
Why talent agents for engineers don’t exist - leeny
http://blog.alinelerner.com/why-talent-agents-for-engineers-dont-exist/
======
rquantz
Another difference between actors and the engineers the OP is talking about is
that engineers are salaried employees who do a job search every few years at
the most, and actors are self employed freelancers whose jobs last at most a
few months. In that sense it almost doesn't make sense to talk about the
unemployment rate for actors.

An area where it may make more sense for engineers to have agents is in the
freelance space. Any dev shop that has a sales team is doing essentially the
same thing.

I would consider paying a finder's fee to an agent-type entity who could find
me decent projects and keep my pipeline full so I didn't have to worry about
it.

~~~
chatmasta
That's a difference now, but should it be this way? Realistically, any
engineering project you work on should only be lasting a few months. If you
built it correctly, you should finish it and hand it off to contractors for
maintenance. Top-level engineers should be spending their time implementing
hard new projects, not maintaining old ones.

Is there any inherent reason why companies could not hire top engineers on a
contractual basis for 6-12 months at a time? Given how specialized many
projects are, it seems it would be more efficient to do this than hiring a new
specialist full-time for each new project. The only reason I see that
companies do not do this now is because it simply isn't the norm.

Also, as an engineer, I would prefer to work on a new project every couple of
months.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> Is there any inherent reason why companies could not hire top engineers on a
> contractual basis for 6-12 months at a time? If you built it correctly, you
> should finish it and hand it off to contractors for maintenance. Top-level
> engineers should be spending their time implementing hard new projects, not
> maintaining old ones.

Many if not most technology companies want their expertise institutionalized,
especially when it comes to the most complex aspects of their business. This
is where they create the most value and have the greatest opportunity to build
competitive advantages. There is no incentive to outsource their high-value
work to somebody who is going to be gone after a few months.

This is why companies like Google, Facebook and Apple are willing to lavish
the most desirable candidates with significant cash and equity compensation.

> Also, as an engineer, I would prefer to work on a new project every couple
> of months.

Become a consultant. You may be able to make a lot more money, _but_ :

1\. You may find that there are no opportunities to work for the type of
companies you'd like to work for because they don't hire consultants in any
real volume.

2\. Limiting yourself to two or three month engagements will exclude many of
the lucrative opportunities, which typically demand multi-month if not years-
long commitments.

~~~
eastbayjake
In #2 are the "lucrative opportunities" for consulting on a multi-month/year
contract or were you referring to the equity/benefits/stability of being a
salaried employee?

~~~
7Figures2Commas
I was referring to lucrative consulting opportunities.

Side note: the "equity/benefits/stability of being a salaried employee" are
somewhat overestimated.

1\. Equity has risks associated with it that are discounted during good times
but become painfully obvious when the business cycle turns. Think Google or
Facebook are great companies with bright futures? You can buy their shares
without having to work for them for 4 years.

2\. If you're working as a high-end consultant, you will easily be earning
enough to create a tailored benefits package for yourself. For instance, you
can set up a self-directed 401(k) and defer up to $18,000 of your salary (2015
limit). Your business can also contribute up to 25% (or 20% if you're a sole
proprietor) of its profit as a profit-sharing contribution. All told, you can
stash away up to $53,000/year pre-tax in a 401(k).

3\. Stability is an illusion. Most salaried employees are at-will and can be
terminated at any time for any reason, or no reason at all.

~~~
eastbayjake
I completely agree with you. And honestly, I'm surprised how many people on
these salary/negotiation HN threads say startup equity is a serious part of
their financial plan. I treat any equity offer like Monopoly money -- it's
probably worthless, but if not then it's just a nice surprise.

By the way, any advice for salaried engineers who'd like to start consulting?
Anything you wish you'd known or things you'd do differently in hindsight?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Few people get rich on salary. There are many, many examples of folks rich off
of equity. They are clearly different propositions, and the value people
assign to them depends on the person.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> There are many, many examples of folks rich off of equity.

This is true, but you need to look at who they actually are. The majority of
folks who become fabulously wealthy off of equity (read: owning a piece of a
business) are the folks who start those businesses and manage to hold on to
most or all of the equity.

Most of these businesses are obviously not in tech, but if you want to filter
out non-tech companies, the power law distribution of equity-derived wealth in
Silicon Valley still doesn't favor employees, even those who join companies
early on.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And yet I know several personally. Wealthy off of equity from being early
employees. Maybe half a dozen. That's enough to make a person believe.

~~~
lostcolony
Yes, there are anecdotes of individuals who had a large payout from being an
early employee. It's a major risk/reward proposition, and the likelihood of
the reward is quite low.

It's basically like being paid in lottery tickets. Fine so long as the rest of
your salary is enough to pay the bills, not fine if you depend on it for your
retirement, and either way, some of us would prefer the well defined payout of
cash.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Except its not really like that at all. You get paid in cash plus equity. The
value of the equity part is somewhat under your control. Hard to affect the
value of the lottery ticket.

It may seem hopeless, and indeed many other factors do make good product
companies fail. But when other factors do NOT intervene, then the remaining
value does depend on your execution.

------
vonmoltke
> There are people who still have trouble finding work in the status quo.
> Examples might be engineers who:

> don’t look good on paper but are actually very good

I think (hope?) I fall into this category. She talks about five on-site
interviews being the usual limit for a single job search. After twelve years I
have only _ever_ had five, and it isn't for lack of trying.

Actually I think my interview performance history is pretty good. I have had
about twelve phone/live screens, of which I passed nine, resulting in five on-
site interviews.[1] Those on-sites yielded three offers, of which I accepted
two. The problem is, the response rate to my resume submissions is horrid.
Even when I have an "in" at the company. I heard too many times while
switching between programs at my first employer something to the effect of,
"We would have never hired you by looking at your resume, but I'm glad we
did." I have other, similar statements concerning underestimation of what I am
capable of.

Maybe what I need is more of a marketing specialist than an agent, but I have
always imagined that to be the primary job of an agent. I really need someone
to help me figure out how to present myself better. I would actually pay for
that service; I guess, as she says in the post, there are not enough of me to
support a business. Is that something that could be combined with a
conventional recruiting operation, though?

[1] Two on-sites I declined, one on-site didn't happen because the company
decided not to hire for the position[2], and the third on-site never
materialized because the company just stopped talking to me.

[2] Or so they said. Maybe they switched me from "pass" to "fail" after
telling me I passed.

~~~
spiritplumber
It has happened to me that I was turned down for an engineering position whose
main focus was working with a tool that I had developed the year before,
because the other guy had a MSc and I didn't. HR people are weird.

~~~
vonmoltke
That is where I see a big value proposition in agents for engineers, even in
"hot" markets: cutting through HR's crap. That doesn't change, no matter how
hot or cold the market is. I feel like that has been part of my problem, not
knowing how to finesse my way past those gatekeepers.

I still have trouble marketing my relevance to technical people, though. I
don't have a very forceful personality, nor am I comfortable talking about
myself without becoming (in my mind) a know-it-all douchebag. I need help and
coaching on that front, too.

~~~
mallyvai
This is an interesting side effect of
[http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io) , I've noticed - we've been
aggressively institutionalizing knowledge around many of these kinds of
processes. Tends to give folks we work with a leg up.

(Incidentally - We offer precisely this kind of help and coaching - let me
know if we can help! mallyvai at offerletter.io :)

------
mallyvai
Aline, this is a fantastic article. I agree with many of the points in
principle, but I don't agree with the outcome. I believe a model where
candidates pay 3rd parties for precise jobhunting help is economically
rational, and can work - it's effectively what we're doing at
[http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io).

Here's where you and I diverge:

1) Yes, engineers and other in-demand workers have ready access to jobs. I
remember when I was looking for a good engineering job out of Amazon, I was
basically spammed nonstop by virtually every party on the planet.

2) But the _opportunity cost_ for poor job selection is enormously high. The
difference between choosing between a good startup on good terms, and a less-
good startup on less-good terms, can literally mean the difference between
retiring 20 years early having your work used by millions of people, and just
puddling around for a few years with, say, the occasional PyCon lightning talk
for visibility.

At [http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io) , we are doing precisely
this - we are getting paid by engineers, designers and PMs for value added -
in this case, during the negotiation process. Our team of Advisors guides
candidates on the "last-mile" of offer selection and negotiation in exchange
for a cut of the increase.

It makes too much sense - there's massive information asymmetry during the
process, companies are full of shit, and many people outside of "the club" \-
however you choose to define it - just don't know what they're worth, or how
to get it. While we can't justify charging the $10k-$30k that recruiters make,
the incentives are still incredibly strong for us to do what we do.

And of course there's the ethical and human component, which is very strong -
I tried more traditional recruiting for a while and just raw selling of
companies is so tiring. I like helping people first - all of the Advisors do.

~~~
leeny
I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing. OfferLetter.io works precisely
because you're focused on the negotiation part. There, your incentives are
aligned (it's always in your interest and the candidate's to get them more
money). And there, it makes sense to pay you because you're only paying if you
do end up with a higher cash salary.

If you were to branch out into helping people find jobs, I don't think it
would work. All of a sudden, you'd always be incentivized to find people cash-
rich, equity-poor positions, largely limiting the pool. Money is important,
but at the end of the day, it's just one of many factors. It just happens to
be the most easily quantifiable one.

Moreover, if we ignore this disincentive for a moment, if you were to branch
out into end-to-end job search (rather than just the negotiation part), you'd
quickly become frustrated because for a lot more effort, i.e. everything
before the negotiation, you'd be getting much less money than you would if you
just struck a deal with the company side o the market instead.

~~~
mallyvai
If we're talking about incentive alignment being the primary driver, I
personally don't believe it's impossible to justify taking an equity cut, if
possible and reasonable (10-20%), with the mutual understanding that the
outcome is going to be much better if we help with the beginning of the
process. Building a reputation for being really awesome would be challenging -
people would want to know that it's worth the fee. Two other big blockers:

1) Multiple levels of taxation

2) Startups will be wary of having random third parties on their cap table

There's probably other stuff too. But I don't think it's impossible, just very
hard. There are other ethical concerns from this side as well - hollywood
talent agents don't always have the best persona. It's part of why we're
avoiding the "Agent" moniker at [http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io)
and branding ourselves as Advisors instead.

This is a long ways off, of course - there's a lot of work to be done even in
at the narrow step of the funnel we're targeting right now.

~~~
terramars
re: #2, that's why god invented derivatives. contrary to popular belief, you
CAN write derivatives on your private stock options - the derivatives will
just also be worth nothing if the engineer leaves early / company folds / etc.
and they will be a tax nightmare even if you take early exercise and handle
everything correctly. i'd LOVE to see someone pull this off successfully
though.

~~~
mallyvai
This is a _great_ point. If you have more detail or insight about how we might
go about this (or precedent around it) , definitely let me know!

------
lsiebert
Frankly, I'm surprised that instead of recruiters or agents, there aren't
firms dedicated to employee assessment.

The value add to employers would be a standard assessment tool, reduced
screening time for employees that can be eliminated quickly based on lack of
skill, and using an assessment that is potentially better correlated with good
employees than things like degree and school, or previous employer (decreasing
both false positives from people who can't hack it despite their credentials,
and decreasing false negatives by letting people with the skills demonstrate
them).

For prospective employees, you get a single assessment that may open up a lot
of jobs. Since the company doing the assessment isn't the one hiring you, they
can tell you what you need to work on, even provide training opportunities.

Imagine someone telling you, "You aren't quite what we need, take these onlike
courses and pass them and we will almost definitely be able to find someone to
hire you."

And by acting as an intermediary between prospective employees and employers,
the time cost of submitting resumes to employers that aren't well matched is
decreased.

Further you might be partially eligible for a job, but lack specific skills,
and they can ask if you are willing to take a temporary pay cut in return for
on the job training as you work.

One of the things personally holding me back, is that you really need to be in
school to get an internship. I already have a degree, just not in CS, and I'd
love to be able to learn on the job at the intern level, instead of feeling
stuck unless I go back for a master's degree.

I think there is a real opportunity, not just for such a company, but for a
company that creates a standard or standards for assessment and licenses
it/them to different companies.

Further, such assessments would be useful to assess not just individuals, but
educational programs. Compare performance for people who graduate from
different programs, including online training.

~~~
yazaddaruvala
I think the problem here is just the complexity of the issue. I doubt there
can be a standardized test to evaluate you on your software engineering
ability. If such a test could exist I'm sure University Degrees and GPAs would
be the only job requirement. However, not so sadly, GPAs are still only a good
heuristic.

I think the problem of understanding if a person is a capable engineer is so
specialized that only a better engineer would be able to evaluate adequately.
In which case, are these companies really going to hire and pay engineers
competitively to be recruiters/evaluators? And even still, 1. their evaluation
would only be for the specialization that was evaluated and 2. Depending on
the amount of time spent evaluating, to predict a candidates average
performance over time, through stressful times and through calm times, rather
than just their perhaps peek or perhaps low performance over the stressful
evaluation period, will be exceptionally hard. Maybe I'm wrong but this is
just from empirical evidence that I've gathered working with people in
university and in the real world during my career.

Don't get me wrong, I agree, as demonstrated by its high barriers to entry, it
is a real opportunity if someone is able to simplify or scale this. However,
I'm not as optimistic as you seem to be that this is even possible.

I hope I'm wrong, it would sure make my life even nicer. I would just start
working as a freelancer, and take six month vacations since it would be so
easy to "get back in the game".

~~~
lsiebert
Maybe you have to be a capable engineer to evaluate others. But you could
still potentially do better then HR.

As for GPAs, read [http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-
top...](http://qz.com/180247/why-google-doesnt-care-about-hiring-top-college-
graduates/)

------
pashabitz
Another niche that can theoretically exist is the "superstar" engineers. If
the best engineers got paid 10x more than the worst, the best agents could
obtain salary improvements in the 100k's for their clients, for which a
commission would make sense. This will probably not exist, for reasons "we
will leave for a future blog post" (tm).

~~~
leeny
Heh, I wish 10X engineers got paid 10X more.

------
programminggeek
Agents can and should exist if only for bargaining on salary and benefits. The
average person in just about any field could benefit from an agent to
negotiate on their behalf.

Most people simply don't negotiate any part of their job beyond initial
salary. Sometimes people might negotiate benefits, but that is somewhat rare.

More importantly, unlike traditional contracts with expiration dates, the
average person doesn't renegotiate their deal very often or at all. They take
what they get from their boss, hoping to get at least a cost of living
increase, which is more and more rare.

All of this means that each year you are effectively earning less if you don't
renegotiate your deal. What was maybe a good deal 5 years ago is now worth 11%
less than it was when you started.

So, unless you are renegotiating your deal, you are agreeing to keep a deal
that is less valuable each year.

Knowing that, having an agent or any mechanism to force negotiating on an
ongoing basis would be a huge step in the right direction for most people.

~~~
ryandrake
It would be awesome to have a professional negotiator bargain for
salary/benefits. But, I'd be worried that most, if not all, employers would
simply refuse to speak with them. How would that even work?

Company: Here's your annual cost-of-living increase. Me: Ugh, I think you
should talk to my AGENT! Company: Our policy is to only discuss compensation
with the employee. Me: ???

~~~
mallyvai
[http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io) takes a similar but distinct
tack - we generally find that advice tends to work better. A little bit of
coaching and mentorship can go a long way here. Drop me a line if you want to
chat! :-) mallyvai at offerletter.io

------
vic_nyc
I wish agents existed, at least for the contract market. Once a contract is
finished, it could take a while until one finds the next gig, so having an
agent would definitely help. A dream of mine was (before getting married and
'settling down') to be able to work contracts 6-9 months of the year, and to
travel the rest. Temporary contract work would be ideal for that scenario.

I understand why the recruiting market is skewed in favor of recruiters and
companies, yet I wish there was a bit more quality for engineers. In my 10+
years in IT, I have only met one reliable recruiter - someone I could call
upon when I had a need, and who knew my background and skills. 99% would
forget about me as soon as that particular position was filled.

~~~
mallyvai
Freelance and contract engineers do have options - Aline mentioned
[http://www.10xmanagement.com/](http://www.10xmanagement.com/) in her post.
There's also [http://toptal.com](http://toptal.com).

~~~
mrfusion
Can anyone vouch for those services? Are they worth it?

------
simonebrunozzi
I think that assessing technical talent is fundamentally different than other
types of talent, because technical stuff can be measured more effectively, and
talent for writing code or designing and then implementing an architecture is
also easier to measure than, say, social skills. However, there are other
aspects that we should not underestimate:

1) How well this person works in a team? 2) What's his/her goal in life? Is he
"done", and looking to "park" in a job until retirement? Or still very willing
to learn a lot? 3) How professional is his work? I mean: does he write
documentation, does he care about shipping software that is elegant and
functional, etc. Etc.

There are two companies that I admire for what they're doing in this field, at
two different stages:

Gild.com - a very unique approach to measuring technical talent, by using a
proprietary algorithm that takes your github, stack overflow, etc, mixes all
up, adds some juice, and voilà: you have a score. A successful, estabilished
company.

CloudAcademy.com - younger and smaller, they mix tech snippets, videos, and an
amazing quiz system to assess your skills (currently focusing only on Cloud
Computing stuff, e.g. AWS, Azure, Google Compute Platform, Rackspace, VMware
vCloud Air). They also added practical labs. What's interesting is that after
20-30 minutes of assessing your skills, they get a very clear picture of what
you know and what you don't, which I believe is very hard. (Disclaimer: I am
an advisor and investor in the latter.)

------
barrkel
I've never been through a job application / interview process that didn't
result in an offer. 4 interviews, 4 job offers, 3 taken, in about 11 years in
this industry.

That probably means I haven't been aiming high enough. But I'm also very
selective about who I'll consider interviewing with, yet I'm not particularly
active in searching. Unless a company comes to me, and I like the company, I'm
unlikely to interview. This pretty much guarantees that I'll never work for a
big company unless via acquisition.

I think there's definitely a problem in "matchmaking". I'd like to be
approached by more interesting companies doing interesting things, but I'm not
interested enough to spend the time to actively seek them out.

Most approaches are by startup of the week types. And I was never contacted in
the first 5 years I lived in London, while I was working remotely for a
California-based company (Borland then Embarcadero) - it wasn't until I
switched to a local job that I turned up on their radar.

~~~
ryandrake
Your experience is probably well outside of the norm. I remember both tech
downturns, and I would have given and arm and a leg for some kind of "agent"
during those periods.

------
chatmasta
This business will only grow in the next couple of years. Programming, as a
skill, has little-to-no barrier to entry. More and more classes are teaching
people how to program.

On one hand, it's great so many people are learning to code. I'm a firm
believer in the cause. However, it will also inevitably flood the engineering
labor market with a lot of noise.

Companies don't want to spend time sifting through piles of resumes from
people who started programming in rails six months ago. "Talent agencies"
offer a nice value prop to companies: filter out the noise. I suspect we will
start to see more of these companies popping up in the next few years, and the
business model will gain traction as more of the labor force moves into
engineering.

------
fillskills
Would a Talent Agent work for remote workers? Lots of engineers I know would
love to work remotely, but when they tried, they couldnt find high paying
consistent jobs without putting in considerable effort marketing and building
relationships. Could be worth looking into.

~~~
leeny
This is an interesting idea. I expect there may be some opportunity here, at
least while working remotely isn't ubiquitous.

~~~
fillskills
Only a few people can make remote work for them. Its hard, you have be very
focused and well planned. And you have to find other social opportunities. I
dont see a lot of companies, specially startups allowing it.

~~~
dselmanovic
I would suggest joining Toptal. It's not that hard and you do have a
flexibility regarding working hours and availability. You can read about
Toptal experience at [http://cakecoded.com/article/toptal-
review](http://cakecoded.com/article/toptal-review) or
[https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141023135603-2...](https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141023135603-26354472-why-
have-i-joined-toptal)

I wrote the last one, and I'll be happy to connect you to my co-workers that
can answer any other question.

------
bentigg
Headhunters use this same sort of model. For example, take a look at the
finance industry. They interview talented, young people with 2 to 5 years of
experience for specialized positions (private equity, investment banking,
corporate finance), then try to match up that person with one of the positions
in their database. The potential new hire isn't charged a dime. The headhunter
charges the hiring firm a percent of the new hire's starting salary (30% to
50%).

The assumption behind this model is that:

1) Companies are willing to pay for the best talent

2) No in-house capability to recruit or choose to spend their time on the core
function of their business rather than screen individuals

3) (Salary + placement fee) > cost to recruit that person themselves

------
altay
(Cofounder of 10x Management here.)

Thanks for the shout-out, Aline! You point out the main difference in our
models, which is exactly what makes our talent agency work: the key is the
focus on contract/freelance placement.

Recruiters who do full-time placement optimize for the short-term -- a single
transaction -- which leads to all sort of misaligned incentives and shady
practices. With 10x, we work with the same talent over the course of years, so
we optimize for the long term and help the people on our roster for (ideally)
the duration of their careers. And the talent is more than happy to pay for
our services.

>>> "Agents make sense when it’s hard to find a job or when the opportunity
cost of looking for work is high enough to justify paying someone else.... For
engineers, because the shortage is in labor and not jobs, paying out a portion
of your salary for a task you can easily do yourself doesn’t make much sense."

This reminds me of the "adverse selection" argument we hear a lot, i.e. the
best programmers have no trouble finding work, so wouldn't an agency only
attract people who aren't good enough to source their own opportunities? The
simple answer to this: Tom Cruise has no problem finding work, but he still
has an agent. He wants to spend his time acting, not negotiating, invoicing,
collecting, etc.

You also mention that the talent agency model works for niche skills, but then
you say there isn't a big enough market for these skills. I'd disagree with
the second half of that. Technology is getting increasingly specialized.
Software, hardware, electrical, all have sub-fields and sub-sub-fields and
sub-sub-sub-fields. The same general model applies to most of these sub-sub-
sub-fields, and there are absolutely enough of them to justify a market.

In fact, the niche skills lend themselves especially well to the talent agency
model, since companies don't necessarily need to employ those people full
time. Data science is a good example of this... a lot of companies could
benefit from the insights of a data scientist, but most of them don't need a
salaried data scientist on staff. Through 10x, companies large and small have
a la carte access to pre-vetted specialists (and generalists), on demand.

------
desireco42
I used to have an agent. We tried really hard but companies pretty much
refused to work with us or worked very reluctantly. I thought the deal was
really good, I do my awesome work and my agent gets me in front of best places
I could do that work, but unfortunately we couldn't make it work.

When I say hard, mostly we tried for few months and it didn't work.

P.S. To clarify, I would happily pay a cut from my rate to my agent, that was
the deal. I wouldn't mind upfronting as well, but we both knew each other
well.

~~~
mallyvai
This things take time :-) If either of you are really phenomenal and well-
known then it should be possible - good people have a lot of leverage. It's
not unusual for certain directors, C-level people, etc, to bring in third
parties to negotiate on their behalf or work with them during the process, for
example.

What's your background? are you still looking?

~~~
desireco42
That was my thinking and certainly would help to have someone negotiate and
present you properly. I am not looking but if you ping me, we can be in touch.
My background is rails/javascript, I am lead at parkwhiz at the moment.

I always felt that relationship between recruiters and us was not right, both
sides are not motivated to build relationships. I did build some and got some
really nice people to help me when I need it. But this is more exception then
the rule.

~~~
mallyvai
I started [http://offerletter.io](http://offerletter.io) to help with this :-)
[http://linkedin.com/in/mallyvai](http://linkedin.com/in/mallyvai) \- add me!

-Vaibhav

------
ghaff
Interesting read although it seems overly focused on the differences between
Hollywood and certain types of engineering in the average difficulty of
finding a job. I suspect it's more about the huge differences in how the
market works for typical actors and typical engineers as opposed to their
relative employment rates. And some of it probably boils down to "it's just
the way things are done."

------
pnathan
Remark:

If I could pair with a "engagement specialist" who would find me a reliable
stream of contract work at the usual rates for contract work (i.e., adequate
to handle benefits) & skim off the percentage, I'd be extremely open to that
idea.

Marketplaces like, e.g., odesk, are simply worthless to me.

------
JSeymourATL
> Engineers were super excited about this. Until I mentioned the part where
> they’d have to pay me, that is.

It's a curious thing in an age where people prefer to cut out the middleman--
e.g. stock brokers & travel agents. Some people still want (need) their own
Jerry Maguire to find a job.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Depends on what the middleman provides. If it's domain expertise that'll take
time and money to gain, they're useful. If it's just connections, well, the
Internet is making that obsolete.

And if it's just storage, Amazon's breathing down your neck. ;)

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_random_
It sort of happens for freelancers in UK. Recruiter gets the cut of what
employer is paying, frequent job changes are very likely (2 years in a "worst"
case) so good candidates are worth taken care of.

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jamesdutc
If the distinction is who writes their cheques, aren't they just called
marketing people, and they work on the scale of selling consulting teams?

