

Why I Love Recruiters - simonsarris
http://simonsarris.com/blog/626-why-i-love-recruiters

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zwischenzug
I couldn't disagree with this more.

Recruiters are almost exclusively focussed on one thing alone: making
commission. They're not necessarily bad people, but they are not interested in
how polite you are, how long your response email is, or anything else than the
information they require.

Sending long-winded emails thanking them for their time and interest is
_wasting their time_.

If I want to reply, the first line gives them the info they need. "Not looking
for a job", and the rest gives other information if the opp looked good.

If you want to try and build up a relationship to get out of where you are,
then fine. But they are interested in placing you, nothing more. Anything else
they're generally faking.

It's how the game works. We geeks have a hard time getting this, because we're
essentially honest.

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charlieok
I was in semi-searching mode. I had a very long commute I was unhappy with,
and had every intention of putting some time and effort into finding the
perfect situation. Something close to home. Something matching exactly the
type of problems I wanted to solve. Using exactly the tools and technologies I
wanted to work with. However, there was always another project I wanted to
finish first, or another topic to bring myself current on before finding the
right match and interviewing.

Meanwhile, I was getting emails from recruiters. I was pretty good about
replying because you never know where an opportunity might come from and
because it feels better (for me) to just reply before archiving that message
out of my inbox.

One of those out-of-the blue recruiters ended up working out. What was an hour
long drive is now a 5 minute bike ride. I hadn't valued this nearly so highly
when I took that far-away job as I do now. See for example:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-
of-c...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-
commuting/)

So anyway, for me this was a clear case of not letting the perfect be the
enemy of the good. An opportunity for an immediate improvement landed in my
lap that I otherwise might not have found out about, or might have put off. I
can't be too upset about that.

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hansef
I don't understand why more tech recruiters don't ruthlessly specialize and
laser-focus on building a deep understanding of a particular niche when
matching candidates and employers.

I'm CTO of a web and mobile development shop with about 20 employees. Finding
good frontend developers is REALLY hard - to be a great frontend guy these
days, working on modern web apps, you need to have strong engineering chops,
with knowledge of the html5 apis, css3 and serious JS experience, including an
understanding of memory and performance management in large frontend-heavy
apps; ideally have worked on a couple of medium size apps with 5-7 person
teams; probably have at least some exposure to the current JS framework scene;
ideally (for our stack) have experience with preprocessors like sass or stylus
and coffeescript; have good design sense and the ability to work in a
collaborative feedback loop with a designer, etc etc. It's a really cross-
functional role. There's a lot more people who "know HTML and CSS" but have
never worked on serious apps, or have solid JS chops but can't produce design
with reasonable fidelity to save their lives.

A relationship with a recruiter who understood this "candidate profile" and
could bring me people who would be a good fit, not just resumes with "HTML",
"CSS", "Javascript" and "5 years of experience" on them, would be worth its
weight in gold.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
And, not to put too fine a point on it, would you pay them their weight in
gold? Let's say five times what you currently pay your devs?

~~~
salemh
That would only make sense if he was significantly increasing his work force
(25%, 50%, etc.) to "out save" the ~20% standard fee's on first year salaries
for contingent staffing firms. Though I get your point on the "weight in
gold," however, seems like he needs a strong internal recruiter to get his/her
chops with the culture, team and technology.

Their are a few "boutique" shops around (mostly Silicon Valley) who are fairly
technical and can actually understand the requirements of the client, but,
they are still on a contingent (so many firms / many candidates) which still
comes down a style of "spray and pray."

Most recruiting firms can't specialize (or refuse) in a niche due to the need
to "branch out" to keep the money coming in, hence the all encompassing "IT
staffing" agencies.

Not fun, I'd love to work in a boutique / specialized model myself as a former
(and probably soon to be again) technical recruiter.

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chris_wot
Ha ha! I love the responses! Friendly, but at the same time politely telling
them to do better research. They really can't complain :-)

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toomuchcoffee
Talk about unrequitted empathy.

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jakejake
I always just tell recruiters that I'm not looking at the moment but please
keep me on their list. Who knows when a startup fails or company downsizes and
you're looking for a new gig.

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shyn3
I had a recruiter provide me with an interview. I was thinking about a job at
that point. They were getting somewhat near $40 an hour and I was getting
almost half.

The people I talked to were floored by the idea. It's not what you know it's
who you know.

If the recruiter hadn't got me an interview at $25 an hour then I would be
earning $0 for that period of time. I would have never found that job or got
to know the company.

Once I got in that organization I could easily work with HR to buy me out of
the recruiter's contract and negotiate a better salary for myself, considering
the company wanted me.

The recruiter and me will probably do business again after my contract. I get
a new salary after an initial test phase for the company. They get one time
fee or recurring income.

Everyone has to eat. Recruiters have to make contacts. They have to pay
salaries. They have expenses. I don't get why people are floored when they
take a large portion of your salary. Most people don't have an influential
network that can land them interviews. If you can then this doesn't apply to
you.

If you are a I.T. recruiter in Toronto feel free to provide me with awesome
interviews at $40 hour while you are making $100. I won't mind I promise.

~~~
lurker14
Sounds like you are talking about contractor management, not a recruiter.

~~~
shyn3
Well no, I should have been more clear. I accepted a contract instead of full-
time work. After being bought out of the 1-year recruiter deal I now get paid
by the company instead of the recruiter but at a higher salary.

I also posted in the wrong thread, seems I had too many tabs open.

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jfb
I do this as well when approached by a recruiter who has obviously read my
resumé. I always am grateful, and polite, and usually try to set them up with
someone in my network (after checking with that person first, naturally). I
haven't worked with a recruiter in maybe ten years, but I find that, you know,
you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and I've accumulated the contact
info of a bunch of classy recruiters if I ever need help.

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gregable
I work for big tech company. I reply to recruiters that I'm having too much of
a great time where I'm at (true), but they seem like an effective tech
recruiter and would they be interested in joining [big tech company]?

Most say no, though one did toy with the idea but it didn't happen. The no's
seem to get a kick out of the unique response though.

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clivestaples
This is great and refreshing to hear. I treat recruiters with respect because:
a.) I've been down-and-out before and consider myself blessed to be in demand,
b.) their job seems pretty tough, and c.) it would be really arrogant to
complain about someone offering me work.

~~~
prodigal_erik
The problem is that they're all clamoring for more than their fair share of my
attention, even when what they have to offer doesn't make a lot of sense.
Profitable recruiters are optimizing for the first candidate who didn't resign
and wasn't bad enough to dismiss in the first _n_ months, because they aren't
rewarded any more for better diligence and outstanding candidate/position fits
(if anything, mediocre fits and turnover yield more business down the line).

~~~
clivestaples
Time is indeed scarce and I agree that the industry is probably too focused on
short-term goals. I'm referring to the recent trend of bagging on recruiters
and publicly humiliating them. I try to live and let live while being grateful
that I'm not unemployed like many other people I know...

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nhari
I'm a big fan of being nice to those who have to deal with people 24/7.

+1 for Sartori Bellavitano, it's amazing

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stanmancan
Simon you are now an honorary Canadian!

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brackin
I met a delightful recruiter earlier at an event, they understood the startup
ecosystem, don't cold call and only caters to startups and with applicants
that fit in the startup atmosphere. More recruiters should look at people like
her as an example.

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johnsonlong
Are there people so blessed to have unsolicited recruiting emails on behalf of
triple A engineer employers like MS? What I would give for that.

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michaelochurch
Recruiters serve a necessary purpose, and it's not the "middleman" role
because that's not necessary at all. Their purpose is something else, and I'll
explain.

When you join a company, your manager is an advocate for the company's
interests. Plenty of managers are decent people and look out for their
employees as much as they can, but it's not their job. Their job is to serve
the interests of the company. The employee has to be his own lawyer when it
comes to negotiating raises and better projects, because no one else is
assigned to that role and if the employee doesn't do it, no one will.

Recruiters, when they work well, serve as talent advocates. They help
employees use the only bit of leverage (the right to find another job) that
they have as best they can by getting them promotions, raises, and better
projects at the rate at which they become qualified rather than the much
slower rate that companies consider politically convenient.

There are a few problems with this system. One is that the recruiter is paid
by the company, not the employee. That's actually a fairly small one, but it
does mean that some recruiters will oversell bad positions in order to make
quick cash. The second, related, problem is that they're paid for "churn".
Most employees would rather get better work at the same company than change
companies, but recruiters only get a payout in the latter case. There's no
incentive for a recruiter to work toward internal re-placement, and most
companies' transfer policies are so broken that the easiest way to get a
better job is to change companies. The third problem is that repeated job
moves, after a certain threshold, can damage the employee's resume: the "job
hopper" stigma. Some recruiters warn people that there are long-term risks of
high-frequency job changing (even though there shouldn't be; the "job hopper"
stigma was invented to exploit people) but many don't.

There's a legitimate niche yet to be filled for "talent advocates", who can
help the most talented people negotiate a fair shake (without necessarily
requiring they change jobs in order to do so). The problem is that talent
doesn't have any fucking money to finance this sort of thing. Companies have
the money, so they make the rules.

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AYBABTME
I prefer your way, it's much more fun to write this kind of message!

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veemjeem
hm, blog is hammered, anyone have a cached copy?

~~~
simonsarris
Sorry! I was unprepared.

How about this:

<https://gist.github.com/3473504>

~~~
citricsquid
<http://gist.io/3473504>

