
“God, I hate recruiters” - aledalgrande
http://gregsavage.com.au/2011/03/02/%E2%80%9Cgod-i-hate-recruiters%E2%80%9D/
======
msoad
I get 2-3 emails per day in LinkedIn. I read all of them. It gives me
confidence that I'm hot and it's easy for me to just move on from my current
job. When I see Twitter, Facebook, HP, Google and Apple are reaching out to
me, it gives me confidence.

I sometimes use small but rich startups that can afford high salaries as a
tool to get a raise. Just by bringing their offer to my manager's table if
it's required. This year I'm targeting $180K salary. It would be impossible
without recruiters help.

~~~
username111
Just a heads up, confidence is the correct noun to use.

Confident is the adjective form.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Neat obscure language thing: adjectival is the adjectival form of adjective.

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ropz
Crocodile tears, I suspect. Based on multiple past experiences, I'd be a
little reluctant to trust a recruiter who described himself on his blog thus:

"Over a career spanning thirty years, Greg Savage has established himself as
an icon of the Australian recruitment industry".

It's immodest, it's untestable, and after 30 years, it's probably a bit bloody
late to start preaching the good book.

Edit: And yes, if your recruiter has an English accent, better find another
one.

------
munificent

        So this very day I have scheduled company-wide training
        at Firebrand. And I will be running it myself.
        
        The topic?
        
        “Differentiating our business through candidate service.”
    

The first lesson in that training should be how to stop talking like that.
Candidates are people and they want you to use humane language not business
jargon. Differentiating is something you do to functions. How about:

    
    
        Standing out by taking better care of candidates

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wklauss
It's easy to hate recruiters when the market works in your favor and demand
for engineers is higher than availability. Everyone is trying to hire and now
they seem redundant and unnecessary evil.

If the market cools down I bet most would feel lucky having a recruiter
knocking on their door.

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vinceguidry
My experience with recruiters hasn't been bad at all. (I'm in Atlanta rather
than Australia, though) Quite the contrary, now I don't have to browse
Craigslist or Monster myself. I don't have to keep asking my friends for job
leads. They come to me. I don't understand the hate.

I listed my resume on Monster, bracing myself for the worst. So far, it hasn't
happened. I get two or three emails a day, most with decent leads. For the
first few days, they kept telling me my resume was "thin", until I grilled one
on what he meant, I reformatted it according to a template he sent and now
they love it.

If I got an under-compensated offer, I'd just ask for more. If the recruiter's
lead isn't interesting, I email back with what I _am_ interested in. It takes
half a minute. I could copy-paste a boiler-plate response but so far I haven't
found the need to.

I suspect most of the hate towards recruiters is coming from the tendency of
engineers towards introversion, so they perceive each interaction as draining,
and think negotiation is much tougher than it is. In other words, it's not the
recruiters they hate, it's the job hunt, period, they just don't want to admit
to themselves that they have a tough time selling themselves.

~~~
DavidWoof
I posted on Monster a few months ago and just got inundated: at least a dozen
calls before I had a chance to leave the coffee shop I was in.

I'm sure there's real professionals out there, but every one I've ever met is
just scanning the job boards trying to match keywords. I'm tired of hearing
from them how wonderful every position is (with one of our top clients!) and
when I've been on the other side I quickly grew tired of hearing from them how
wonderful every candidate was. It's not that they're lying really, they just
generally don't have the ability to evaluate either.

Recruiters are like the throng of people you meet when you arrive in certain
third-world countries who follow you around offering to show you the sites or
trying to sell you trinkets. I don't hate them or anything; they're just
annoying, they get in the way, and I certainly don't think they're adding any
value.

~~~
vinceguidry
> I posted on Monster a few months ago and just got inundated: at least a
> dozen calls before I had a chance to leave the coffee shop I was in.

If I had this problem I'd do the same thing I already do for Craigslist, get a
Google Voice number and put that on the listing. Go over it once a day and
reply only to the promising ones.

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salem
I think this is partly because the vast majority of 'tech' jobs in Sydney are
as 'resources' in cost centers, not profit centers, ie 'IT department' not
R&D.

There are not yet enough big business successes in the area that leverage tech
in a big way for a major competitive advantage or sell tech as their
product/service.

This affects the image of the profession in the area, how we are treated, and
puts downward pressure on compensation.

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runT1ME
I hate recruiters too. Not because they cost me too much annoyance, but it's
just sad to watch them flounder. I get at least one or two a week trying to
pitch me a job (interview?) on LinkedIn and I've yet to not regret opening the
mail. Half the time it's for a technology job I'm either under qualified for
(management positions, data scientist, etc) or technologies I'm clearly not
familiar with nor interested in.

The times it is a technology match I'm completely underwhelmed by the offer,
considering I have a _current job_ listed. I get it Amazon, you'd love to have
me as a moderately paid backend java programmer, but come on.

Recruiters should have to pay _me_ to pitch me, as they should be that
confident they have something compelling to pull me away from my current gig.
If i'm out looking it's a different story.

~~~
spudlyo
This is really a first world problem. I agree recruiters are often irritating,
but I try to remember back 15 years ago when I could barely get a recruiter to
return my call. I often take a moment to respond to recruiters on LinkedIn,
sometimes offering them encouragement or advice on what I think they could be
doing better. It doesn't take that much time, and I like to think that being
friendly with them could help me down the road.

~~~
ropz
Trouble is, I think LinkedIn is a cancer. You know, I've worked with some
pretty decent people, but I've often cringed to see their extravagant self
descriptions on LinkedIn. No way are they the people they think they are. And
if decent people can be tempted into such self deception, what about people
who aren't decent in the slightest?

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rsobers
Is it just me, or is the whole "I hate recruiters" bit a big 'ol humblebrag?
Just ignore them.

~~~
mynameishere
He means actually working with them, not the spam. They seem puzzlingly
worthless. I actually asked a guy at an interview, years ago, "Why do you use
recruiters?" and he said it saved time going through resumes. As if that's
worth a fat commission: Using some lib-art knucklehead who can distinguish 5
years of .NET from 3 years of .NET.

Also, they sometimes call your office. If you don't have a good relationship
with your receptionist, never ever use them.

~~~
dorward
Last time a recruiter cold-called me at the office I asked them if they really
thought it was appropriate to 'phone my client in an effort to recruit me …
and then hung up on them.

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moron4hire
It's all because the noun in "HR" is Resources, not Human. From soup to nuts,
the employment industry treats people like equipment.

~~~
_delirium
To be fair to recruiters, the reason they do so is that _their_ ultimate
bosses, the companies looking for staff, view people in a similar manner.
Paying for human resources is a necessary evil, like paying for mineral
resources is. At least, that's how it shows up systemically— any individual
manager might not have this view. But to the company, especially the kind of
company that has turned to recruiters to acquire them, human resources are
another kind of resource.

~~~
ropz
But unlike all the other resources, a resource that lives, thinks and judges
people as they are done by.

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orangethirty
Here is how I deal with them. I always reply with:

"I will not consider any position that pays less than $200,000 a year. Non-
negotiable."

They leave me alone.

~~~
rmc
I also do that about moving to some cities. I'm kinda hoping I stroke lucky
sometime and someone really does want to pay me €500,000 for a job in $CITY.
Jackpot!

------
vertis
I receive lots of recruiter spam through LinkedIn. I reply to each an every
one indicating that I'm not looking and that I don't connect with people I
don't know.

One of two things will happen next, I will get either a phone call (from the
details in the email signature), or an email asking if I will refer other
people.

Either of these will ensure that I never deal with the recruiter.

There is only one recruiter I've ever met that doesn't fit that mould. I won't
talk to much about HOW he's different, because it's his secret sauce. But
Steve Gilles (@stevelikesyou on twitter) is someone that is highly regarded
within the Australian Ruby community.

If you are looking to find someone, or looking to find a job I highly
recommend a chat with Steve.

Disclaimer: I have over the last 3 years, become very good friends with Steve.

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6d0debc071
It often seems to me that there are incentive problems with recruiting. HR's
most commonly centred, on shaky data, around getting rid of as many candidates
as possible, and there's no real advantage in them treating you decently,
unless they think they're going to be rewarded for some financial gain down
the line. If they don't think that they're going to be rewarded, there's still
an incentive to mess you about because they don't really want you going with
someone else.

Position of power, poor incentives, actively contradictory interests in the
case that they decide you're no good for them. _shrug_

Breadth first search strategy manifests social problems.

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mcbain
Funny he says that about the English accent - even from the other side of the
(Australian-based) hiring desk, whenever I pick up the phone and hear that
accent I just know what the next question will be, and I could copy&paste my
answer.

No, we aren't looking for anyone right now, and certainly not with those
skills (we've never looked for those skills); yes, that's the same answer I
gave you last time you called.

And if they could remove the phrase "a quick heads up" from their lexicon,
it'd make my year.</gripe>

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stray
Dealing with recruiters _is_ maddening.

They are, in my experience, not only incompetent -- but harmful as well.

~~~
r00fus
Their interests are barely aligned with yours. After all, you're not paying
them. Their real customer (the hiring company/manager) is.

Here's a scenario I've had happen in the past: * Recruiter pings me about job
I'd really like * They prep me and I go to interview * I'm clearly not
qualified or actually prepared as hiring manager asks about stuff that wasn't
on job description * Company chooses other candidate from same recruiter.

Stuff like that makes me really wary of recruiters in general. Best way to get
hired is to make great industry contacts at as many levels as possible and
network your way into a gig (perm or contract). Most of mine have been through
this route.

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StavrosK
I swear, I must be the only person here who doesn't get contacted by a million
recruiters every day. I haven't had a single recruiter email in three years,
when Google sent me one.

How do you guys do it? Why are they avoiding me?

~~~
Wilya
I have been contacted because a recruiter had seen my profile on Linkedin,
because I was in the list of subscribers to a Meetup group (not attendant,
merely subscriber), because of classes I took in college (about 3 years after
the fact), because of my github profile, because of my ( _very_ minimalistic
and completely outdated) homepage, and through one or two other channels I'm
probably forgetting right now. And I'm neither in the US, nor particularly
known for anything.

So, either you're really stealthy, either I'd like to know your secret.

~~~
StavrosK
<http://www.korokithakis.net/>

<https://github.com/skorokithakis/>

<http://gr.linkedin.com/in/skorokithakis>

I'm just as puzzled as you are.

Not that I'm looking for work, it's just one of those "why am I being left
out?" things.

~~~
DavidWoof
From a glance at your linkedin page (recruiters don't know about github),
there's a couple of things that I think are helping you stay recruiter-free.
The first is that a cursory glance would imply that you're in Greece, which
has less of a recruiter problem (even though I think you're really in
Cornwall). And the second is that you're missing the Java/c#/SOAP/Agile set of
buzzwords that corporate recruiters are scanning for.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, it might probably be a bit of both. I've never been to Cornwall, that's
just where my company is registered. I'm currently in Spain. It's lovely.

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jeffehobbs
I hate quotes in URLs, so we are even.

