
Tips For Tech Recruiters, From an Engineer - operand
http://danrodriguez.me/blog/tips-for-tech-recruiters-from-an-engineer
======
aristus
I've talked to experienced recruiters and hiring managers about this. The
interesting thing is that the content of the email actually doesn't matter
much at all. Personalization, mentioning mutual contacts, etc helps but not a
lot.

The single biggest determinant of a successful recruit is (drumroll, please)
whether the candidate is currently looking for a job.

I just went back to read the recruiting email that kicked off my current job.
And I quote:

"I came across your profile online and would like to chat with you about the
exciting career opportunities that we have available at Facebook."

Wow. That sure sounded a lot more exciting at the time, because I was looking.
And that's my point. Timing is nearly everything. Maybe you could find ways to
predict when or if someone is looking, say, close to anniversaries of their
current job (ie vesting cliffs) right before or after performance review time,
etc.

But when the cost of a mis-timed email is essentially zero, there's no point.
In a tight market like we have now, there will be a lot of smarmy, cut-n-paste
junk in your inbox. Because it works.

~~~
amorphid
As a recruiter my data supports this. I stopped being spammy and more
thoughtful in my communication with candidates. The result? More replies
thanking me for being thoughtful and no increase in candidates expressing
interest. I've decided that recruiting is about being in the right place at
the right time and offering amazing career opportunities.

Other things that make recruiting more effective:

* getting out of the office and meeting candidates in person

* building relationships with recruiters over time

* being educated about your target audience and making conversations about meaningful content

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Totally agree with the personal relationships - recruiters whom I have met in
person, shared coffee and they still bother keeping in touch - well I have got
good opportunities from them, they have got recommendations from me. The
faceless emails - nah.

------
benjaminwootton
I don't think we need to be as adversary towards recruiters as we sometimes
are as a profession.

Good recruiters are basically your sales force. They'll be out there building
connections and holding a very wide book of open opportunities for you the
moment you need them.

The good ones will also be respected on the other side, by the employer. If
they think you are a particularly good fit for a good role, they can have both
you and the employer walking into a very warm lead before you even start your
search.

I have two or three recruiters who have kept me busy for a decade. I tend to
think of them as partners as much as anything. They know I won't make them
look stupid in front of their clients, and I know they will do the right thing
by me by being frank & honest.

As with all professions, some are better than others. However, if you treat
all recruiters with disdain you are also damaging your own prospects in terms
of building some potentially mutually rewarding relationships.

~~~
affiliate777
I agree that an adversarial tone is not advisable for multiple reasons. I have
seen a couple of articles on this topic where the engineer comes across as
downright rude. I think this particular article (mostly) avoided this trap and
recognized that while there are legitimate issues with the way recruiters
approach engineers, this is still ultimately a good problem to have. Being in
demand is great, but the tides can turn quickly in any profession (see:
lawyers). I think it's perfectly appropriate to be able to point out issues
with recruiting, but ideally with a sense of humility and appreciation for the
opportunities that one has -- this article does that for the most part.

------
gingerlime
I can totally relate to the things the author wrote on the post, and my
personal experience is not much different. However, I can't help but feeling a
little bit uncomfortable with the tone.

As developers / engineers we are privileged to be in a position to choose our
employer more than they choose us, to be "chased" by recruiters and flattered
about our much desired skills. It's important to maintain some humility and
not forget how hard it is for other people (recruiters included).

I have no doubts that the author didn't intend to patronize and that his
advise to recruiters is ultimately a positive one, (yes - it would save both
the recruiter and the engineer time, if the recruiter wouldn't call about a
java job when the CV says javascript). I just wish it was coming across a
little less arrogant.

~~~
operand
You're right. I really didn't mean to come off like that. But looking back I
should've known better and should've worded things more professionally. I
think I may edit the post based on what you guys have said about my tone. I
was sincerely trying to help.

~~~
gingerlime
I know you did. My criticism was purely about the style, not the substance.

~~~
operand
I edited it a bunch. Hopefully it's better now. Thank you for the feedback.

------
iamdave
_If I hear anything about you looking for “ninjas”, “pirates”, “hackers”,
“samurais”, or anything of the like, I’m just going to assume you’re looking
for a new saturday morning cartoon character and not an engineer. Grow up._

This needs to be on a billboard.

~~~
ColinDabritz
Quite, also "rockstars". I did think "hackers" was an odd choice. It may be
misused or overused, but it's also an insiders term, e.g. Hacker News. I'm ok
with a recruiter using it the appropriate context. I wonder how much a bay
area billboard runs. If it gets a bit of news coverage it'll probably make
waves.

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lordlic
> Most experienced engineers get several solicitations a day

As an engineer who's just starting out, I get no solicitations at all. I've
heard about people being constantly contacted about work, but that's just not
happening to me. If I lost my job, I'd have no idea what to do. How do you get
on these people's radar? I'd love to feel more in control of my career instead
of like my whole life depends on the good graces of my current boss.

~~~
EnderMB
The reason why this happens to a lot of developers is because:

1) They have a LinkedIn or Stack Overflow account.

2) They have dealt with a recruiter before, either looking for work or from
cold calls.

I've had the (mis)fortune of both. The only people that ever look at my
LinkedIn profile are recruiters, so I regularly get emails about crappy jobs.
Hell, it's not unusual for a recruiter to offer me the same-level job at the
company I already work at, sometimes even by phone...

It'll happen, so I won't worry too much about it. It's largely a talent market
out there, and if you've spent enough time at a company that gets hounded by
recruiters or a recruiter finds an online profile of yours you'll be on a
"list" too.

------
berlinbrown
I asked this on reddit. How much of a proliferation do recruiters have on the
job market?

For example, in major cities, recruiters can find out information about every
real job in the city and essentially build a relationship with every major
company out there. In theory, they can own the job market.

The HR recruiters don't have the time to scan over all the resumes they get.
And the new job seeker doesn't have a relationship with the company, so he is
just sending out email blind. Oh yea, I see recruiters from all over the
country connecting with companies and trying to fill those positions. So it
isn't even local anymore. Pretty much any shady recruiter can see an open
position and try fill it.

So the third-party recruiter has a gold mine on their hands. They upsell on
finding good candidates because they are the only people that have the
time/resources to actually do that kind of scanning. It is pretty shady but
apparently lucrative. So the job seeker almost has to contact at least one
recruiter.

My question, what percentage of open jobs out there get filled by third-party
recruiters?

------
berlinbrown
I wanted to say something else. Recruiters aren't necessarily good or bad.
They are just a natural phenomenon of the technical landscape.

Like I said earlier, a HR person at a big company normally deals with the HR
things. They aren't pouring over technical resumes. The technical recruiter,
their sole purpose is to match candidates with job openings. So they have the
time and resources to match candidates. This is bad for the lone job seeker
that is just trying to find a job and he sees an opening out there.

On the recruiters themselves, you want to look for big company technical
recruiters of high-rated firms. E.g. ignore all the random emails from sys-
inc-ez-find.com. You can search for the four or five top recruiter firms in
your area.

You don't have to talk to the 20-something recruiter. Normally, there is an
account manager or manager that may even have a technical background. He/she
is the person that typically seals the deal and knows his stuff.

------
rogerbinns
At the top of my resume/CV, I have a prominent "Note to recruiters" link which
includes details on which kinds of companies I'd be a good fit for (and vice
versa), as well as other details (eg I'm not maintaining an entry in your
database).

This has proven very useful since you can immediately tell which recruiters
have actually made an effort to qualify me, versus the ones indistinguishable
from spam. I even go so far as to block the more egregious ones at my mail
server which keeps the nuisance emails down.

------
Ologn
One of my main gripes with external recruiters are the in-person meeting.

One external recruiter contacted me on Linkedin and said they knew of open
positions I might be a fit for, but insisted, like most of them do, that I
come in and meet them. So I wasted an afternoon meeting them. Then I hear
nothing for months. Then I get an e-mail from the same firm. The last guy I
met moved on from the company, a new person is now handling me there. They
know of some positions I might be a fit for. But since this was a new person
handling my account, they wanted me to come in for another meeting before they
referred me to any of these clients they theoretically had. Of course I didn't
go.

Once when I was on the other side of things, when we were dealing with
recruiting firms for a hire, my boss said he wanted to phone screen interviews
before bringing them in. One of the recruiting firms was unhappy with this,
and was insisting its interviews come in without a phone screen. Luckily I had
a good boss, he insisted on the phone screen and they gave in.

Who benefits from no phone screen? As an interviewee, I don't want to a waste
an afternoon, maybe a whole day going in to interview for a position which I
am unqualified for, or which has some requirements (50% travel, whatever) that
I do not want to go along with. As an interviewer, why waste my time, and my
co-workers time, and their time bringing in someone who can't answer the most
basic technical questions I can ask? I wonder how many people who gave those
recruiters their resumes knew the recruiter was pushing against phone screens
and for in-person interviews only.

------
richardwhiuk
I have to say, I struggle to see the benefit technical recruiters bring. They
rarely know enough about the tech to do any sort of reasonable matching. They
don't give me as much information that I could find about the job as if I went
to the website. Obviously exclude the company, but if you aren't going to give
me a vague impression of salary or reqs, why would I roll the dice?

------
MisterBastahrd
You will never get technical recruiters to abandon calling candidates whenever
they feel like it. They are competing against many other recruiters at their
own firm, not to mention recruiting agencies, to place candidates in front of
managers. Sure, you can demand that they not call you, but most would rather
drop you from their database than miss closing a deal.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I've dramatically reduced the number of annoying calls I get simply by writing
"please send me an email, I ignore unsolicited calls" on my linkedin/website.

~~~
Avalaxy
I dramatically reduced it by simply removing my phone number from LinkedIn.

------
berlinbrown
"Unless we’ve explicitly set up a time to talk, DO NOT CALL ME."

I have yet to put out my phone number when applying for any job. Somehow
recruiters found my number from a few interviews I did from 10 years ago.

When ever it suits them, they still call.

Thanks to google voice I have a pretty good setup I don't have to respond

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yareally
> If it says Javascript on my resume and you send me a job regarding Java, I’m
> not going to reply, and I might even mark it as spam.

I see that often from recruiters, but usually the other way around. They say
Java, but really mean JavaScript.

------
chrisbennet
There is an upside to getting occasional calls from recruiters at work - your
boss knows you're in demand. ;-)

------
banachtarski
The worst is when they attempt to recruit you for a job you're clearly
overqualified for.

------
madaxe
Don't work with recruiters, period. Why? From the hiring side of the table,
here's why.

1) they misrepresent you and lie. "Kevin has 10+ years of experience with Ruby
on Rails". I go "huh, Kevin's a lying shit. Bin."

2) 40% of your goddamned salary finders fee?! Fuck that shit I'll find someone
else.

3) why would I be interested in employing you if you're not interested in us?
The fact that you've gone to a recruiter just says "I have no idea what I'm
doing or where I want to go, and I can't be bothered with research"

4) why would I hire someone that's already on myriad recruiter databases and
therefore likely to be poached by the same shyster that placed you?

So, yeah, don't use recruiters. As an employer, I get 20+ emails per day from
these animated coproliths, and they all get deleted. I don't have time to read
30 CVs for "javas php rubo on rales" developers.

I'll just hire the smart cookie who wants to work for us and approaches us
directly.

Edit: also, the only reason recruiters exist is because they exist. They
introduce artificial scarcity in the labour market and then exploit the
deficit they created.

No better than ambulance-chasers.

Double edit: just to ram home how useless these people are, in the last seven
years I've had recruiters try to sell me myself, no fewer than three times.
Not a single thought between their immaculately preened ears.

~~~
berlinbrown
True,

But how much of your time or HR's time goes to scanning through resumes. If
you only spend time reading 30 resumes. And it possible a recruiter database
has 100's, possibly with good candidates, then you must missed a good set of
candidates.

And then there is a timing issue. How long is your job post out there? 2
weeks, 2 months? So in the window of time that your post is out there,
candidates have to find your site and your job post.

Recruiters, that is what they do. Everyday, they are scanning for candidates,
filling positions.

I don't like it but at least it makes sense.

------
nirvana
Here's the thing that weeds out recruiters for me: If you get far enough to
get me to respond, I'm going to ask a couple specific questions in my
response. Answer them.

Just yesterday I responded to a recruiter, explained my situation and asked a
couple specific questions. The response was a totally generic email that made
it clear he didn't bother to read what I wrote, and just was eager to get me
on the phone.

One thing I've learned is they want to get you on the phone ASAP so that they
can waste your time, because somehow in their minds, the more time they waste
on the phone with you, the more likely your'e going to be interested in them
sending you jobs. (If I'd ever had a productive, business like conversation
with a recruiter that wasn't full of weasely words and them evading questions,
I might feel differently.)

I think this must be a Sales 101 tactic.

Well, I'm in a position to be picky. That makes me the kind of person you
probably are really desperate to hire.... so why not take the time to read my
reply and respond to it?

I mean, I expressed interest. Now I know I'm going to get follow up mails
along the lines of "you expressed interest in blah... lets set up a call" for
weeks... he'll never go back and actually read my response, I'm almost
certain.

