
Ask HN: Would you work with an “Agent” to help you find your ideal job? - mrburton
I always wondered if good engineers would want to work with an &#x27;agent&#x27; to find their next job. By agent, I mean someone who&#x27;s very technically savvy and would speak with companies and really understand the positions.<p>e.g. What technology is being used and why? 
How is the development process done?
Really dive into the problem space and challenges.
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davelnewton
I consider the recruiters I work with (there aren't many) to be my agents.
They know me, they know what I like, and they're familiar with the jobs they
submit me for.

They're a different breed than what I consider run-of-the-mill headhunters who
shotgun jobs more or less at random.

They don't use a lot of technology--agents require personal contact and an
understanding of both the developer and company culture. It's nothing
different than agents for actors--they know people, they know roles, they know
actors.

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muzani
Definitely. The whole process is tedious and time wasting. If an agent can
help skip one interview out of five and increase odds 10%, that's good.

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cweagans
Yes. [https://www.10xmanagement.com/](https://www.10xmanagement.com/) went
down this road a while ago. I don't know how they're doing, but their site is
still online, so maybe that says something? Maybe not. Who knows?

I don't think I'd be interested in an agent for finding full time work. If I
had an agent for freelance work, I'd be a very happy person. For me, enjoyment
of this field comes from meeting new people and solving new problems in
creative ways. I start to get itchy if I feel like all of the major problems
have been solved - that's when I start looking for new work.

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EnderMB
The problem I see with the "agent" model is that it either short-changes the
recruiter, or results in an agency that manages too much talent to offer a
personalised service (i.e. reverting back to being a bog-standard recruiter).

A lot of people slate the "fire and forget" cold call approach that many
recruiters take, but it works, especially for the more sales oriented
recruiters. It's not uncommon for many recruiters in Bristol to make tens of
thousands a week in sales for their company through essentially building up a
database of developers, a database of available jobs, and essentially
recruiting for roles that they don't represent. I worked for several agencies
that have interviewed and hired developers via recruiters they had never
shared a job spec with. All these recruiters had done was find a public job
opening, cold call until someone answers, and send that person in for an
interview. If that developer is earning £40k and they're getting 10-15% of
that salary as a fee, that's £4k for a bunch of emails. Repeat that for
several roles a month and you've made a fair amount of cash.

The biggest issue from a candidate perspective is that using a recruiter tends
to limit yourself to a subset of companies that are willing to deal with
recruiters. A lot of great companies either hire internally, or receive enough
spam from recruiters that they threaten day-rates on those that waste their
time on cold-calls.

The agent model sounds good for high-end developers, but convincing these
people that there is someone out there that can sell their skills better than
they can sell themselves would be quite tricky. The vast level of domain
knowledge someone at that level has built over the years is enough to get them
the job.

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codegeek
Companies mostly don't hire because there is that perfect talent/match out
there. They hire when they need to. The current model works for the employer
and recruiter because whenever there is a need, the company will create a job
opening and the recruiter fills it in. Candidate doesn't pay anything out of
their pocket.

The only way for an agent to work is for companies to be open to good talent
and keep them on their radar even if there is no current job opening. This is
usually difficult and not worth to companies. If you become an agent, you will
also be at the mercy of asking the companies "hey do you have an opening yet,
I have this great guy/gal". So that model fails.

Also, don't forget that there is that tiny population of good recruiters out
there who are directly connected to employers and have a rolodex of candidates
they have worked with in the past. They can match the candidate to jobs that
fit them. Rare but out there. I know a few.

So yea, I don't like the status quo but I struggle to come up with an
alternative yet.

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elviejo
yes... I've looked for such a service in the past. I thought they were called
jobhunters (search for the right job for me) VS headhunters (search for the
right person for the job).

But I couldn't find anything, apart from recruiters (ie headhunters).

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louisswiss
I'm working on this currently. Would you mind answering a few questions for
me? Happy to buy a beer in return. My contact details are in my profile.

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helen842000
They do exist however, there are difficulties in this business model in that
the candidate rarely wants to pay.

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mrburton
This wouldn't be a service that the candidate would pay for, instead, it would
be companies.

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dasmoth
For what it’s worth, I’d probably be more interested if it was something _I_
paid for. Otherwise, ends up looking a lot like the existing contingency
recruiter model.

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louisswiss
I'm working on this currently. Would you mind answering a few questions for
me? Happy to buy a beer in return. My contact details are in my profile.

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bitwize
Yes, definitely.

My problem with crooters is not what they are ostensibly supposed to do, so
much as that most of them are hopelessly inept at it. Good ones are hard to
find. Ones that know their technical shit almost impossible.

~~~
louisswiss
I'm working on this currently. Would you mind answering a few questions for
me? Happy to buy a beer in return. My contact details are in my profile.

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louisswiss
Yes! I'm working on exactly this problem now, although with a slightly
different angle. We should get in touch and compare notes/ideas. My contact
info is in my profile.

