

Ask HN: How much would you pay someone to get you a job? - ceekay

Assume that someone writes your resume, markets it to the &quot;right&quot; companies, gets you in the door, prepares you for interviews, and hand holds you until you get a job.
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notahacker
Market rate = Zero. In practice recruitment consultants will be taking 20% or
more of first year salary, but that's from the employer and is therefore _not_
net of income tax, and possibly not net of salary brackets, for employers that
have them. More importantly the job seekers are able to take the recruiters'
advice (for what its worth, which may be nothing) and go and find their own
job through their own efforts and not owe anything.

There are companies and individuals that make a living from commissions paid
by _employees_ for getting the job, and there are probably individuals that
would benefit from getting paid career consultancy, but when the competition
is free at the point of sale it's not an easy market to get into.

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Strategist
I actually do something like this already. I don't do the cold calling and
stuff like that, but since I work with developers and designers everyday
(dealing with startup stuff), I do have many connections.

So I do headhunting for both sides. I get paid a commission from the company
for finding them great talent(I use already established connections of mine so
I already know if they are a good fit for the job or not), and the person that
gets hired pays me a commission for finding them a job.

It's typically 20% of their monthly salary for 6 months from both sides.

Good deal for a person to make some extra cash on the side of whatever they do
already, and they have time to do so.

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mchannon
With a number of companies, this already happens when you go through
recruiters. You don't see how much money you're paying, as it's factored in
before you see the offer.

If you look at it from the perspective of the employee, it's quite possibly
their biggest single expense all year. 20-30% of salary is common. It's easy
to see why recruiters are paranoid about getting stiffed by the hiring
company.

Unfortunately, it also puts you at a disadvantage when negotiating with the
hiring company. The next guy who applied for the same job but didn't have to
go through the recruiter would cost the company the same even if they earned
20% larger checks.

Still, as bad as recruiters are, the companies themselves are worse, by and
large.

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vladimirralev
This is a business where your performance can be measured easily, so just aim
for a risk-adjusted commission. If you manage to score me a deal that improves
my situation 50%, you can keep half of it. No strings attached. We share the
risk of me not liking the job and leaving after a month or so.

In order to be successful you will probably require me not to leave the new
job for at least 6-12 months. That can be an expensive term to have because of
the risk being stuck in some crappy workplace, the risk of missing better
opportunities and some other more subtle limitations that costs me money. That
can drive your cut down significantly. On the other hand if you have premium
companies like Google, you can claim a bigger cut and it's still a good deal.

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beiburg
I am very interested in this thing. I am not a US citizen/residence and I
would like to get help finding a position in a certain area. I don't mind
paying as much as my first 2 salaries or more for some help. How can approach
help like this?

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imsofuture
Zero dollars. Not to be flip, but someone else writing my resume wouldn't get
me a job I'd want.

~~~
beiburg
What about doing some calls and using their connections?

