Hacker News Reader

Comment by TamDenholm | Hacker News Reader

Being a contractor in the UK for the last 13 years i quickly learned when i first started that any recruiter that asks for references before they've even sent the CV to the client is a lying cheating scumbag and will get told outright where to go.

All they are doing it looking for leads.

View on HN

Recruiters in the UK are much sleazier than in the US, in my experience.

Indeed. I let the recruiter negotiate salary on my behalf as he guaranteed at least 50k which I considered my minimum to move to London. I went through the interview process because of that.

They didn’t budge from 45. What a waste of my time and theirs.

This goes for Australia, considering most tech recruiters in Australia are from the UK for some reason.

One of the reasons, may be how the work reciprocation laws work with UK & Australia

Really depends on the city and recruiter, I've dealt with 3 great tech recruiters in Aus, 2 of them were Irish.

Pushed their hardest to place me and get the salary range I requested and pdf resume and LinkedIn was fine.

IT recruitment in Australia doesn't require a tertiary education, fluent(ish) English is a must and the job is relatively highly paid if you're good/sociopathic enough.

There are also a lot of vacancies as the working holiday visas rotate the backpackers in and out - hence all the cold-calling, cheeky, chirpy cockneys

And unfortunately they tend to migrate to Australia. I swear half the recruiters in this country are from the UK.

Remember, our country founded as a place for storing bad, bad, Britons. In the long run, it doesn't seem to do much harm.

Oh yes, with a special mention to the UK recruiters working on the German market. Had one trying to convince me for one full hour to accept a salary of 48-50k to relocate to Munich, where rent for me and my family would have been more than half my monthly salary.

I still remember his best two lines: 1. I placed a guy from your country at the same company and he had a salary of 35k and three kids and a dog and he did very well for himself!

2. look, the company is offering fruits every week as a benefit to employees. If you eat fruit, you can save up to 50 EUR per week!

I did end up in the job, after the HR from the company tried a second round of negotiations and were were much more flexible (more salary, bigger relocation bonus). Unfortunately, there were bigger problems there, so I had to quit after about 2 months, which meant, probably, no bonus for them. Also, we would got like 30EUR worth of fruit for 20 people every week

Completely agree. I've contracted in London for 3 years. London recruiters are the sleaziest assholes I’ve ever met, it’s like Wolf of Wallstreet.

The recruiter doesn't even need references. Once you interview in person you should have direct contact with someone at the company you can give references to if need be. The good ones will make the introduction and get out of the way. Yes, I believe there are some good ones (not many).

Same with "what other companies have you been talking to?" while simultaneously asking me to not disclose the role I'm applying for with any other recruiters.

I hate the game-theory information asymmetry bullshiting game that is recruiting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com