

All that is wrong with the Recruitment Industry - Peroni
http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog/2012/6/15/all-that-is-wrong-with-the-recruitment-industry

======
iuguy
There's a great three part series[1][2] (well, parts one and two are great) at
the Kernel magazine on recruiters as well as an expose on the top recruiting
scams[3].

[1] - [http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2401/tech-
recruiter...](http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2401/tech-recruiters-
part-i-desperate-times/)

[2] - [http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2403/tech-
recruiter...](http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2403/tech-recruiters-
part-ii-fear-and-loathing/)

[3] -
[http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2404/the-10-sleazie...](http://www.kernelmag.com/features/report/2404/the-10-sleaziest-
tech-recruiter-scams/)

~~~
pja
Ah, S3 group. The recruitment agency that for some reason feels it necessary
to trade under more than twenty different brand names. One of the contractor
bulletin boards in the UK puts up a list of the current ones every now and
again IIRC. Purely as a public service to their readers you understand.

~~~
ViktorasJucikas
To spare curious readers some time here it is:
[http://forums.contractoruk.com/general/58258-sthree-group-
in...](http://forums.contractoruk.com/general/58258-sthree-group-interim-
results.html)

------
talmand
As a front-end developer who recently just went through the job-hunting
process I can say that, for the most part, my biggest complaint on the US side
for recruiters is that they have no idea what I do for a living. Never mind
the fact that most of the job postings are seemingly written by people who
have no idea what the job actually is. I really got tired of explaining that
Java is in fact not the cool nickname for JavaScript.

I found my new job through a recruiter. He approached me and I found him to be
quite good at his job. He talked with me first to get a feeling for my
competency level and then suggested two positions with clients he has worked
with before. One of them turned out to be my new job.

I think I talked to around ten recruiters total and only two of them knew what
they were doing. The others really, really needed to find a new line of work.

I won't go into details of the oddities of my job hunt because I'm sure many
here have similar stories. I just wanted to say there are recruiters out there
worth knowing, if you can find them or if they find you.

------
nw1188
"The reality is that passive racism and ageism is still extremely active
within the recruitment industry."

I agree this is an issue in the industry, but I believe this point is a
serious issue at the companies end rather than the responsibility of the
recruiters. Surely the reason it is easier to "sell" white European candidates
is that is what the companies want, and the people they end up hiring, this is
completely unethical clearly, but recruiters are reacting to this. I am sure
if recruiters could submit any C.V. regardless of age and race and still make
the money they would.

~~~
zalew
"had an unofficial yet extremely active rule where if the applicant had more
vowels in their surname than consonants, their CV was instantly dismissed"

could somebody tell me who is it discriminating against? it sounds ridiculous,
or I'm not getting the reference.

~~~
Peroni
It was a general attempt to eliminate a lot of African candidates. Probably
should have clarified that. Remember, this company does not employ clever
people.

------
qznc
The most elegant way to "fix" a market is to change the incentives. There is a
contract between employer and recruiter. The employer does not want to be
pestered all day about useless candidates. Just subtract some percentage from
the recruiters fee for each wasted call.

Let's say the employer gets on average 20 calls until a candidate qualifies
and the third of those gets the job. This means 60 wasted calls for 3
candidates. If you subtract 1% per wasted call from the recruiters fee, he
should make sure to reduce the number of wasted calls. Of course, the original
fee must be a little bit larger than the mentioned £5k-£15k, since some waste
is expected. Start with £18k, reduce wasted calls to 20, which results in a
£14k fee and more time for the employer.

~~~
Peroni
Interesting concept however it won't work.

The pestering calls are random agencies trying to get your permission to
recruit for their roles. Give them permission and they won't pester you unless
they legitimately have a good candidate. Usually a recruiter will send a
maximum of 5 candidates per vacancy.

~~~
aidos
You say that, but we've sent back plenty of candidate cvs with a firm "no" the
moment they arrive from a recruiter.

Would be interesting to have financial repercussions for low quality cvs
coming through.

~~~
michaelcampbell
Do you still use the recruiters? Why give them financial INCENTIVES for mixing
good with bad CV's?

------
netcan
The rewards are all wrong in this market.

(1) Most companies are bad at recruitment. It's just very far from whatever
their core business is.

(2) Since the value of a better employee is huge companies are willing to pay
for it. In most markets, when people are willing to pay for quality, firms are
able to take that money and turn it into a higher quality product. If a market
appears for $100k cars, car makers will spend that money making Ferraris. The
value of that may be questionable given that 10k can do most of the stuff
you'd be doing with the Ferrari but that's besides the point. The point is
that the manufacturer found some way of _spending_ your money on the
_product_.

The problem with recruiting is that they have no way of spending your money in
any decent way. They can spend to get volume up, to a degree, but there isn't
really of reliably spending your way into getting better candidates. Instead
of doing something useful (to the employer _or_ candidate), everything goes
into a zero sum game of fighting each-other for openings and candidates.

------
wildwood
My Key Recruiter Indicators, based on my experiences in the US:

Good: Working with a founder of a company that's more than a few years old.

Bad: Talking to someone different each time a company contacts you.

Toxic: Talking to someone new each time, and them making you go through the
same "getting to know you" interview questions each time.

Good: The recruiter sends you job opportunities that match what you've told
them to look for, and what they send you gets progressively better with more
feedback.

Bad: Repeatedly send you jobs that don't match your skills or interests.

Toxic: Send you jobs that don't even match your location requirements.

Good: Gives you "behind the scenes" details about postings - what skills are
really required and what they're willing to train, what the work environment
is like, etc.

Bad: Only knows what's on the job listing, and, if you match the requirements,
will tell you whatever you need to hear to get you to agree to the interview.

Toxic: Won't even tell you the name of the company they're submitting you to.

Good: Talking openly with you about their "cut", or at least open to ideas for
increasing your take-home pay. (US contracting example: how much will they
increase your rate if you switch from W-2 to 1099?)

Bad: Asking you for your rate/salary range to begin with, and using your
bottom-of-range number as the starting point to negotiate you down from.

Toxic: Negotiating you down on your rate repeatedly, practically at every step
of the recruiting process.

What really sucks about working with recruiters is, an average-to-bad
recruiter can still get you a good job. Since it's a numbers game for everyone
involved, there's at least some incentive to put up with assholes, as long as
there's a chance that they will find you something good.

------
pikewood
Another issue is that open jobs become protected secrets to the extent that it
becomes hard to find positions without a recruiter. It's some type of strange
cyclic dependency where companies turn to recruiters because the employees
have given up looking for openings on their own--which leads to job opening
info residing only with recruiters (and, yes, an about us -> jobs page buried
on the corporate web site), which in turn fuels the employees turning to
recruiters.

I feel the glut of job boards hurts this as well. Everyone is so eager to
start a site to get their own $20 job posting fee that employees are
overwhelmed over where to spend their money. Postings are broadly scattered
across dozens of sites, and as a result job postings get worse results than
recruiters. So, companies turn to recruiters, which helps start the whole
cycle up.

Then there's a different form of blacklisting--if you get hired via a
recruitment agency, sometimes you can't get access to their exclusive jobs if
you go looking again, for fear that the hiring company will fire them. Of
course the agency will choose a portfolio of jobs over one hiring fee if the
land the right company.

I was shocked to find out that in other industries, the workers pay the
recruiters to find them a job.

------
rhinds
I agree - having recently been through tech recruitment processes its pretty
painful - at the end of the day recruiters are just sales people, their single
goal is to sell you and the roles, regardless of what your goals or skills
are.

As a result, with a few friends I have been working as part of a team working
on a product to try and disrupt the recruitment industry (was actually going
to do a Show HN, as we have just launched two days ago!) - Its a online resume
building site, that lets developers plug in to GitHub, stackoverflow, etc, to
demonstrate their projects and experiences.

As well as this though, we are working on the companies section, where
companies can register and effectively create their resumes pitching to
developers why they should work for them (developer hardware setup, training
agenda, oss contribs etc) - so making more incentives for companies to
register themselves (and less so for agencies), and hopefully reduce that
burden of recruiting on companies as they can easily see github contributions,
stack answers etc and get a better indication of potential candidates skills.

Feel free to check out the site (in beta) <http://nerdability.com>

~~~
zalew
> Its a online resume building site, that lets developers plug in to GitHub,
> stackoverflow, etc, to demonstrate their projects and experiences

sth like <https://masterbranch.com/> ? except the latter lets you connect
other repos than github.

~~~
rhinds
yep, it would certainly appear so..

Just as we were finishing build I also got a private invite to the
StackOverflow beta career profile site (now publicly open i believe) which is
the same thing but more mature (connects Stack score and a tonne of code repos
etc)

So it seems we are not first to the party, but at least we can try and enjoy
building a (hopefully) nice product!!

Hopefully a differentiating factor might be that we are planning on focusing
more on the company profile/job stuff and generally the whole end-to-end
recruitment experience, but lets see..

Thanks for letting me know about masterbranch though, seems like a really nice
site.

------
vonmoltke
"I've come across many employers complaining that recruiters have actually
copied their job postings word for word despite not engaging said recruiters
to represent them."

I have been hit by this, and I believe I may have lost one or two
opportunities because of this. My first hint of this practice was during a
phone interview when the hiring manager said something to the effect of, "your
recruiter will get in contact with you". Not "our recruiter", not $NAME. I got
the distinct impression that I had been put in front of this company
unsolicited.

From then on I started Googling for reqs that recruiters sent me that I was
interested in. I soon discovered a pattern of recruiters copying open reqs,
sticking a contract period on them [0], and posting them on job boards. I have
seen multiple recruiters do this for the same position, sometimes with the
actual company posting the same position on the same boards. A few even manage
to leave the company's name in the posting. This more than anything drove me
away from job boards, except SO Careers and the HN threads).

[0] These are all full-time regular positions.

------
drsim
Recruitment agents work particularly well for contract developers, the ethics
notwithstanding. Permanent is a whole different ball game that I'm not going
to touch on.

TLDR: The model isn't broken, it could use some optimization.

Everyone likes to bash a recruiter. And, some guy who takes 80 quid a day out
of your pocket for months should be an object of derision, no?

Look at the flip side: agents act as stimulus for the market, pushing through
deals quickly and raising the ceiling on rates.

Sales is dirty and hard work (I've done it). Agents need to be like bulldogs
as roles go fast, within days or hours. Without an agent in the mix contracts
take longer to get signed.

They are far from the best judges of quality candidates. The closest they get
is keyword matching and telephone screening if you're able to string a
sentence together. But often this is a good 'low bar'.

Agent fees are expensive. As a contractor it's never good to find out what the
client is actually paying for you vs. what you get. That said, the rates here
in London are good compared to what I found in Vancouver and elsewhere in the
UK. The difference I observed was the aggressive and competitive agencies
here, where if they can squeeze more money out of a client they'll pocket a
good chunk of it.

London's well-established and healthy contracting market is due in part to the
agencies that have grown up around the candidates and companies here.

~~~
rmc
_Everyone likes to bash a recruiter. And, some guy who takes 80 quid a day out
of your pocket for months should be an object of derision, no?_

People don't hate recruiters because they take money, but because they are
rubbish at their job.

~~~
drsim
Their job is to place a candidate with a client. They're good at it otherwise
they would have died out long ago.

The gripe I hear from colleagues is X, Y, Z always ending in 'and they take
£££ from me a day!'

My post notes the problems with the model, but it isn't broken.

~~~
yashchandra
"They're good at it otherwise they would have died out long ago."

Not necessarily. They have not died out only because of lazy employers.
Employers do not mind paying extra cash since they are too busy to even take
an extra 10 mins out to quickly screen candidates. Having said that, I have
come across some good recruiters who actually know the employers well,
understand the industry and are not complete jerks. But that is like a needle
in a haystack.

~~~
drsim
Exactly. There will always be lazy employers, and agents are good at giving
them a kick up the ass to make sure the process gets completed in as little
time as possible. (Self interest of course, as this corresponds to when
they'll get their commission)

Good at recruiting is not equal to "know their employers well, understand the
industry and are not complete jerks". Good is getting a candidate placed as
smoothly and swiftly as possible.

"taking an unfair share for which they will lowball the candidates". Better
become a better negotiator then. If you know your market value, this is what
the client is willing to pay for you. They don't even factor in the agent fee
as they are paying £xxx for a developer.

------
Alestra
Yep! Dead on target. A very impressive article. But, Cheese and Peas, Steve,
the recruitment mafia has probably put a contract out on you - so cool.

The only thing you didn’t say directly though clearly indicate throughout is
that no one (employers nor recruiters) cares about the candidates or their
careers. Great article - it’s about time someone said it out loud.
Congratulations on your website and business, it looks great and certainly has
the right idea.

~~~
Peroni
Thanks for the awesome words.

------
drcube
I've been thinking of a new recruitment model: guaranteed employment. Suppose
a recruiting agency guaranteed their recruits, as in, "We'll pay their salary
for the [six months | year | whatever]. If they are acceptable, at the end of
that period, you pay us back double. If they don't work out, let us know ASAP
and we'll eat the cost."

The incentives are all right here. The employers essentially get a year long
job interview. Qualified candidates are basically guaranteed a job. And the
recruiters are rewarded for successfully meeting their clients' needs, and
punished if they get it wrong. The current situation rewards harassment and
puffing up their candidates' resumes.

~~~
yalurker
As long as we're talking incentives, your plan gives a huge incentive to fire
someone just before the end of their first year of employment. At the end of
the year you're faced with paying a recruiter 2 years of salary, but if you
fire them you just got a year of work for free.

~~~
drcube
That's just a technicality. :P

But seriously, I think this sort of service would be aimed at employers
looking for long term professional employees, not some temporary code jockey.
In that case, dismissing a proven employee in order to save a years' salary
would be counterproductive.

However, your criticism is valid, and measures would have to be taken to keep
employers like that at bay.

------
greghinch
Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience, I never saw the need for
working with a recruiter. I tried a few and they always sent me to those kind
of shops where you can just smell in the air that everyone hates their jobs
and the devs are just code monkeys churning out whatever garbage some product
guy pitched. If I want a job at a company, I apply. There's enough demand (and
I'm confident enough in my skill set) that I don't see how a recruiter could
help me.

Frankly in my mind, if I hear about a company through a recruiter, I figure it
must suck to work there, or else they'd be able to find people on their own.

~~~
shurane
_Once I had more than about 4-5 years of experience_.

How did you get a job before you had the experience and the skillset?

I think recruiters are not that effective (at least in programming), but it
seems like a 'safe' and 'obvious' investment for someone with money and no
idea of how engineers think and work.

~~~
greghinch
Even before then I found jobs on my own, but I was willing to give recruiters
a shot. Never had one send me to a job I was remotely interested in.

------
citricsquid
> Job boards are not doing anything even remotely innovative enough to disrupt
> the recruitment industry and the primary reason for that is purely because
> no-one wants to upset their cash cow. Except us that is. We don't pander to
> the recruitment industry. Quite the opposite in fact. We've sent a number of
> warning shots into the air to make them aware that we intend on impacting
> the need for reliance on their industry. It's very early days but in my view
> at least, the demise of the industry is only just beginning.

What are you doing different? Would be interested to read about it.

~~~
jgrahamc
It may be exaggerating if I claim that <http://jobs.usethesource.com/> is
"doing something even remotely innovative enough to disrupt the recruitment
industry" but it does have some pretty simple rules:

1\. To post a job you have to have high Hacker News karma

2\. You can't be a recruiter

~~~
Peroni
I personally love this site but the biggest barrier to entry is that you're
preventing a massive amount of the market from advertising. Our goal is to
raise the standard across the board.

------
benkross
I am a technology recruiter and I have to say that I can't disagree with 90%
of the post. Unfortunately agencies have been started by people with little
class on only desire money. I have always known that I will leave the business
and I care more about my reputation than anything else. Like an infection, I
am trying to espouse my style and philosophy, one built on trust,
understanding of technology and LOBs and transparency. I don't want to chase I
want to become a hub that people seek.

~~~
Peroni
I was in your shoes benkross.

There are a few decent recruiters out there mate. Keep your head up and keep
your dignity at all costs.

------
gouranga
The easiest way to kill this is to use stackoverflow jobs or emptylemon or
something like that.

The moment you involve humans in the process, you're going to get asshat
middlemen. Other equally bad forms of asshat middlemen: car sales, estate
agents and letting agents and buyers - they are all the same.

The whole point of computing is to automate, solve problems and get rid of
middlemen but we seem to have failed to solve our own problems.

The only positive with recruitment agents (at least in the UK), is that you
can treat them like shit and they always come crawling back.

~~~
dsolomon
I've found the jobs section on Stackoverflow to either be

(a) company looky-loos doing a market survey to see who's available with what
skillsets for a cheaper price (the buzzword for this is topgrading), or

(b) a company with an actual opening but you've got to dig so much to find
really what the job & compay environment is that interest is lost in the
process

------
maxua
(we're working on the same problem, so thanks for bringing this up).I think it
is a real and HUGE problem.

There are various startups who are trying to attack it from different angles.
E.g. checkout Path.to, geekli.st, branchout.

We think the solution is make matching process more efficient, with software.
Instead of people recruiters trying to make a match through "numbers game" we
match with algorithm and user feedback to make it better.

Check it out at monday52.com and let me know what d'you think.

------
JGJones
Discrimination is far too common. I'm deaf. As soon as they ask me for my
number to call me and I tell them to use email instead... I never ever hear
from them again. It's very rare for one to respond to emails unless it's a new
"client".

------
dsolomon
Personally I've found recruiters people who would excel at being used car
salesmen or attorneys, except for the morals part - they're lower.

Here in DC they'll get $20-30K per person they refer that gets hired.
Meanwhile the worker-bee is left trying to get $60-$65K as a developer because
the company overpays the recruiter. So you try to change companys hoping for a
$2.50/hr raise, only to meet up with a recruiter who'll get $30K off you if
you do.

F*ck them and everything about them.

What's wrong with the recruitment industry - recruiters.

------
rjau
Great post, but I'm not sure how a jobs board solves this problem.. where is
the innovation? We're going to shaking up the creative recruiting industry
here in Australia with Dragonfly. Our beta goes live next week, keen for
feedback. <http://dragonflylist.com>

~~~
Peroni
Nice hijack attempt. Have a read of our blog to understand the vision. Good
luck with your company.

Protip: Disparaging companies attempting to solve the same problem as you is a
dick move.

~~~
rjau
You're right that did come of a bit dickish, my apologies. But I was genuinely
wondering what you were going to do to innovate. Your original blog post is
pretty vague on where it is going. We're also looking to disrupt the
recruitment industry here in Australia because it is similarly broken.

