then, learn to ask questions. Then, expand your horizons. Maybe you can have a conversation with the QA department people for more than 20 seconds about a non-technical topic. Maybe you can talk to the CTO and ask them questions.
Most programmers find talking to nontechnical people like recruiters beneath them. They just want to crush the coding challenge, and be hired on the spot. The idea that there could be more to a job than writing lines of code is hard to fathom. Once you open up that world though, it's very interesting, and pays dividends.