Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

So, she's an agent! She should get 15%, the standard agent rate. What's 15% of a marriage? With a dozen clients at ~500/mo, she's not making enough to live in Manhattan right now.

This is terrible, but I read this and my mind switches back to nerd stuff: how great would it be if software developers could hire someone like this but to handle job outreach and negotiation? You: kick back, solve programming puzzles, go to the occasional tech-out interview. They: reach out to prospects, arrange your interviews, and do the salary negotiation.

They're really different skills, programming and job negotiation. They're not even correlated! I know so many excellent negotiators with excellent jobs who aren't even in the top 50% of programmers I've worked with, and vice versa.

I suppose it's probably similar with dating; being a good partner probably has little to do with being good at arranging dates.

Later

Heading off a bunch of replies right here:

Recruiters work for hiring firms. How you know this is, developers don't generally pay recruiters. The essence of an agent/principal relationship is that the agent works for, and is compensated by, the principal. Recruiters aren't talent agents for developers.

I'm an ex-PM that works as a talent agent (100% comped by candidate, no formal relationship with companies) for tech jobs, mainly PMs but some devs. It's a side business I'm trying to grow into full-time work. I take up to 4 clients at once since it's a lot of work per person and I don't have a lot of automation in place yet.

I'm amazed that professional help isn't standard, since your job determines so much of your happiness and future path, but most people rely on skills they dust off every few years to get one.

Much like the article's dating example, it's not clear to the employer that I as an agent exist, because employers often categorically don't want to hear from third parties early in the game. So in practice this involves a lot of ghostwriting on a new, shared email account, which the candidate reviews and submits. Interview coaching is also a big part of it.

Also, from a pure negotiation perspective, Josh Doody at FearlessSalaryNegotiation.com (I'm not affiliated) is very good and specializes in developers.

  I'm amazed that professional help isn't standard

There's already a layer of "professional" "help" in the form of recruiters.

They've got a terrible reputation, because their incentives are all messed up.

Their incentives aren't messed up at all. They just don't do what you think they do. Recruiters work for firms. They're not a layer of professional help for candidates.

Employers somewhat dislike recruiters because recruiters are incentivised to (a) Tip employees off about the questions and answers to the company's tests, (b) solicit the employee to leave as soon as the recruiter gets paid for placing them, and (c) shop employees around between employers in profit order, so employers that try to reduce fees only get candidates other companies have passed on.

Candidates somewhat dislike recruiters because they're incentivised to (a) post false adverts to gather CVs, (b) cold call aggressively, (c) be careless with candidates' personal details, (d) misrepresent their willingness to negotiate well on the employees' behalf and their knowledge of pay ranges, (e) misrepresent candidates to employers, and (f) apply aggressive hard-sell tactics.

For both employers and candidates to dislike the results of recruiters' incentives is what I mean when I say the incentives are messed up. Firms may pay them, but it's not true to say firms are 100% happy with the deal they get.

share email please, i have a question

coaching at unusuallydifficult dot com

In consulting this is quite common. Sales people have a pool of consultants they reach out to whenever an assignment pops up. You just jump on the ones you want for the pay you want. Standard cut is 10%

"... could hire someone like this but to handle job outreach and negotiation ..."

They're called recruiters.

Not really! There have been a couple recruiting plays in the past couple years that have tried to do "talent agent" positioning, but I think they're all just recruiters, not agents.

A talent agent is someone you, the developer, have a relationship with. They go out and apply to everything you're interested in for you. They're not working from a book of qualified openings trying to match developers to them. They'll do the negotiating lifting even at firms that won't pay their placement rate --- because you, the developer, are the one who pays them, not the company.

"... could hire someone like this but to handle job outreach and negotiation ..."

There are lawyers you can hire to do this sort of negotiation for you. A relative of mine is one such, and did a job offer negotiation for me.

Thing is, they usually work on very large deals. Their expense is enormous, so it’s not the sort of thing they usually hire out for.

Well recruiters are not expensive in the grand scheme of things. If your problem solving skills are so good that someone is willing to pay you enought you can tottaly afford an assistant or an agent.

>how great would it be if software developers could hire someone like this but to handle job outreach and negotiation?

How have you not heard of recruiters? I get spammed by them almost every day.

Everyone's heard of recruiters, but most recruiters just don't do most of the above.

Recruiters are often essentially human banner ads for job postings, and generally don't do most of the above. (Particularly since recruiters work for the company, not the applicant)

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