

How Do You Want to Be Recruited? - podbaydoors

I&#x27;ve noticed a certain (understandable) amount of ire towards recruiters around HN. There&#x27;s the mass cookie cutter emails&#x2F;inmails, the lack of understanding about what exactly you DO, and a host of other reasons why this distaste persists. So, how would YOU prefer to be recruited?
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rubiquity
For me it's all about not wasting my time, not because I'm a big deal, because
I'm not, but because this happened frequently before I went freelance. There
are so many non-starters when it comes to jobs, why do companies insist on
leaving these out until the very end?

Warning: the content below is slightly dramatic but a pretty fair
representation of this game.

1) Tell me the salary range up front.

2) Tell me whether you're down with remote up front.

Great, we got past 1 & 2\. Let's move on:

3) Let's talk about best practices. These are important to me because it makes
my life at work pleasant.

4) Great, show me proof of these best practices you talk about. See, I knew
you were a dirty liar. You're not doing <best practice> because
Visionary/CEO/Financier/Business person that is guaranteed to make my life a
living hell doesn't see the value in it.

If we make it past 3 and 4 (rare), we're onto salary negotiation!

5) Your idea is never exciting enough to where I'll want to do it for less
than my market value.

6) Why yes, I do love programming. No, I won't work for less just because I
love doing it.

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greenyoda
If the recruiter can't tell me a salary range for the job up front, I'm not
interested. Why should I waste days of my life interviewing only to find out
at the end that they're offering me the wonderful opportunity to take a 50%
pay cut?

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xpto123
Its I believe mostly a sales tactic where they make you do some significant
investment on your side, and when you get to end you feel more obliged to take
the position because of all the effort that you put into it in the first
place.

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Spoom
And that's why developers hate recruiters.

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jerven
The inverse of what you describe;) thoughtful personal customized with
understanding both "me" and your client while respecting everyone's time. It
is not magic it's time consuming work.

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MalcolmDiggs
I think a lot of recruiters fail to understand that many tech folks (like
myself) simply don't want to work for the kind of company that would hire an
outside recruiter, period. So...how do I want to be recruited? Only by actual
employees of the company I'd be working for. No middle men.

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whichdan
As an engineer involved with recruiting: how would I stumble across your
profile/resume, and how much time do you expect engineers to spend clicking
through LinkedIn profiles? Would it be a positive or negative sign to you if
the company that's recruiting you is having engineers filter out candidates
instead of writing code?

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MalcolmDiggs
Personally I have a resume/profile on Careers.StackOverflow.com, Angellist,
CodeEval, Github...etc...

I don't expect engineers to spend _any_ time clicking through profiles though.
That's exactly the point, if you're recruiting for a startup you can afford to
do things that don't scale (like reaching out the authors of your favorite
open source repos, meeting people at conferences and meetups etc). If you need
soooo many engineers _right now_ that you need to employ tactics like farming
LinkedIn...then we're a bad match anyway.

The point of my original comment was that some people (like me) prefer to be
recruited in ways that don't scale because that lets us know that it's a
certain _kind_ of company (namely a small-scale startup that is hand-picking
their team very carefully). And that's what appeals to me.

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s3b
I want a transparent process where I know in advance what I'm getting into.
I'd like to know how much they're willing to pay(the range) and what exactly I
would be expected to do - the role as well as the product I'd be working on.
I'd also like to know about the interview process and how long after an
interview I'd be told the result (preferably immediately). Also tell me about
the sort of people I'll be working with - team size, roles, backgrounds etc.
Once I have that information, it's easier for me to decide on whether to
attend the interview or not.

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saddestcatever
Honestly, I don't want to be contacted by a recruiter.

I want a list of companies that are looking to hire. I want a list that I can
individually research, then find a way to contact them.

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zaccus
I have no interest in working with a recruiter at all. I'm fully capable of
applying to a company directly if I am interested. Recruiters are parasites
who need to get a real job.

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xpto123
For me the main problem is not the recruiting, its a service worth paying for.
The problem is when the recruitment company becomes the employer by inserting
themselves in the middle via a services contract and asking 25% for the life
of the contract.

There is basically no added value after the initial contact its purelly taking
advantage of the situation in order to insert themselves as a middleman with
interests often different than both the contractor and the client.

