
Why do so many technical recruiters suck? - ezxs
http://www.mikebz.com/2011/11/why-do-so-many-technical-recruiters.html
======
bhickey
For the same reason most (if not all) real estate agents are worthless.
There's no barrier to entry and there's the allure of easy money. Until the
profits collapse the market will be inundated with wannabes.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's also relatively little feedback reinforcement for the good (quality)
recruiters.

Since remunerative reward is based on quantity, not quality, market incentives
are diametrically at odds with what both hiring managers and talent would
benefit by.

One solution is to not do business with or encourage the idiots in any manner
whatsoever.

I also jealously guard my time. If you're wasting, it, particularly on the
phone, assuming you've reached me in the first place (I'm increasingly
extremely phone-hostile), I'll respond with "Thanks, not interested, have a
nice day. <click>". That's a single sentence, punctuated with the call
termination.

I've only got in a fight with one recruiter over that -- he called back. I
noted that he was wasting both of our time and tarnishing his (and his
employer's) reputation by the second. He didn't call a second time.

~~~
tomjen3
I am waiting for Google Voice or something similar to get here so that I can
have all calls from an unknown number go straight to voicemail (including
_not_ actually ringing).

It is not even that I get that many calls but it would be nice to know that
you won't have some guy call you.

I can't even imagine how annoying it must be for people who have business
cards out there.

~~~
Chris_Newton
FWIW, we're considering getting one of these for similar reasons:

<http://www.truecall.co.uk/>

Not sure if it's available for use outside the UK, but we'll settle for just
stopping calls to our phone from outside the UK from ringing given that 100%
of them are junk. (In theory, BT can block them on request. In practice, that
request has not been effective, so we're looking for a more direct approach.)

------
Peroni
As a Tech Recruiter and former Developer I've been first-hand witness to the
incredible hypocrisy and mind-boggling anti-logic perpetrated by the
recruitment industry and I've attempted to answer your question at length in
my blog post 'All that's wrong with the recruitment industry'
[http://voltsteve.blogspot.com/2011/07/all-that-is-wrong-
with...](http://voltsteve.blogspot.com/2011/07/all-that-is-wrong-with-
recruitment.html)

Someone in the comments below mentioned how they don't feel that the
recruitment industry can be disrupted whereas I completely disagree. The
industry is already suffering and multiple different factors are playing a
part. As PG mentioned in a recent comment on a similar post, more and more
companies are investing in building internal recruitment teams.

For the record, I agree that most tech recruiters suck. Even if you find a
decent one, chances are they work for an organisation that imparts a vast
amount of KPI's and compliance issues that generally restrict their
capabilities and creativity.

~~~
raarky
Is it hard finding staff that have sufficient technical knowledge?

It feels like the recruitment industry in general is very cut throat and has
high turnover.

And in an industry that has a shortage of skilled people to begin with, that's
probably not a good thing.

~~~
Peroni
_Is it hard finding staff that have sufficient technical knowledge?_

Absolutely. It's also very low on the priority list of most hiring managers
within the recruitment industry. The number 1 priority is finding people with
solid recruitment experience, priority number 2 is finding people who can
bring existing client relationships with them, priority number 3 is finding
people who are incredibly driven and want to make a lot of money. Technical
capability struggles to break the top ten in terms of priority.

 _It feels like the recruitment industry in general is very cut throat and has
high turnover._

100% accurate. I've never worked in a career where I've felt as insecure as I
do in recruitment. Despite making my company a _lot_ of money this year I am
constantly looking over my shoulder as the age old adage is that you are only
as good as your last deal. My technical competency counts for very little when
it comes to my bosses perspective on how valuable I am to the business despite
the fact that my technical competence is what sets me ahead of most other
recruiters.

------
dotBen
The problem with recruiters is that they're the only (potential)
vendor/service provider to your business that doesn't actually understand the
product they are delivering to you.

* My hosting partner knows how operate servers and datacenters

* My employee payroll + benefits partner knows employee laws.

* My lawyer knows corporate law

* My CPA knows accountancy and tax rules.

* My recruiter is unlikely to understand very much about developers, the types of people developer I need to hire into my specific role, the needs of an engineering hiring manager, etc.

Why, therefore, people continue to use them is beyond me.

~~~
noname123
You just answered your own question. People who understand very much about
developers and the types of developers for specific roles are the requirements
of a good technical manager.

A recruiter who's very good with technology and who can program is better off
being a developer financially.

A recruiter who's very good with people and navigating the intricacies of a
project is better off financially being an internal HR manager or project
manager.

------
davyjones
As an aside, I hate this post for one reason and one reason only: the
hyperlink at the bottom alluring like-minded techies for a job in his/her
company.

And that is not just in this post. Almost every such post that talks about
something that strongly resonates with a techie and then drops
the..."oh...btw...we are hiring..." at the fag end.

Please do mention if you require a green card or a H1-B or something related
to residence status required of the position. I am forced to open up the line
of communication with a are-you-willing-to-sponsor-a-H1-B. Only two out of a
whole bunch I emailed had the courtesy to reply.

~~~
sgdesign
I would say the visa problem is probably the biggest contributor to the
current lack of available developer talent.

If the US ever relaxes its visa laws, I foresee a big drop-off in the demand
for recruiters…

------
twelve45
Nicely captures my issues with tech recruiters. The other big disconnect is
that since tech is in so much flux, you want to hire smart generalists who can
pick up new technologies in a few days if necessary.

Most recruiters have no clue how to find "smart developers". So instead they
do a google search for "Java developer looking for job" and spam you with the
top 10 hits with some great insights like "OMG this guy's great... he's _only_
done Java for the last 20 years!!!1!". They don't understand why that's NOT a
good thing in tech.

~~~
shaggyfrog
As someone who's more of a generalist than not, it's almost impossible to
arrange interviews through recruiters -- most of them are only looking to
match up acronym/skill/buzzword X with length of time Y. A big part of that
comes from missing the technical background to properly appraise the value of
those technical skills.

~~~
Homunculiheaded
I find that's one of the worst things about recruiters, not only do they have
a really high number of false positives, they are awful at picking out non-
traditional candidates that any engineer would say "wow" to. The only possible
function I can think of for recruiters is to shuffle around mediocre, faceless
programmers from one large company to another.

------
jphackworth
This is like complaining "Why is so much spam email irrelevant to me?" If
someone cold-calls you their business model is to churn through many people
who are annoyed before they find one who hires them. The great recruiters
aren't going to cold-call you. So there's a selection bias.

------
jacques_chester
It is a classic sales technique to ignore objections and to turn them into new
lines of attack.

    
    
        - ... You have to go to HR first.
        - Okay…  in that case why don’t we have coffee or lunch next week?
    

Bam. Objection ignored.

~~~
JoshTriplett
A classic _bad_ sales technique. I'll put up with a lot of things, and under
some circumstances I'll accept someone acknowledging what I've said and saying
they can't provide that, but if you give me the impression that you just plain
don't listen at all, you've just ended the conversation, permanently.

~~~
jacques_chester
Think it through. It's a good sales technique.

There are broadly speaking two kinds of sales. There is the kind of sales that
takes months -- eg flogging SAP to a sap -- and there are the kinds that take
minutes.

Recruiting falls into the second category, along with second-hand cars, door
to door encyclopaedias, life insurance and so on.

In the short-sale field, when is the salesman ever going to see you again? If
he can help it, never. There is no incentive to favour the long term. The sale
is made _now_ or not at all.

Hence high pressure sales tactics like "never take no for an answer".

When you recognise a short-sales technique, the only winning move is not to
play. As logical types we want to appear fair and rational and the salesman
will use that against us. Stick to your guns. Decide what you want in advance
and refuse to negotiate.

~~~
Peroni
> There is no incentive to favour the long term. The sale is made now or not
> at all.

As a Tech Recruiter I completely disagree. Granted a significant proportion of
the recruiter community tend to favour the short term gain but ultimately the
only way to succeed in the industry is to cultivate long term relationships
and generate repeat business.

~~~
jacques_chester
It'd be nice if there were more like you.

------
epynonymous
couldnt access the article, but fwiw since i'm in the china sw development
industry where a significant portion of hires are done through headhunters:

\- they don't know the least bit about software development, typically wih
english or business degrees \- as a result, their search effort is solely
based on keyword or company profile matching., i.e. to a certain extent large
companies seem to have similar processes and requirements like hp, ibm, so
this works some of the time, you could also say that facebook and google have
similar requirements \- in china, because of the volume of applicants, there's
no time to speak or meet with all candidates so you really just have a resume
which doesnt say an awful lot

i spend my time mentoring recruiters on how to more effectively search for
candidates, usually it's a process of giving them direct feedback on each
resume, after developing somewhat of a repoire, it usually gets nominally
better.

what would be more effective is if someone like me who's been a developer and
now in development management, goes out and opens a headhunter agency, but
that wouldnt provide the level of pay that i'm getting nor really interest me
to be a broker.

i've dreamed of a social network like github + linkedin where not only actual
code is available, but also a strong network of past and present co-workers
are able to vouch for you. e.g. this guy worked with werner vogel at amazon
and wrote significant portions of ec2 and has a lot of like minded followers
of his work, of course an extreme case, but hopefully you get the point. it's
about making the world of software developers smaller through social networks
so everyone knows who and where the good, bad, and middle performers exist.

------
briancurtin
They usually suck because they don't understand technology.

To me, a good technical recruiter would be able to take my resume and actually
understand (to some degree) what it is I'm doing. From there, when talking
about my knowledge and interests, they'd be able to respond and interact, then
tell me about actually relevant jobs on their hands.

Instead, the conversation is a like driving the wrong way on a one-way street.
They always have the best job for you no matter how wrong of a match it is or
how unqualified or even un-interested you may be. At best, most "technical
recruiters" are "connectors" as other comments stated. Beyond that it's almost
all spam.

~~~
amorphid
Believe it or not a recruiter can do a very good job filling technical
positions without a strong understanding of the technology. All you need to
know to get started is how to spot a qualified person, and the hiring manager
can help with that.

~~~
briancurtin
I'll go with "not" when it comes to the recruiters in the Chicago area. I
regularly get contacted for roles I have no measurable experience in, such as
Django jobs, or really anything web related. While I have extensive Python
knowledge, I haven't touched Django outside of a tutorial or two on a rainy
day.

They seem to want to extrapolate Python expertise to cover everything that
uses Python, but it doesn't work like that. I'd love to talk to a recruiter
who understands this.

~~~
amorphid
Successful recruiting is all about having a great process. Domain knowledge in
a specific area is helpful, but not required. For example, I might talk to a
hiring manager about the following...

"Why do you need REALLY need a Python developer? Is it because you have
problems that a great software engineer without Python knowledge can't solve?
If so, give me a couple examples of things you need that only a Python whiz
could do, and I will make sure applicants can do that. If we can't attract the
right applicants, I will ask you will need to dedicate more time to recruiting
or refine your expectations."

I may come to you with a Django job, but I will be prepared to tell you why
the hiring manager doesn't need Django experience at all.

------
rickmb
The author should take his own advice more seriously. He links to his
companies job postings, which consist of a long list of mostly boilerplate
required qualifications, and little to nothing about what the company may have
to offer prospective employees.

Not even a hint that they may be interested in the needs of the people they're
looking to hire.

------
tibbon
I did some (non-tech) recruiting about 6 years ago, and I always thought that
given the time and effort, I could be an awesome tech recruiter. Maybe some
day I will, although it currently isn't in my pants. Here's what I'd do:

\- I'd want to take a long-term approach, and keep in touch with the people
that I worked to place. After 2-3 years, they might just be up for a new
position.

\- I should know their skills deeply. Forget reading resumes, I'd read Github
accounts. I should be able to read what skills they have, not be told them.
Obviously not everything a person does ends up on Github, but the things they
most enjoy and are best at often do. If a person enjoys working in Ruby, I'm
not going to try to shoehorn them into a PHP position because they won't be
happy and won't output the best.

\- I'd want to deeply understand the actual needs of the placed position. So
many Craigslist job postings that are by recruiters clearly don't understand
the requirements of the job vs things that are nice to have.

\- I also understand tech deeply. I don't be that poorly qualified recruiter
who mistakes C# for CSS. I'd be able to talk about what testing frameworks
people are using, or how they like to approach a problem in a non-
confrontational way.

\- While this might sound like marketing-spin, I would want to really think of
it as just connecting friends who need jobs to companies of friends who are
hiring. I actually do this now a good bit, since I know a lot of qualified
tech people and send them emails when I get them about positions that really
seem to speak to them. I never ask for money currently, because well... its
just helping out friends and I want to see them happy.

~~~
anamax
How many of these people change employers in a given year? What fraction of
them will do so through you? How much can you get for finding those people a
new job (on average)?

The product of those three numbers is the amount of money you can make each
year with your approach.

------
amcintyre
Their behavior is just as frustrating from the other side. Since my resume
says I've used Python for scientific computing, I must be a Django expert that
has experience building scalable e-commerce sites, right?

That's what 90% of the recruiters seem to think, and I get a neverending
stream of jobs from them not even remotely related to my experience.

~~~
GoodIntentions
This happens to everyone I think. I had numerous "leads" tossed my way by
recruiters and (unfortunately) a few interviews last year that revolved around
my experience with <buzzword>.

Since I don't particularly want to work doing <buzzword> it is not anywhere on
my CV. Good manners keeps me from saying "Did you arse holes even READ my
resume?" when you've pulled me in for an interview for a position I don't
want.

I understand that not everyone involved in the selection process will have a
deep comprehension of technology, but the department you are hiring for
should. Send them your shortlist for vetting, or better yet, let them send YOU
the shortlist. If you're a 3rd party recruiter.. ..educate yourself.

It will save a lot of wasted time all around.

/rant

~~~
amcintyre
I've generally tried to get the employer to tell me up front exactly what the
job entails, before we waste any time actually interviewing. Unfortunately
sometimes that doesn't work, because they think they need somebody that knows
<X> when they really need an expert in <Y>.

Next time I'm looking for a job, I think I'll scrub most of the mention of
languages and technologies from the resume, and see if that helps. :)

------
beagledude
all the real estate agents who lost their jobs have gone into recruiting now.

~~~
michaelty
"Subprime recruiting".

"Tech jobs will never go down".

------
jasiek
We've never found recruiters useful. Perhaps it was the fact that most of the
positions they recruited for were for large companies, and their candidate
pool reflected that. Once however, when we were truly desperate, we tried to
work with one agency.

I said right away that the only way this would work would be based on a
success fee, and they accepted that. Also, I demanded that they send me a
sample of anonymized CVs before we signed anything. So a couple of hours later
they send me these three CVs, and when I looked at them, I immediately
recognized the candidates (it's a small world, isn't it?).

The next step was to call the candidates and ask them if they're were really
looking for a job. Turns out not one knew anything about the company in
question and none of them were interested in switching jobs.

------
mathattack
I agree, most suck. The only ones who don't are ones with many years in the
industry they services. There are ex-engineers that make good engineering
headhunters. There are ex-brand managers that make good marketing brand
managers. Even still, the good ones still have minions running around getting
meetings for them, and having lunch, and cold calling, and generally being
worthless. The lackeys are in the same league as used car salesmen.

One subtle point the writer may have missed: \- I can’t really source
candidates from agencies that are not on the vendor list. You have to go to HR
first. \- Okay… in that case why don’t we have coffee or lunch next week?

The second line wasn't ignoring an exception. It was a subtle was of saying,
"If you're not hiring, perhaps I can find you a job."

------
j45
Despite being 50 years young or so, software still is making the transition
from art to science.

You can't recruit for something you don't understand.

\- They're not technical \- They're not connectors \- They don't understand
the job as being beyond a list of skills \- Education doesn't come close to
making up for experience

------
abarringer
They violate the worlds shortest and most profound sales course. "Know your
stuff, know their stuff"

From the article "I am thinking – does this guy not want to hear me? I am
detecting a pattern: not only he doesn’t want to listen, he actually doesn’t
care to consume any information at all."

------
munaf
Anybody have experience with Hackruiter or TopProspect as alternatives?

~~~
tomjen3
Never heard of them, actually.

But the recruiter space doesn't seem to need disruption, since it
fundamentally only makes sense in a pre internet age. Today candidates can
find any company they like online and apply right then and there. The same
goes for any company which can contact a candidate directly (either through a
his/her blog if the prospect has one or through any of a number of aggregator
services).

Today recruiters are like travel agents -- mostly useless, except if you don't
have the time to look stuff up yourself.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
I interviewed for a job as a recruiter once (what can i say, I was desperate).
Anyway, during the interview, the recruiter told me that they get hired so
that the company can select specific kinds of candidates (national, football
player etc). In essence, recruiters can allow companies to discriminate
against minorities or whatever without having legal problems. This probably
doesn't apply in the tech field but it may be why big companies still use
them.

------
anjc
Oh god, interaction with that site is horrible. Looks nice but..

------
georgieporgie
I would say the example recruiter is _not_ actually a connector. Based upon my
understanding of the term, a connector has deeper connections than that, and
is capable of actually putting people and concepts together in his/her head in
a way that is relatively unique.

The recruiter described sounds like a more technologically advanced version of
a beggar: ask everyone you ever come across for a handout, and you'll
eventually get one.

Idiot recruiter story: in college, I did part-time work for the Corps of
Engineers. It was basically an intership program, though with poorer guidance
than you'd expect of one. I kept getting recruiter calls to work on Ada
projects, despite it being nowhere on my resume. Recruiters refused to
acknowledge my very relevant work experience (multithreaded C++) because they
don't consider military experience, despite the fact I had nothing to do with
the military...

------
nirvana
I'm curious how this recruiter would earn $15,000-$20,000. Is that the going
rate for a full time hire? Is it usually a percentage of starting salary? Does
it vary widely from firm to firm? Is it %20 of the starting salary?

~~~
ervvynlwwe
Recruiters typically get 20-25% of first year salary, if their candidate is
hired. If you're getting recruiters calling you, go ahead and ask them what
their fee is. I've done it, and they do give you an answer.

That said, given such a high % fee, you also get an idea of how often they are
actually successful.

------
veritas9
This is something we're trying to address at CodeEval.com. We're trying to
make it easy for start-ups to hire without needing a recruiting team or
contracting a clueless recruiter.

We've created a community of pre-screened developers who are actively or
passively looking for jobs at startups. They have proved their programming
chomps by solving dozens of programming challenges on our site.

If you're a start-up looking to hire without dealing with recruiters get in
touch with us - william@codeeval.com

------
sgdesign
It seems that every week there's a couple posts complaining about recruiters
these days.

It's one of the reasons why I've launched my own site to try and improve
recruiting (for designers, at least): <http://folyo.me>

~~~
invalidOrTaken
I would have read with bated breath if you'd explained the problem with
recruiting, and how it can be fixed.

But instead, you just shared a link. To your paid service.

I can feel the marketing, and I don't like it.

