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

kvonhorn.github.io

61–70 of 231 posts

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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still worth doing even if there’s a just a small chance of turning something up. The only time I haven’t seen it be useful is employee referrals.

Honest question: what do you hope to find? As a source of information, references were hand selected by the person with an interest in getting selected, they will like be prepped on what to say, they have zero investment in your company's success, etc.

Just being able to provide multiple people with meaningful positions (former manager at your company, etc.) who are willing to advocate for you is a signal. There are ways to fake that signal of course, but it's still something of a filter.

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

#62

What do you do when the recruiter contacts your current employer before you even provide references?

Lawyer up if you can afford it?

Anyone can certainly sue anyone at anytime (at least in the US), but I don't think there's any basis for a civil claim here. Not sure you'd find a lawyer to take your case.

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

#63
post #26

I got an email from a local recruiter a few weeks ago and stepped outside during my lunch break to give her a call. On the initial phone call she asked me where I worked currently. After the call I stepped back into my work where I sit back to back with my manager. No more than 5 minutes later his phone rings, its the recruiter calling to see if they have any need of her services. I emailed her while he was on the ph…

... is there Yelp for recruiters? Because I'd want to know a recruiter pulls stunts like that before I work with them.

I don't think this would work. Anyone that is already using shady business practices wouldn't object to posting a few fake reviews of themselves and their competitors either.

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

#64

I've never had anyone call my references. The most anyone has ever wanted is a W-2 form to prove I worked there. I think it would be kind of unusual. What's the incentive to give an unbiased reference for free? If I didn't like someone, I'd say "oh yeah, they're great", because it's not my problem and I don't want to be held accountable for the person not getting a job. If they are great, I'd say the same thing, of c…

The higher you rise in your career, and the better companies you work for, the more you'll find your references are checked. When I applied for a part-time Christmas season job at a Photos with Santa booth last year, no one checked my references. For my current salaried job, they checked every single one (I gave four).

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

#65
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand. Isn’t any business “sales driven”?

I think what he means by sales driven is high information asymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry It’s a fair call, if you ask me.

It’s too bad that “sales driven” is code for “information hiding.” But it’s true.

Anecdotally, I’ve been able to solve the information assymetry problem by drinking recruiters under the table. This is pretty much a prerequisite for me working with you.

Your mileage may vary.

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

#67

I wish I knew this eons ago. I’m sure there are some good ones...somewhere. But, FUCK RECRUITERS.

Former recruiter here (not a fan of the industry either), just interested: what happened?

Lots of lying and that lying leading me to not getting paid or putting me in unfortunate situations.

Meeting times for potential employers, length of engagement for contracts, date of pay, and so on.

Being a young, hopeful professional leads to being taken advantage of because at our core, we all believe that people act in good faith. The more I worked with them (and the older I got), I've learned that once money is in play all bets are off.

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

#68

I got an email from a local recruiter a few weeks ago and stepped outside during my lunch break to give her a call. On the initial phone call she asked me where I worked currently. After the call I stepped back into my work where I sit back to back with my manager. No more than 5 minutes later his phone rings, its the recruiter calling to see if they have any need of her services. I emailed her while he was on the ph…

[deleted]

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

#69

I got an email from a local recruiter a few weeks ago and stepped outside during my lunch break to give her a call. On the initial phone call she asked me where I worked currently. After the call I stepped back into my work where I sit back to back with my manager. No more than 5 minutes later his phone rings, its the recruiter calling to see if they have any need of her services. I emailed her while he was on the ph…

[deleted]

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

#70
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so important! Story time: I once hired someone as a Mid/Senior Dev at a large company in SV who had strong dev skills. Everything seemed great at first and we were very excited to have this person join the team. I respected this dev and had no personal issues with them. Our interactions were positive. However this person quit suddenly after maybe two weeks because they didn't like having to justify their tech…

Eh. He probably just didn't like the team/felt that they didn't know what they were doing/they wasted more time on meetings and discussion in general rather than him just not wanting to justify his approach.

I just can't imagine being able to judge that in a two week period unless it's a total shit show. I have no reason to doubt the GP and I think its more likely this is just a case of "I know better".
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