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You''re describing good recruiters, which are rare and far between. The majority is spam unfortunately. The problem I think is the incentive structure. When you see human beings as nothing more than a commission, the tactics get cutthroat.

I deal with more good recruiters than bad recruiters. I'm picky and the industry might make a big difference.

I also spend the time to really talk to the recruiter the first couple times so he knows a lot about me and what I'm looking for. And i don't feel he would work out for me, i don't work with him.

I takes communication and i think part of the problem is on the job seekers side. Too many are uncommunicative.

Any recommendations? The only recruiters I've ever interacted with are working for or on behalf of employers. They're looking to fill their position and if I'm not that person, I don't hear from them ever again. It would be awesome to have someone always out there looking on my behalf. Does that kind of recruiter even exist?

You are describing external recruiters, and there are many. Try and find one specialising in your niche, if you have one.

In-house recruiters are a lot different. I've met some very persistent ones that even after you say not interested they keep calling you (I'm glad one did because he broke me down and i finally interviewed and had great success at the company).

To find new external recruiters i look at the job listings (Indeed, LinkedIn, etc) and see if i notice the same recruiting firm listed at jobs i find interesting. Then i get in touch with the recruiter directly and have a discussion with him. So i kind of look for recruiters more than i look for jobs.

I've had good experiences with in-house recruiters, i.e. employed by the company who wants to hire me.

Agreed. There's a lot of snakes in the biz. I had to tell one to turn his auto-dialer down because it was annoying me. If I didn't answer he'd be hitting me up several times per day every day. Then he'd lie about not having an auto-dialer.

They want huge commissions but they don't add a lot of value. That commission is almost always way more than it would cost me for my time to recruit from my own network or through traditional means.

Many of them never even meet their candidates. When I was in the market a long time ago - they would prep me with what to say to the hiring company even if it wasn't part of my skill-set at the time. That's very dishonest.

I'm an employer and they'll call me and immediately start talking about a candidate. They'll ramble on and on about how great their candidate is even though I'm not hiring or I'm only hiring for a different role.

Part of their strategy is to push a candidate on you, get you to like them and then talk about their commission only if necessary. They get really squeamish if you ask about commission.

As someone who has previously conducting a job search while employed full-time, recruiters are a must-have. I don't have all the time in the world to job hunt during normal business hours. Having people who were motivated to be the one to find me a job saved me a lot of time, got me a lot of info, and the recruiter who was working for the company that inevitably hired me was super helpful in recognizing my potential from maybe a bit of a lacking quality resume, and pried for a bit more info... a dedication a faceless Google algorithm will never have.

most "good" points you mentioned there about recruiters code can replicate.

They do a lot of leg work for you

- simple stats and analysis

They have access to many openings that aren't public.

- This is just companies choosing their preferred recruiters in a fragmented industry. A solid platform would solve this

And they can convince good companies to create an opening for you if you would fit really well with the company

- I dont see code doing this. But how often does this happen though?

I get to send my resume to a few recruiters and they call me with all the openings that fit my skill set and i would be interested in.

- Not sure why you think this is exclusive to recruiters. Isnt this just another way of describing filters on a recruitment website?

.They make looking for a new position so much easier. Often they work in teams so you get multiple people doing this for you at the same time. Plus you build a relationship with them, their team, and the company so you with them better next time too.

- Its not hard to code something that can achieve this. Even saw a post here on HN about a site that can mass apply for jobs for you. Could make it a little more intelligent so it learns which jobs you prefer.

Companies in certain industries often don't publicly list because they don't want it widely known what they are looking for, what they are doing, or even that they exist sometimes. Or they don't want to weed through all the crap resumes and recruiters are their front line against that. That's not solvable with just a better platform.

And no algorithm, stats, and analysis is going to be a good as a recruiter who works regularly with a firm and knows what they are looking for, what the culture is like, and their internals.

Also recruiters help negotiate salary for you too, and that always helps.

They also take you out to lunch too :)

  Also recruiters help negotiate salary for you too,
  and that always helps.

The recruiter's paid by the employer, and wants to maintain a good relationship with them. Surely their incentive is to place two candidates at $0.9x for a total of $1.8x, rather than placing a single candidate at $1.1x by driving a hard bargain?

I guess I'm confused as to why anyone would expect a better result by having someone else do your negotiation?

Not down here in Australia. They get so much commission their interest is mainly in making a placement and will actively negotiate downwards if they think there is some risk in making the placement at a higher salary.

That's an interesting point but realistically I've never had that happen (that i know of at least). I've a always had them come back with better numbers than the initial offer.

How many jobs have you gotten through these recruiters? How many recruiters do you work with?

Most position i get through recruiters. And i get far more offers dealing with recruiters than not even if i don"t take them.

In NYC i might deal with 3 or 4. A lot o them have the same listings so i will work with the ones i either already have experience with or that seem to understand the biz best.

So maybe i work with one that has great leads with small trading firms, another with better access to large banks, one who is more on the financial technology side, and one who does tech start ups.

I try not to do one offs (deal with a recruiter for a single position) but it happens of course.

There are some places i never would have thought to interview at because of preconceived ideas i had, but I'm glad the recruiter was able to talk me into it (eg, Bloomberg has a top rate technical side handling their trading platform and news distribution - i never would have thought they were so talented).