Dear Developers, a "Free" Headhunter Will Cost You Over $10k
blog.hirelite.com
blog.hirelite.com
No matter which way you shuffle things, as an employer I want to talk to qualified candidates that don't have a heavy fee dragging them down. Either I save money, or I have more flexibility about pay, it's a win for everyone except the head hunter.
Therefore, i always encourage people to network. It could be that you are marginally less attractive than another resumé, but if you don't have a fee, you'll get the interview and that may give you the chance to win the job. In which case, it's worth a lot more than $10K to talk directly to the employer.
But everyone knows that recruiters are going to be aggressive about finding candidates. For whatever social reason, it's perfectly acceptable to hire someone away from another company through a recruiter, but depending on how you do it you can step on toes doing the same thing directly.
FWIW, almost any intermediary or pretext takes you off the hook. Meet someone at a conference? Hire them away. Meet someone at a developer lunch? Hire them away. Meet someone through a blind date service? Hire them away. But cold-calling them... Tacky and taboo.
I'd definitely pay to interview 20 "screened developers"* if they were all in the SF Bay Area already. Much less interested if they could be anywhere.
*What does "screened" really mean? Are you only showing me people that match the skillsets I mentioned?
We've had a lot of interest in remote work. What do you think of that? We're targeting full time jobs, but would be open to getting in to contract gigs (which seem to be mostly remote jobs).
>> What does "screened" really mean? Are you only showing me people that match the skillsets I mentioned?
We screen developers with a brief programming test in the language of their choosing and look over their profile and github account. Currently, we don't offer to match specific skill sets. We look for companies that are comfortable letting developers catch up on whatever their tech stack is.
It seems kind of useless to let me talk to any developer if you're not doing ANY skillset matching. If I'm looking for PHP or JavaScript developers, if someone really only knows C++ or .NET - I'm much less likely to want to talk to them.
If you want to avoid this overhead and the luxury of contracts being offered to you on a regular basis, and you don't have a solid network of peers that can fill you in on opportunities, you'll need to spend quite a bit of time on your own scrounging online ads, or the Careers sections of companies you'd like to work for, or market yourself some other way, all of which require effort.
Now we play the opportunity cost game. Frequent contracts are offered to you making you around $10,000/month by headhunters looking to make a buck off you. Or you can spend a few more months looking by yourself, and save yourself that $1,500 cost per month that you're unemployed, but ultimately taking longer to land a contract. Is every month spent 'looking' and being without a contract worth the $10,000 in lost revenue?
Also, if you're confident about your development skills but not so much about your interviewing skills, having a good headhunter basically doing the initial salespitch for you can be very helpful.
What about, then those companies that want a recruiter to go out and find someone? Hirelite is definitely an interesting approach to the game of finding work, and this post is accurate in some respects of the recruiting model.
It misses though that most companies operate with a lean model, and simply do not have the resources to source, identify, isolate, and shrinkrap a by-line procedural methodology for finding new hires. Enter us recruiters.
For what it's worth, hiring is rare unless you're with a firm that places 500 people or more a month. If you, like me are a solo virtual recruiter, factoring in just operating alone (the costs of subscribing to job boards, paying to post ads), the ends justify the means.
Besides, if the candidate truly is good, they will more than make up for the extra 10k.
Sooner or later a company ready to make an offer runs into a limit as to how much can go on the table. The more in the headhunter's pocket, the less in the candidate's pocket. I am not aware of any company that is able to warp the laws of space, time, and the conservation of cash expenses.
Work out what you're prepared to invest to lease an asset of this magnificent quality. Now: there is an up front fee associated with leasing this asset. Is a fee on the order of 20% of one year's lease really immaterial?
true or false, does the up front fee change what you
I don't see anything wrong with showing some gumption and savvy to approach directly. For one, it shows that they understand how important context is. For another, it shows that they are willing to think outside the box in order to make more money -- which is something I would really want in an employee.
I'm not of the mind that addressing salary/pay first off is a bad thing. The employer already knows that you wouldn't be working for them if not for getting paid. Why should they object to sending their money to their employee rather than a third party recruiter?
[sorry if this double posts, having connectivity issues. but it looks like i'm in the clear]
far be it from me to lecture Americans about their culture, but isn't that the American Way? Or is it really that companies pretend everyone is coming to work for the excitement of doing fun stuff and having vintage pinball machines in the lobby, while the founders of the company get rich?
I'm not singling you out personally, but if anyone ever told me that the money is not supposed to matter, I'd tell them that since it doesn't matter, they can jolly-well give me what I ask.
But trying to ding me for half a recruiter fee? That's just a scummy gimmick. I'd rather you just asked for $10k more in salary because you thought you were worth it.
Suppose a friend said "I'm going to Outback for dinner, want to ride with me." You go with him, order the same stuff, and when you go to split the check he asks you to pay an extra $5 since he drove. You start wondering, did he just invite me to dinner to save $5?
This is kinda like that. You applied to my company, I decided I wanted to hire you, and now you want me to pay you for having applied to my company directly? That's just shady. Do I even trust that you're going to remain with the company for long enough for this to be worth it for me, or do you just go around trying to ding employers for $10k?
Take my word for it as someone who hires people, don't ask for a $10k bonus because you applied through the website. Ask for $10k more salary instead and explain why you're worth it.
Well yes it's a job. Someone will agree to do a task they wouldn't otherwise do in exchange for cash. Withdrawing a job offer because someone tries to negotiate is crazy, negotiating is just part of doing business.
Proactive employees are the kind of people you want to hire, they're the people who are going to push your company forward rather than just doing the work required.
Frankly I think you're crazy if you don't try to negotiate salary when you've been made a job offer, you're in a better negotiating period at that stage than you'll ever be. Often spending half an hour negotiating salary can results in a difference of thousands of dollars.
When you go to buy a car do you pay sticker price or do you negotiate ? - your time is the single most expensive thing you'll ever sell. Don't make the mistake of not negotiating the best price you can for it.
While it's clear many of us disagree with matt, it's a perfectly legitimate opinion, and we shouldn't downvote someone for that.