The Tenacity of Tech Recruiters
mattfriz.com
mattfriz.com
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Dear hackernews/reddit/socialmediathatsslightlyoffthemainstreamsoicanappearedgybutstillconnectwithmytargetdemographic
My name is Person McPerson. Here in MajorTechHubCity where there's so many work opportunities, i get so many work opportunities that it actually annoys me so much that I'll spend all of 30 seconds to write a blog post about getting so many work opportunity emails. Once, I was offered a job in a programming language that hasn't been mainstream for at least 4 months! That language was ruby for all those interested. Ruby! Don't make me spit out my own coffee in indignation. I obviously tracked down the person that wrote the email and gave them whatfor. Well, actually I just pressed the "I don't know this person" button.
It's a difficult life, and i hope you empathize with my plight. It really is, as the beatles put it, a hard day's night answering all these linkedin messages. I don't actually answer them though. That's for suckers. You're not some kind of ruby using sucker are you?
Sincerely yours, Person McPerson. (available for remote work, 3 days a week due to my digital nomad lifestyle, please email me)
(disclaimer: not a recruiter)
I like HN, but the attitude towards recruiters here is so ugly and smug and superior. We get it. You are so annoyed by all these companies who want to hire you. You have the power to merely pick up the phone and work at Google tomorrow if it pleased you. You drive a Tesla and have a supermodel girlfriend too. Great. Congratulations. You're awesome.
For the rest of us mortals, it's nice to have someone reach out and offer to put us in touch with someone looking to hire us. This is a LUXURY not available to the vast majority of workers in the world. Be a little grateful for a change. Sure, a lot of the jobs might be "bottom of the barrel" type jobs but you never know, and it never hurts to be civil and treat these folks with a little empathy.
And I have at least once taken the job, too. Once is enough that it's worthwhile to let them call me.
That said, if you try to repeatedly pester me, I'm going to try my best to lose you, whether you're a recruiter or not. You want to let me know you have something that I might be interested in? Fine. I'll listen. I'll tell you if I'm interested. If not, don't ask me about that one again. If I say I'm not willing to look around right now, don't ask me again for six months.
That is, I'll be civil and have empathy until I quit getting civility and empathy back.
And then there were the cases where someone posted a new opening relevant to my skills, and I was immediately flooded with phone calls from indistinguishable recruiters, all of whom had sent me an e-mail literally seconds before and were calling "to follow up". Fortunately, these people normally revealed enough about the job that I could find the original listing -- and apply to it -- on my own.
But, the problem is that it's the same template, and most of the recruiters haven't even bothered to check the message that they sent (I think they are using some software to send these emails).
My name has an apostrophe in it, when the email starts with
Hi Ala',
When the email contains a lot of false statements, like
Your experience in Python is impressive.
When you are receiving these emails 10 times a week, it becomes annoying.
As such, their job is to not produce lousy come-ons, or, as has been frequently the case, attempt to recruit people several grades too senior for a post. It's a matter of context, and what might be an intriguing come-on for some (the "rest of us mortals"), is essentially a thinly concealed insult to others. If they took a little less of a cookie cutter approach to their jobs, they might stumble into fewer situations where people are tempted to be uncivil or lose their empathy (that being said, there's no cause to be rude in these situations).
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I emailed you about your opening last week. I'm just checking to see if you are still searching for great candidates.
If so, I can help! I have a great candidate who you may want to interview.
If not, let me know what positions you are looking to fill and I will get to work.
CyberCoders is a pay for performance, nationwide recruiting firm that focuses on exceptional local candidates who meet your needs.
Best part? We stand behind all of our candidates and will replace them if for any reason they do not work out.
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That sounds nice, doesn't it? Except that I don't have a position open at the moment, nor did I last week, and how exactly are they representing "a great candidate" when they don't even know what we're looking for?
Naturally I wrote back saying that this was great and they should send me the resume immediately. They haven't responded...
'found your resume, looks fantastic, check out this job posting' - oh, i think i know the company, would love to work with them, let me know
two weeks later - 'found your resume, looks fantastic, check out this job posting' - don't you remember me? there was a similar posting, and you didn't get back to me, ok, no matter. 'can i call you on friday'
didn't bother calling. a week later starts leaving daily voice mails. i mistakenly answer, lie, and told him i just started at another job
a week later 'found your resume, looks fantastic...'
This sounds hilarious if you try reading it from the candidate's perspective. Imagine them sending the translated version to the candidate:
"We will replace you if for whatever reason the company doesn't like you"
Particularly at the bottom end recruitment can be a scummy industry (just like anywhere that's sales and commission led, I suppose).
Back when I worked at a ~100 person company as a hiring manager I had recruiters pull all kinds of crazy. Recruiters submitting fake resumes to find out what positions are open, waiting for me outside the office to shove resumes into my hands, get genuine resumes from candidates not working with them, send them to me, and then claim to represent them...and that's before you get onto the black market for leads and the like.
I've been harassed on Instagram by people asking me to update an open source project I let go of five years ago. While it may seem neat and flattering, the reality is that it's incredibly disturbing.
I mean, what -- after all that work, are they going to get back to me with bad offers? (worse than the place I'm staying)? Doesn't make much sense to me. . . .
I'd highly recommend folks read "Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies: Itinerant Experts in a Knowledge Economy", great perspectives given from all three parties involved in this land of recruitment. Also covers some history that may no longer be well known why the state of affairs is as such.
They're searching on LinkedIn and offering you to throw at a company with Similarly Aligned Keywords to see if you stick.
I want to believe that there are higher-quality recruiters out there, ones who understand employee fit from both sides, but I haven't had the privilege of meeting one.
When you can afford to be picky, "high quality" takes on a different meaning.
There are the internal recruiters from companies spamming on LinkedIn too.
And the recruiters who have good roles and state the companies and salaries upfront.
Though that can actually be an interesting problem for all three parties.
Just because some 3rd-party recruiter wants to "give you a comfortable job" doesn't mean he's actually capable of it.
IME, most 3rd-party recruiters are barely competent if that, and are trying to get me to apply for jobs I either am not qualified for, have zero interest in (some dead-end technology that'll mean I won't have a career before long if I go that route), or is some short-term contract in the middle of nowhere (meaning I'd be losing money to take the job, unless I want to live in my car).
The short-term contracts are the ones that really make my head spin, because those requisitions are coming directly from companies and the recruiters are just looking for heads for those positions. Do these companies in places like Erie, PA really think they're going to find someone with highly specialized skills who's willing to come work for them for only 6 months at an unremarkable pay rate? The cost to relocate there would be substantial, not many places will let you have a 6-month lease, and then there's the cost to relocate somewhere else after 6 months because there's no other similar jobs there. What are these companies thinking?
How can I find you online? Do you have a blog with even a modicum of activity? Do you have a linkedin that says "I'm good with X"? Some github activity? At least a twitter account where you post sometimes?
Software engineers have a NEGATIVE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE. Negative. If you're not getting recruiterspam, you're not findable. And that's totally on you, not on anyone else. It's 2017, it has never been easier to be findable. Do something, anything, and put it out there.
If recruiters can find you with "Software engineer with a pulse", you will get emails. Maybe not every day, but at least once in a while.
This advice [probably] does not work for many other professions.
So the problem seems more of, "Hiring Mangers think I'm unqualified" rather than "There aren't enough jobs for qualified developers"
Hiring an unqualified developer is MUCH worse than not hiring a developer at all. It's wasted time and money for the company. I've been on both sides of the table so if you want some feedback on your resume/interviewing skills feel free to shoot me an email.
You should check your HN profile visibility from a browser where you're not logged in. You don't have email in your profile.
HN users who want to be contacted should put their email address in the "about" box.
I could apply to hundreds of corporate jobs and I'm pretty sure I'd get none of them. Whereas for small startups I have historically rejected more offers than I've taken.
In fact, I have never gotten an offer from any company bigger than 30 or so employees. And yet my inbox gets at least 1 recruiter spam per week.
But that's besides the point. If there are very many engineers out there who aren't getting jobs within, say, 1 year of actively starting to look. And if there are very many companies out there that can't hire engineers within, say, 1 year of actively starting to look. Then there's something wrong with market fluidity in one way or another.
That said, I don't think I've ever heard of a competent engineer who can't land a job within a year of actively seeking.
Then again, I've heard that if you aren't doing anything useful for over a year, your prospects start to dwindle because people wonder what's your deal and see it as a red flag.
> land a job within a year of actively seeking
A year lead time is what a negative rate looks like?
I'd say 1 year is a high upper bound though. Specifics really depend.
But here's some general stats: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-biggest-predictor-o...
That link says that with a bachelor's degree or more, 17% are unemployed for 6 months or less, and 19% for a year or more. That gives a really big percent for people between 6 months and a year.
The reason I brought up the 1 year number was more to point out that there's a big difference between "I can't get a job [at all]" and "I can't get a job I really love as quickly as I want".
I mean, it doesn't matter what the unemployment rate for software engineers is, if you want a job as an AI expert at Google and all you've ever done is building simple Wordpress sites for your buddies.
Which is, to say the least, awesome? Nothing better in the world than not being found, in this day and age.
The reality is that most are just in it for commissions - which in some cases comes out of the salary you're promised - and you get thrown into a job where the company cared too little to actually look for quality candidates.
Despite there being ample software companies in the east bay/tri-valley area, I haven't heard from a single recruiter, recruiting for a position in the tri-valley area - I imagine their doing just fine with their hiring.
If companies are serious about hiring talent, they're going to need to start relocating to areas that candidates can get to/live in.
Ah, yes, I must be the perfect fit for your role!
I'm continually having to tell cold-contact recruiters that I don't live in Austin anymore, having moved to Houston twelve years ago.
For a skilled recruiter, this can accrue pretty quickly; at the rate of one role filled per month, they're bringing in equivalent to an average engineer's salary. Of course I'm ignoring overheads there, and if they're working for a recruitment firm they'll be personally receiving commission rather than an individual fee. But my experience in the UK was that there were a few powerful and well-connected independent recruiters who had most of the good candidates and interesting companies on their books - I imagine it could add up pretty quickly!
Care to share names?
Sigh...
To me the much bigger problem in tech recruitment is the difficulty of finding permanent staff rather than contractors. I don't know what the state of the market is in the US, but in London good permanent staff are becoming as rare as hens' teeth. The natural outcome of a seller's market, I suppose.
Sure. Some recruiters are great. But third party recruitment is a sales led industry. You're under constant pressure to close the deal and make the sale. Salespeople do not always behave honestly or ethically.
I have worked with some great third party recruiters who sourced me good candidates. But I also have come across a large number of, for want of a better word, scumbags and hustlers.