
Hiring Without Agencies - Lessons Learned - ig1
http://wip.engineroomapps.com/post/3927805265/hiring-without-agencies-lessons-learned-part-1
======
jasonkester
Is it possible that this experience was influenced in any way by the fact that
they're trying to find a "Senior iPhone Developer" for under £40k? That's
~$65k, and thus roughly $100k shy of what you'd need to offer before you
started to pique the interest of any good iPhone Developers in the current
market.

~~~
edderly
The UK has relied for too long on relatively cheap but willing tech. labour.

I believe one major factor that enabled this was the boom in home computing in
the early 80s. I don't know whether it is fair to call this unique (to the
UK), but it certainly helped to have the BBC heavily involved with the BBC
Micro effort and even TV coverage:
'<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Programme>. I remember back then
even the shallowest computer user might have had a go at typing in a program
from the back of a magazine.

This provided two generations of willing workers, the first being the adults
taking up computing, a few would become entrepreneurs and many of the rest
would see it as a career transition and happy enough to get a "bump" in wages
for skills in a new domain.

For some, this "bump" was pretty significant for them personally, I've known
good people in the UK tech sector who started out as car mechanics, waitresses
and the like where IT has improved their personal circumstances no end.

Then there's the second generation, these are the kids who grew up in the 80s
boom time and it would seem natural for many of these people to make their
hobby their career.

But the problems start here.

Firstly, there was no third generation to follow on, both mainstream culture
and even schools completely forgot about programming. Kids grew up with
consoles, with few having an idea what it takes to make the games they play.
Schools replaced programming with "IT skills", meaning spreadsheets and Word
docs, ostensibly because it was easier to train teachers to 'teach' this.

Secondly, there is often a working class attitude in UK tech which shares some
similarities with Jante Law. This is debatable, but I do think part of that
comes from the first generation, who never thought they would be doctors or
lawyers so had lower aspirations and feel pretty grateful for having a
'decent' albeit moderate wage.

However, for the second generation, they would more likely have gone to
university and studied Comp. Sci. or a.n.other course and entered the
industry. When they look at their similarly educated peers, they will often
find themselves on a lower rung than those who chose to go into management or
one of the older traditional professions.

That second generation now have kids going to University, and I am guessing
that they have a slightly less rosy perspective on the IT sector than when
they first started out.

So the net effect of this is that the number of Computing graduates is
declining [http://www.cphc.ac.uk/docs/cphc-computinggraduates-
june08.pd...](http://www.cphc.ac.uk/docs/cphc-computinggraduates-june08.pdf) .

Perhaps the same thing is happening elsewhere, but I think in the meantime it
is time for UK tech. to start weaning themselves off mediocre salaries for
tech. sector professionals.

~~~
ig1
The bump in CS uptake was due to the dotcom boom rather than any long term
trend. CS still has a higher average salary than most other subjects.

~~~
edderly
The boom had an effect, although the number of IT professionals grew (slowly)
after the boom (see page 4 of the link), and I'm fairly sure it doesn't solely
explain the collapse in Computing degree applicants.

Also, when looking at average salary consider the continuing growth in the
number of people going to university. Also simultaneous collapse in the number
of CS grads is likely to help maintain the higher average.

~~~
ig1
The papers actually quite weak, as there a strong distinction between IT and
software development (and CS (G4xx) and IT degree), which the paper doesn't
really pick up on. They make the mistake of using HESA data which classifies
all IT degrees as computing.

Non-development IT roles in the UK have been dropping dramatically over the
last decade due to outsourcing and automation while developer roles have been
increasing (roughly 10,000/year).

Salary data in general has a relatively small impact of choice of subject.
Most 16-18 years old have a very limited understanding of salaries by degree
subject and are often under many false misapprehensions (for example thinking
most law students will become lawyers). Choices are far more driven by
cultural trends.

~~~
edderly
I think you're splitting hairs in the first point, it's also strange though
that CS grads also have the highest unemployment rate:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10477551>. Which seems to contradict your point
about developer roles, or speaks to other issues.

However, I absolutely agree that it is cultural trends that drive the choices,
which goes back to my original point that now there is a broader cultural
understanding of what life is like in the tech sector and that tech hasn't
woke up to this yet.

~~~
ig1
I'm not splitting hairs this is actually a major issue. I run a developer job
board, before that I founded a social mobility non-profit that specializes in
understanding university admissions and outcomes. I'm intimately familiar with
the data.

The BBC article is based upon the JACS classification of Computing which
incudes IT subjects. From anecdotal evidence CS has very low unemployment and
IT has high unemployment, but due to HESA using the JACS classification a
graduate in Business IT is considered the same as a graduate of Computer
Science.

If you split universities which only teach CS from those that teach IT, you
can see very clearly in the HESA data that Computing has a much higher
employment rate at universities which don't teach IT (this isn't clear cut
evidence as universities which don't teach IT tend to be academically stronger
universities; but it does back up the anecdotal evidence).

I wrote to the universities minister asking him to get HESA to split CS and IT
data after he gave a talk at TechHub, but sadly he didn't respond.

~~~
auxbuss
Try writing to your own MP. You'll almost certainly get a reply. If he/she's
not interested, then try engaging Tom Watson MP's interest. Odd for a ministry
department not to respond, though.

------
bostonpete
This has been going on for a quite some time. There's another side-effect of
this strategy that the author doesn't explicitly mention. Even if you're
willing to pay the recruiter's fee, you'll sometimes get to the point of
making an offer to a candidate and they'll essentially be offended by the
offer, since it's lower than the amount listed in the recruiter-overhauled job
description that they saw.

I had one candidate ask me point-blank if I was low-balling him because I
thought he was under-qualified in some way. It turns out that perception was
based on the job description he saw and after I explained that the number he
saw wasn't ours, he accepted the offer. But I refuse to work with that
recruiter any more.

~~~
bugsy
Seems pretty clear that the recruiter provided you with a very valuable
service, that the qualified candidates you really wanted to make offers to
weren't willing to respond to ads citing the insulting salary range you
thought you could get away with.

The simple fact is that if you can not afford to hire qualified developers,
you should not be in business. Please leave software development to the
professionals who are able to make money at it.

~~~
bostonpete
Are you a recruiter or something...? This seems like a pretty hostile comment
which is based on a number of assumptions by you.

Why do you assume that we can't afford to hire developers or that we offered
an insulting salary? The developer accepted the offer -- he was initially
disappointed because of the _unrealistic_ range that the recruiter advertised.

Also, the fact that the candidate responded to the recruiter's ad is
indicative of nothing. If I post an interesting job description and 3
recruiters repost it with the details tweaked, many candidates (I know some
avoid recruiters) are apt to respond to the first one of the four that they
come across.

Your comment about making money seems completely out of left-field. We do make
money (been in the black for a decade or so) and if we didn't, your comment
seems unnecessarily harsh. So with that comment you ran the risk of being
wrong, a jerk, or both.

------
shawnee_
_I’ve got Google alerts setup for our ad, and I’m seeing it being cloned all
over the place by different recruitment agencies. Basically, they copy your
ad, remove all your details so candidates don’t know who you are, and then
post it up all over the place._

This happens for people who post resumes, too. My experience was so bad that I
ended up removing my entire profile from LinkedIn after one-too-many harassing
phone calls from agencies. They are evil, but I haven't found a way around
them yet. My current employment gig is one where an agency is marking up my
hourly rate 100 percent; they indeed charge the company double what they pay
me. It infuriates me, but there is very little I can do. Agencies specialize
in one thing only and that is: information distortion. Doesn't matter if it's
a recruitment agency, real estate agency, or "talent scout" for one of the
glam professions like music or acting. The wider the distortions become
between buyer and seller, the more the agency can leech.

They're good at it too: flooding job boards, cloning candidate resumes or
company job descriptions and twisting them however they wish.

And it works! Good for them, crappy for us. Agencies are very good at
convincing one party that a "Senior iPhone developer" or an "MBA who knows
Linux and is an accounting whiz" is an elusive and rare creature, while
simultaneously shaking their heads at "this job market" where _any_ job offer
is a good offer, and by golly -- stick with the agency, and they'll find you
something better; once they're done sucking you dry for an hourly rate, they
find you something "permanent" for 30-40 percent of your yearly salary offer,
of course.

P.S. I think the agency doesn't know _I know_ how much they're robbing me:
they're big on "keep this [hourly rate] confidential" which I am, technically
. . . the number is; the percent is not. The only party that confidentiality
benefits, though, is the agency. Makes no sense.

~~~
gcb
I've seen contractors come and go working at a fortune 500 and just recently
I've learned of those practices...

------
Stormbringer
For salary comparison, in 2001 a _TRAINEE_ manager at McDonalds in London
could earn £21,000

Now, back in 2001 when the tech bubble popped it was like one of those games
where the music stops and there are too few chairs. All the people who'd been
riding the contracting gravy train suddenly realised there were no more
contracts† and they panicked. At _that_ stage you would see the computer
programmers who had a wife, girlfriend and a mortgage to support leap at a
£25k job.

On the other hand, Leeds (where I have also lived and worked) was enormously
much cheaper than London in a couple of respects, such as real estate. One of
the places I worked had an intern, great young guy, real go-getter, would do
any dirty task you set before him (like network admin _ick_ :D ) ... and he
was on £10k. When I found that out, I was amazed. I asked him how he could
afford that. turns out he lived in a shared house with lots of other students
or recently ex-students, and they _couldn't afford to turn the heating on in
winter_ ††.

†They say that when New York sneezes, London catches a cold. They're right.
All the big institutions slapped down an immediate ban on new hiring and no
new contracts except for critical projects. Then after a couple of weeks it
got upgraded to at least a six month ban on all hiring, even for critical
projects (presumably for those they could fill them from people they already
had). As contracts ended, they weren't renewed. It was brutal.

††For reference Leeds is one of those places where they get snow on the ground
during winter

------
mgkimsal
I've had numerous interesting interactions with recruiters over the years, as
well as directly with hiring companies. The biggest benefit agencies seem to
offer is initial screening, but it's also where they seem to fall down the
most. When a recruiter can't tell me anything more than "MySQL, PHP,
JavaScript", they don't really understand the client's needs or the position
involved.

I find that perhaps 1 in 10 or 15 calls I get from a recruiter involves
someone with a clue. Sometimes they know the tech and can talk about the
client's architecture and needs, other times they will admit they're not
technical, but they have had some dealings with the company directly (often
for extended periods) and have a good idea about the type of person who would
be a good fit. But it's still rare that I'm talking to a recruiter who, imo,
is actually providing some degree of service to the hiring company (let alone
my side of the equation).

More companies might be able to 'go direct' without needing a recruiter, but
many don't know how to sell their own company to a potential employee. Money
helps, certainly, and they'd be able to offer more if they weren't involving a
recruiting agency, but it typically takes a committed involvement from the
company to do the initial screening.

I used to think recruiters had _no_ place, and that companies should always go
direct. I've found that strategically, it makes sense in a few cases if they
need a specific skill and don't want to broadcast to the wider market (their
competition) about upcoming plans. However, those instances are pretty rare.

------
dr_
The idea of agencies copying and pasting your ads is a bit shady of course,
but the takeaway from this is pretty simple - you need to pay more.

~~~
tobinator
Agree. The take-aways are:

\- Recruitment agencies that play dirty do so because they are unable to add
real value. Avoid at all costs.

\- Offer the right salary for the job, and you might have more luck.

------
tobinator
I'm the one who posted up the job ad, and the who wrote the blog.

As @ig1 said (from coderstack.co.uk), the salary is not _that_ far off; £38K
goes a lot further in Leeds than in London.

Maybe "Middle-Weight iPhone Developer" would have been better.

------
sjtgraham
This is how I would have dealt with this situation:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2346729>

~~~
biot
Exactly. Take the time and small expense to officially register the copyright.
When they clone it and slap their name on it you can sue for damages and
you'll win. It might even be a profitable business on its own if you act as
intermediary for those actually posting jobs... a "job dilution protection
service" that costs them nothing but makes you money.

edit: at the very least, in the US you can issue a DMCA takedown notice.

------
vanessa
Thanks for posting this - I think regardless of market rate you've identified
a key problem in the hiring industry, especially in software. The incentives
for recruitment agencies/headhunters to do ridiculously shady things like copy
your ad and then sell you candidates (without even necessarily telling you
they promised the candidates more money) are high because companies feel so
lost in the hiring process, sometimes they are willing to pay. And they
usually get burned/waste a lot more time and money (in my experience).

Good for you for calling them out when they're clearly not providing a
respectable service to you OR the jobseeker.

------
blacksmythe
Changing the salary is obviously wrong.

Other than that, finding developers for you that didn't see your ad and
bringing them to your attention for a fee seems like an honest business (if
not one I would be interesting in being in).

~~~
ig1
Claiming you represent a company when you don't isn't honest.

------
MrDunham
This is fantastic. You just delivered another selling point I hadn't even
considered yet for our app (I'd say more about it, but I'd like it to be a
little more done for a 'Show HN').

Much thanks!

------
tobinator
On a similar vein, amusing stories from another UK company

<http://recruitmental.com/>

------
bugsy
Your salary is absurdly ridiculously pathetically low given the things you
were asking for. It almost seems like a joke or onion article. That's
obviously why you had a problem and all the rest of the insights you are
having about this don't really count since the ad would not be considered
serious by any qualified candidate. Sorry.

