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Ask HN: What has to change? I'm sick of it
17 points by ethanwillis on June 8, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 29 comments
4 days ago(a Saturday!), I received a completely cold email from a Chewy.com recruiter telling me "we're seeking passionate and driven engineers to join..."

As far as I know I've never expressed any interest or given them any of my information outside of being a customer for several years. However, they continued in their email asking me to provide them with lots of information about myself without actually telling me a single actionable piece of information about any role.

Regardless, I replied (on a Sunday!), telling them (paraphrased) "I did find it strange as to why they were reaching out to me specifically. But even so, I do like Chewy from my experiences with them as a company. So I would definitely entertain the idea." I gave them some basic information about myself(YoE, Education, Tech focus) and asked the following questions (with some personal information removed)

  - What are the pay ranges on your senior positions?
  - Is remote a possibility? 
  - What does your overall interview process look like?
Days later, no response. What's the rationale with doing this? Especially when you're cold-emailing candidates whose information you got from.. where? I already have a bad taste in my mouth from what the norm is for modern hiring practices. But, this simply goes above and beyond what could be construed as an opinion. This absolutely should not be tolerated. Why would a company be so shortsighted as to actively sabotage their image by behaving this way?

And unfortunately, Chewy is not the only company behaving this way. They were just my breaking point from seeing this happen multiple times.




Dude, you wrote back to a spam email and you're telling us that you're at your breaking point because they haven't responded to you within 2 working days.

You need to adjust your expectations.


Not a spam email. And is it so difficult to provide bare minimum information past the equivalent of "Did you know we have open positions?"


If they're doing a bad job at cold emails, that's their problem, not yours. They don't owe you a good cold-email-receiver experience.

You're wasting your time even thinking about this - it's like being mad at the wind for blowing in a certain direction.


It is a spam email.

Just because you were mildly interested in the spam doesn't make it not spam.


I've started writing recruiters back with this question:

If there was one book I could read to understand this company's business model and future, what would it be?

I'm very careful about what company I join after a string of bad experiences (or even good experiences that failed). I don't just care about engineering, I want to understand the product and business I'd be working on/for on a deeper and broader level.

So I'm not asking this to be pedantic or anything. I love to read, so anything a recruiter responds with I would 100% take the time to read.

So far, nobody has ever written me back.

I haven't yet formed a theory on what that means, but I can't help but find it disappointing nonetheless. I'm literally asking the teacher for more homework.


  If there was one book I could read to understand this company's business model and future, what would it be?

  I don't just care about engineering, I want to understand the product and business I'd be working on/for on a deeper and broader level.
I like everything about this and everything you're saying fully resonates with me. At the end of the day companies themselves need some sort of pressure on them to at least raise what's currently the "minimum." I know it's not the recruiters fault generally, and definitely a large part of it is the company itself and the incentives they setup that make it cutthroat.

On the line about the book, I would also read it. It's good for me, it's good for them.


Thinking of a recruiter as a teacher doesn't seem accurate to me. They should not be expected to understand the company well or the role of the software team in the company. Recruiters are intermediaries whose role it is to save the hiring manager's valuable time. They will focus on the initial scanning of profiles (does this vaguely look like a developer profile?), be responsible for scheduling and maybe salary negotiations as this means you can start a fresh relationship with your hiring manager without the potential tension left over from a salary negotiation. The exception are executive search professionals who will understand the business model well, but even they would not be able to recommend a book.


| Thinking of a recruiter as a teacher doesn't seem accurate to me

That's a comedic throwaway line you shouldn't take too seriously. The joke is about me being the kind of dork who asks for more homework.

| They should not be expected to understand the company well

I fully don't expect the recruiter to be the one who determines the answer to that question. All they have to do is ask someone higher up though.


Probably too much effort for the recruiter to figure out. Understandable, I've been in my company almost 5 years and still wouldn't have a good answer.


1) you're right, that's not great behavior

2) the profession of recruiter is very different from developer, it has a different kind of personality type, with different norms for social interaction; some are great, some are mediocre, gushing with enthusiasm when they think you're going to help them get a bonus, dropping all communication the moment that's not true. A recruiter with mediocre professionalism is doubtless just as common as a developer with mediocre coding skills.

3) most likely, they sent you the email, then got a person for that position, and didn't follow up to let you know that the position was filled. Not right, but no upside for you to let it get you angry, which hurts no one but you.

4) many companies are having hiring freezes, often with little notice; as uncomfortable as this is for us as developers, it is probably worse for recruiters, in terms of their own job prospects. It is possible (I have no inside knowledge here) that the recruiter that sent you the email has been laid off in the meantime...


> no upside for you to let it get you angry, which hurts no one but you.

I agree there is no upside to allowing it to create stress or upset. However that does not mean there isn't a common good upside to taking action to dissuade such actors.

For example refusing to use the services of companies which have treated you badly, either as a customer or a candidate.

For example 2, publicly naming and shaming companies which are profiting off tragedy of commons social goods which polite behavior typically falls.


Thanks for this comment. You're exactly right on #3. Really, I'm not that angry really. It's just frustrating to see this type of behavior become more and more common.

Early on in my career I actually worked with some very good recruiters, so maybe my bar is a little higher than it should be.

On point #4 this is definitely a likely possibility that I didn't consider. Definitely some sort of blind spot/collateral damage the company didn't consider if that's the case. But well, shit happens. NBD.


If it was a person, you shouldn’t have responded on a Sunday before a holiday. You’re at the bottom of their inbox now. Also, try to hold the questions for a live chat if you’re interested in the company.

It sounds like you really want to learn about roles at Chewy, why not just send another email or directly contact a recruiter on LinkedIn?


I’ve gotten probably 30 emails from Amazon recruiters in the last six months. Always different people and different teams. At one point they did this tricky thing where “the director of Machine Learning” messaged me on LinkedIn but it was a recruiter using her account or something strange. I have no idea why but they absolutely won’t stop bothering me. I seriously doubt I could get through their technical process without a lot of practice.


They're trying to increase their funnel to keep that $325K max salary from being the average. They're investing to increase their supply of labor.


There's 3 types/market for recruiters and they almost never overlap. The first are "body shop style" recruiters. It's basically a numbers game where they try to cold-call as much people with githubs/linkedin or blogs that reference programming. They don't know programming (not even what's the difference between languages or front-end/back-end) and are looking for a list of buzzwords. They'll send copy-pasted messages (you can tell because it references tech you never used or never even claimed to have used). If you respond (and really you shouldn't) you won't be able to get any relevant information about the position because... they don't have it. These recruiters are often contracted by external firms in "best value countries" and are given canned response to message you. That's probably what the author encountered.

Second type are professional recruiters. Their salary is by commissions will often be a percentage of your salary. They are knowledgeable about programming and tech (often former engineers who wanted a break from coding!). They typically are looking to match specific profiles to specific jobs at client companies. This goes all the way to recruiters specialized in C-Suite executives (and you can picture the commission finding a CEO will bring in). Their messages will be personalized and you shouldn't hesitate to reply back even if you aren't looking for a job. They know that most great software engineers are almost never openly looking for a job so their goal is to be on good terms with a large number of talented developers so that the minute they start looking for a job they can match them with positions. You'll know when you encounter one.

Third type is basically referrals. A players attract A players, smart companies know it. Make sure your referral bonus is a percentage of total comp. It's probably the most effective way of recruiting (it has an insane signal to noise ratio). But you only get access to that type of network by... bringing value and being part of it in the first place!

You somehow ended up on the former's spam list. Sorry.


Accurate descriptions in my experience. Luckily in my very first role ever(a long time ago now) I worked with the second type. Unfortunately he's retired now, but he matched me with a lot of very good jobs. But also he matched those companies with me. It was exactly the process of cultivating relationships (let's go get dinner/lunch, let's just shoot the shit, etc.) And he didn't waste anyone's time. That made people take him seriously and either reach out to him from the hiring side or instantly take his calls on the "searching side."

I think what's worrisome to me is that the first type you described. I fully expect it from job board scouring 3rd party "recruiting" agencies and my spam box does too. What I don't expect is for the first type to increasingly be representatives directly from the company themselves. And this isn't exactly some no-name company looking to add you to their cubicle farm. (Or maybe they have a name and ALSO a cubicle farm). My personal feelings aside, I get that they need "volume" but I don't think these types of tactics are the way to go about it. And no I don't have a solution for it, it is indeed a hard problem :)

Interestingly from some of my academic days there might be something to draw some inspiration from for a solution. Social scientists trying to sample either hard to reach populations (due to social stigma) or hard to find populations (small overall number of members) use Chain Referral sampling. It's an interesting topic. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004912418101000205 For hard to reach research papers.. there's at least a solid solution for that!


Whenever I see people giving out about recruiters (mismatched spam or otherwise) I spare a thought for those without a job. If I was jobless I would welcome all these offerings without being overly cynical.


I got a similar email. I deleted it, then deleted it from my "deleted" folder. I can sniff out when an email came from a human vs. one that's boilerplate, and I'm almost always right about it and get a response when I do respond. Some still slip through though. If you're genuinely curious, find the person on Linkedin (if they're not a bot), and email them there. You didn't share the whole email, but the one line you did share sounded dubious.


For Posterity here is the full email text. Formatting isn't the best due to me copy pasting.

I'm fine with templated/boilerplate emails. However, I just would have an expectation that a human will be on the other side if information is actually sent. In the late 90s my father, a car salesman, would send out thousands of form letters in the late 90s to prospective customers. Maybe I have brain damage from helping him lick so many envelopes :) but I think the key difference between his operation and what I see in general now(not just recruiting) is that the human element is getting increasingly pushed further back in the process or was never going to be there in the first place. Maybe I'll dig into the recruiter to see if they're even a real person at all If they're not then this just makes me question even more the fundamental value of these processes from a company that's not some fly by night operation.

  Hello Ethan ,
 
  I am reaching out to let you know that Chewy is hiring Software Engineers for the locations -  Boston, MA, Minneapolis, MN and Dania Beach, FL.
  Chewy is a rapidly growing e-commerce platform and is developing innovative solutions to enhance the 
  online experience for Chewy customers. Hence, we’re seeking passionate and driven engineers to join our 
  software engineering teams to contribute their best and take Chewy to the next level. Based on your 
  background I think you could be a good fit for one of our openings.
  If you’re interested, let’s schedule a time to discuss this further. I will appreciate if you can reply to 
  this email with your latest updated resume and also if you can let us know if you need any work/visa 
  sponsorship to continue with us? I will be happy to schedule a time to discuss this in detail as per your 
  availability. 
  Thank you for your time! :-)


This happened to me with Google.

Apparently, 10+ years ago, I showed some interest in some Google product aimed at developers. It's been so long, I cannot even recall which one.

For the past 5-6 years, I've been receiving emails from Google recruiters. When I finally asked one where did they get my address, he said that I was labeled in their "database" as a software engineer, and that "database" is shared across the whole organisation.


I've never applied to Google

Insofar as I know, I've never been referred to Google

Yet every couple years I get a Google recruiter coming at me

Always entertaining to answer their question, "why did you apply for this job" with, "I didn't. You contacted me."


Someone needs to make a candidate focused job board.

One that allows you to specify all the search parameters the candidate cares about, and severely punish bad faith actors.

I get dozens of recruiting emails per week, and they seem unable to comprehend why I'd want to stay at a company that pays me 2x their Total Comp... (Also my current company has a hard time comprehending why I'd consider leaving for a 50% raise btw).


There's a deaded comment I can't vouch for asking an important question: "Is it chewy or some spam recruiter?"

It's Chewy themselves, using an email address from their domain.


They are probably bots powered by AI. Many recruiters use them.


I had to look up Chewy it's a modern day version of the 2000 era Pets.com, which was a hillarious disaster with silly superbowl commercials.


I got the same message from Chewy. I wrote it off as recruiter spam, just like most of the messages I get on LinkedIn


Spam email and last Sunday was a holiday in most parts of the world, that's why no response.


Is it chewy or some spam recruiter?




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