
Shit recruiters say - mooreds
http://shit-recruiters-say.tumblr.com/
======
mathattack
Headhunting is a strange field. 90% of the recruiters are less than garbage,
while 10% are worth their weight in gold.

The one comment I'll add is, like any cold calling, it's a very tough job. At
the very least, I try to be polite to everyone, because you never know how
hard it is to be in their shoes. In addition, if they're remotely reputable,
I'll give them names that fit their search. (In my field I tend to know who is
looking)

The key is to shut them down as soon as they start doing anything that smells
of being unethical:

\- Asking for where else you are interviewing.

\- Asking for information not relevant to the position.

\- Not telling you which company the resume is getting sent to prior to their
submission.

\- Pulling lines from Glengarry Glen Ross, Boiler Room, the Wolf of Wallstreet
or similar.

It is amazing that many of these folks can keep jobs, but I guess it's like
being a gym membership salesperson. Only the best last.

~~~
andrewjkerr
> Asking for where else you are interviewing.

Why exactly is this unethical? I've gotten that from pretty much every company
I've interviewed with for internships.

~~~
Scuds
You don't want to be submitted by two different recruiters for the same job.
It's awkward for the job's HR and for everyone else involved, and could
potentially invalidate your resume submission. But recruiting firms also use
this mechanism to feel out their competition.

Rec: "I have a position with AAA Airline you might be interested in."

Me: :"Sorry I was already submitted to them via Firm B."

Rec: "Oh, you should have gone with us instead. It's always amusing watching
them try to work the AAA Airline jobs. Are you working with SoAndSo?"

Me :"Yes..."

Rec :"ha ha ha, best of luck to you guy"

~~~
andrewjkerr
Ah, ok that makes sense. I wasn't really thinking about it from a recruiting
firm's standpoint, but, you're right, that could cause problems.

------
jonnathanson
For me, the biggest gripe is the "Company - Confidential" stuff. I can handle
buzzword bingo. Nine times out of ten, the recruiter is reading from a script
that he or she did not write. No sense in shooting the messenger over that.
But I think we've reached peak ridiculousness in terms of "stealth" and
confidential companies. Are you recruiting me for an undisclosed company in
Langley, VA? Fair. If not, let's drop the top-secrecy. [1]

If you can't tell me anything about what company I'd be working for, I can't
tell you if I'm genuinely interested. I'm not a faceless program that responds
automatically to the right salary, equity, and title inputs. It's a bit more
complex than that. At the very least, I need to know what company and what
product I'm going to be working with. (And no, "it's a ___ app" is not
sufficient. Show me the actual product).

Some recruiters are awesome, btw. My general experience is that in-house
recruiters are better than hired guns. The in-house people know the company
and its culture, and they often have direct lines into the hiring manager. Not
all of them are great, of course, but there's a better wheat/chaff ratio
there.

[1] I realize there's often a political need for secrecy, such as when you're
replacing someone currently in a role. Or if you're trying to poach from a
competitor for a given role, and you don't want it known that you're doing so.
That said, both of these scenarios will out themselves eventually. In my
experience, any veneer of confidentiality will evaporate the second you
approach your first serious candidate. Especially if you're talking to
candidates at a competitor.

~~~
redmattred
The reason why recruiters don't want to share the company name is because they
are afraid you will circumvent them, apply directly to the company and they
won't get their commission.

It's a pretty unfounded fear IMO and they would be better off just sharing the
company name. I have friends who are recruiters who get a much higher response
rate when they share more details about the job. Hopefully it becomes the new
norm.

Shameless plug: I'm building a job search tool for developers that screens out
jobs from 3rd party recruiters and staffing agencies:
[http://www.codejobs.io/](http://www.codejobs.io/)

~~~
mathattack
Many times it's also because the companies want to keep the positions secret.
If a company wants to quietly replace their VP of Engineering, it won't be on
any job boards, and they don't want anyone who isn't interviewing for the
position to know about it.

Everyone will ultimately give up the firm name prior to sending the resume,
but there are reputable firms who wait until they know you're serious. (If 100
candidates know the firm name, word will leak out. If only 5 do, then perhaps
not)

~~~
jonnathanson
_" If 100 candidates know the firm name, word will leak out. If only 5 do,
then perhaps not"_

I would imagine that after a certain inflection point, p(leak) scales
exponentially as n(people you've told) scales linearly. Obviously your
probability of a leak is extremely high if you've told 100 people -- but after
a certain number n, practically speaking, your probability is high enough.
That n might be as few as 5 people, or as many as 50, but it's probably pretty
low.

~~~
thesteamboat
Since probability is between 0 and 1, more likely is that the odds of a leak
scale exponentially.

~~~
jonnathanson
You're right. I caught that, as well, and corrected my wording in mid-edit. (I
do a lot of after-the-fact editing. Force of habit).

------
gt565k
Hmm I've worked with about 6 different recruiters so far, and all of them have
been really helpful. It seems that only the bad apples make it on HN's front
page, and a lot of people ride the hate-train.

I really don't understand why the majority dislikes recruiters. I've had the
pleasure of working with a recruiter who spent the time to get to know me
personally and to make sure I get exactly what I'm looking for. He back-
channeled and worked as a mediator giving me details and information. It was
actually a very pleasant experience.

Everyone that hates on recruiters should be thankful that our industry is full
of opportunities and embrace the fact that it's pretty damn nice to be able to
have the jobs come to you. Who cares if you got a few emails or messages on
LinkedIn. Change your LinkedIn privacy settings and email them explaining
you're not interested instead of writing a shitty blog post trying to bash
people. I bet if you were in a different industry, you'd be on HN bitching
about how hard it is to find a job and how unfair employers were. So shut the
fuck up and stop complaining. No one wants to hear your childish rants.

~~~
dneronique
I've had similar experiences with recruiters, so I don't really understand all
the hate. If you're not looking you can be direct and get rid of them quickly
without being rude, and if you are looking you just need to be smart like any
other business transaction and keep an eye out for time-wasters and scams. The
more I work with them, the more I appreciate their services and the better I
get at spotting the 'real' professionals.

~~~
mech55
My biggest two problems with recruiters. 1\. They aren't technical in the
least (90% of the time) and waste my time by trying to act like they are. You
should understand the field your recruiting for. Not saying they have to know
much, but have a basic understanding of programming and can write a 'hello
world' app. 2\. At least part of their commission would go to me if they
weren't there. I'm not saying it would be everything, but I'm losing out on
some pay everytime I go through a recruiter.

------
mcfunley
I do not actually believe in karma or any other form of cosmic justice. But
blowing off easy employment prospects in public strikes me as the kind of
collective sin that we will all be struck down for eventually. It's bad form.

With that disclaimer, the thing that personally gets to me about recruiting
emails is name-dropping distasteful investors. I worry about the teams out
there being created from programmers responding positively to the idea of
working for the guy who's trying to keep poor people off of his private beach.
Or the guy trying to build his own offshore platform for monkey knife fighting
tournaments. Or the guy trying to split up California to make new republican
senators. Or the guy who's a notorious patent troll.

~~~
makeset
It's not necessarily easy employment prospects though. Recruiters are playing
a numbers game, too. For a given job opening, it's in their best financial
interest to pitch as many potential candidates as possible, in case one
sticks. There is no real cost to them to solicit a multitude of résumés, and
no immediate benefit whether the position is a good fit on either side, as
long as a hire occurs through them.

~~~
mcfunley
The point is really that this experience isn't shared by other people in other
industries. I'd feel silly explaining how many unsolicited recruiting emails I
get to the folks I know in entertainment, fashion, marketing, or whatever.
They have to hustle just to get interviews. They get laid off. They're
unemployed for long stretches. They have to suffer through horrifying unpaid
internships.

Sure, you're being spammed at the top end of the recruiter's funnel here. But
the funnel doesn't even exist for a lot of non-tech job descriptions.

------
acomjean
I had a recruiter contact me 10 years ago, asked what I was interested in.
Didn't contact me again, then 2 years later called me with a really
interesting job, (underwater robots!) I didn't get it sadly.

When I was looking to change positions a year ago, I went to look for him, but
he had "retired" and became a preacher in New Hampshire. Not sure what to make
of that.

~~~
azth
What ever came out of the underwater robots company? Can you share its name?

~~~
acomjean
Bluefin Robotics

~~~
azth
Thanks!

------
whyowhyowhy
Some of things the newbie wannabee saleweasels, sorry, recruitment
professionals, will do are truly awful.

I have personally seen candidates blown out of the water for a role just
because the agent can get a bigger payoff for another candidate. Even though
the process was basically complete - the agent lied to both client and
candidate to accomplish this.

They will try to pump and harvest new candidates for their network of contacts
to spam them for leads.

They will advertise fake roles to harvest CVs.

They will nuke your application with big companies when you are represented by
an alternative rival agency (usually accomplished by forwarding your CV again
for the same role, to make your overall application look unprofessional).

They are scum. But it seems today we are stuck with them...

~~~
noarchy
You're stuck with them only if you don't build good networks. This doesn't
happen overnight, but over time, you should be able to get a heads-up on new
opportunities without having to deal with recruiters.

Most recruiters are terrible. Turnover in their industry seems to be sky-high.
If you find even one who is good at what they do, maintain contact with them.
Otherwise, they often aren't worth the time you'll inevitably waste.

------
hbrundage
This demonstrates the outrageous entitlement of tech workers these days. It's
absurd that the way you treat people who offer you opportunity and employment
is by mocking them and embarrassing them! At best, you can be flattered and
find an amazing place to work, and at worst, you trash an email without a
response. Act like global citizens and realize how truly amazing it is that
you have a job let alone many offers, and instead of spending time spewing
derision and cruelty, spend it building something great.

~~~
650REDHAIR
Most of these demonstrate the outrageous lack of homework the recruiters do on
the position, the person they're spamming, or the required skillset.

~~~
johnward
This is the major thing. The bad ones don't do any homeworks and basically
just spam based on keywords. The good ones at the least look at my
profile/resume and can articulate why I would be a good fit for position X
based on my history. I'm always polite but some of these people clearly have
no idea about the positions they are recruiting for, especially the
differences in technology. Then you have the pushy ones. "How much are you
making now? Well this position pays 20% less I want to submit you for it", no
thanks.

------
X-Istence
"Just had a recruiter call (yes, on a Sunday) and ask if I had “C hashtag”
experience." from my Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/bertjwregeer/status/506185678175367168](https://twitter.com/bertjwregeer/status/506185678175367168)

~~~
BigChiefSmokem
You can use your C pound experience in place of C hashtag.

~~~
leeny
I prefer singing the note in perfect pitch

------
philip1209
I once had a recruiter send me his search instructions:

"Dear Philip,

Must have the following:

At least one strong OO language - (C#, C++ or Java)

AND

At least one strong scripting language - (python, perl, ruby, PHP, javascript)

Include REST & API in search terms.

It will likely be easier to find someone who's specialty is in scripting, but
has experience in an OO language as well.

We want someone who has picked up multiple languages and has a desire to do
more.

2+ years experience minimum in professional requirement.

Hacker mentality...use the language that works for the specific situation. "

~~~
wil421
Plus 5 years of iOS development in Swift or an Android language.

------
hardwaresofton
I get a few emails from recruiters on linkedin and most of them are actually
pretty nice... I realize most if not all of the emails are templated, but it's
fine, usually if you respond, you get a human response back.

If I can help them (and help a friend or myself who is looking for a job),
then I do, if not, I tell them I don't know anyone, being polite goes a long
way, I think.

Recruiters are doing their jobs, in a pretty hostile environment (with posts
like this), and just like any other job, there are those that will make the
profession look bad, or aren't very good (yet).

[EDIT] - Is it possible that I'm somehow insulated from these really really
bad recruiters somehow? I'm in Austin, TX (not SV), so maybe that's somehow
it? Never had recruitment emails as ridiculous as what I have been reading

~~~
svachalek
Can't say for sure but I imagine the ratio of candidates to jobs is better
most places than in SV. Right now skilled SV engineers have so many options
without even thinking about answering cold calls from recruiters that the
situation just devolves... recruiters get desperate, "creative", start
spamming, candidates ignore them, bills keep coming in, cycle escalates and
repeats.

------
LeonM
Oh god, the "Big Data" project recruiters :')

I always like to piss them off by asking why they should get a cut of my
hourly rate, since the don't know what they are talking about, how can they
possibly add value?

Or another fun thing to do: send them your CV in PDF format, so they can't
"improve" your CV for their clients, that usually pisses them off. I once had
a "Professional international recruitment bureau" with "more then 40 years of
combined experience" that told me they did not know how to open a PDF file...

~~~
wtracy
These days most of them seem to know how to edit PDFs.

I kind of want to add a PGP signature to my resume, and add an opening line
that warns the recipient not to trust the resume unless the signature matches
up. Naturally, the recruiters would just nuke any mention of the signature and
carry on.

~~~
avn2109
Maybe just include the checksum of the .pdf, without loudly mentioning what it
is? The right people will know what to do with that, and the wrong ones won't.

~~~
jessaustin
Good idea, but if you're including the checksum in the file, you can't use too
good an algorithm and still expect to find a collision. I guess for some
positions collision-finding would be impressive?

------
ceallen
"You'll love these guys. They've got Macs and french presses all over the
place" \- My recruiting agency's understanding of 'cool startup culture'

~~~
noarchy
That is also the understanding that some startups have of 'cool startup
culture'. Usually you have to at least throw in a ping pong table, too.

------
noarchy
If we're talking about LinkedIn messages, it is easy to shrug those off. You
can either ignore them, or fire off a quick reply to tell them you aren't
interested.

What is outrageous, on the other hand, is receiving calls at a work/office
number or at your company email address. To me that shows a remarkable lack of
tact.

------
kreitje
Recruiter: "Dave the Cxx is a great guy and will really like you."

..fast forward to the interview..

Recruiter: "Dave, it's nice to meet you."

It turns out Dave did like me, but he specifically asked for someone local and
I had a 45 minute commute. At that point neither of us were sure why I was
there.

~~~
zippergz
In my world, a 45 minute commute is local (if not ideal)...

~~~
kreitje
It wasn't a bad drive. This guy just really hated his 1hr drive at a previous
company so assumed his employees would also hate it and not like the job.

------
SCHiM
I do not understand this. Who/What are these recruiters and in which fields
are they relevant?

I work in tech, and when I'm looking for work somewhere I don't have any
contacts yet I'll just send them my cv directly. No need for a middle man or
escrow service or things like that.

Edit: Perhaps my comments seems rude, sarcastic or condescending. That's not
how I meant it.

I'm genuinely curious about how this all works, since I've never seen or been
contacted by a recruiter. Nor have I heard such things from colleagues. I do
not live the the states, perhaps this is not a common practice in Europe?

~~~
seanflyon
These recruiters act as matchmakers. The basic idea is that you don't know
about all the companies that might want to hire you, so you can't send them
your cv. You talk to one (or a few) recruiters and they do the leg work to
talk to lots of companies to find the few that you would be interested in. If
you accept an offer, the recruiter gets a substantial payout from the company
that hired you. If the recruiter is good they save time for both the candidate
and the hiring company. If the recruiter is bad they waste you time by trying
to get you to talk to lots of companies when randomly sending out your cv
would have worked just as well.

------
andrewjkerr
My favorite emails are recruiters asking me to apply to positions which
require a college degree and 5+ years experience even though I clearly state
pretty much everywhere (LinkedIn, personal site, Twitter, etc) that I'm a
student. Needless to say, I don't end up responding to those.

------
chad_strategic
LAMP Certified?

[http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/are-you-lamp-
stack-...](http://www.strategic-options.com/insight/are-you-lamp-stack-
certified/)

------
natecornell
Thanks, I was going to look for this after the mention it got in the
Programmer's Price article that was on the front page today.

------
BigChiefSmokem
My favorite term to use against the bad ones: "That's privileged information".

I _love_ the stupid look they get on their face when they finally realize they
are talking to the real deal and their salesmen and Alpha-dog bullshit is not
going to fool anyone. I go easy only on the recent college grads (they get a
first-timer credit from me), but only if I can still spot remnants of a soul.

Knowledge is power and I know more about their industry than they know about
mine, 100x fold.

------
jgalt212
Listen up nerds: When the bubble pops, and the recruiters stop calling you'll
miss them. Think about how lucky you are right now to work in an industry that
has basically an insatiable demand for talent.

Sure, most recruiters suck, but they are here because things are good right
now.

~~~
chad_strategic
Not sure if you are calling me a nerd? Well because I'm not and I can happily
guarantee you wouldn't say that to my face.

Regardless, the programming bubble will pop... I don't know when or how, black
swan per chance? However, a little professionalism can go a long way in the
recruiter industry or any industry for that matter.

~~~
jgalt212
Yes, I am specifically calling you a nerd. Not the 1000s of nerds, including
myself, who regularly congregate at Hacker News to read about things of
interest to nerds.

So despite all the evidence to the contrary, I actually meant to call
chad_strategic a nerd. Kudos for figuring that one out.

------
mech55
So how well do you know HTML...? My number one favorite.

------
cfontes
______* proxy filters it because of the shit in the URL.

------
joe-mccann
only thing you need:

twitter.com/actualrecruiter

------
rayiner
I find the complaining about recruiters to be pretty obnoxious. Might as well
enjoy the attention while it lasts. Soon enough Zuck's PAC will succeed in
flooding the U.S. market with software engineers from India and China, and you
won't be getting those bothersome recruiting calls.

~~~
selmnoo
You really think Zuck's PAC will succeed? Right now the political climate is
being more controlled by the right, and it seems they're dead set on combating
any immigration reform of any sort anytime in the foreseeable future. I'm
pretty sure it's not happening, but would like to hear your thoughts on why it
might.

~~~
rayiner
I'm afraid it may be a compromise that allows the left to trumpet forward
progress in immigration reform, while allowing the right to give ground in a
way that doesn't involve any compromise on their core opposition to
immigration from Mexico and Latin America.

