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Comment by hawk_ | Hacker News Reader

they may not understand the buzzwords but do they generate matches that wouldn't have happened otherwise? i don't have an opinion either way but understanding the meaning of the terms seems to be irrelevant to what they do.

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Normally I would agree - a good salesperson may not need to know the application they are pitching - but the recruiting industry's unapologetic ignorance definitely causes damage to potential employees (especially more vulnerable candidates) and hurts the industry as a whole.

It is an (unfortunately) essential part of the tech industry that amplifies common misconceptions like Java == Javascript and exacerbates problems like the joke about "minimum years of experience".

I recently had two weird experiences: One asking about my Elm experience, but what he said made no sense. Realized after a while he thought it was the same as HELM. Second one: Asked me to tell about what I do in frontend. I explained about how I've used Elm and React professionally for years. I later had to explain that entailed being proficient in JS, as I apparently hadn't ticked all the boxes they were after..

A random number generator also generates matches that would not have happened otherwise.

I think it is odd, in Hacker News, to see the opinion that semantics don't really matter.

Java vs JavaScript.

Linux vs Linux Kernel.

FPGA vs LPGA vs RPG vs RPG vs RPG-III. Those are all basically the same, right?

(Field programmable, ladies' professional rocket-propelled golf role-playing report generation language: there's probably three jobs at game studios that could use all that, actually.)

perhaps I didn't fully explain that. my point was that the most direct criteria for a recruiter's performance would be how many matches they made compared to a primitive automaton. whether that requires understanding buzzwords may be true but isn't self evident. it's a bit like SV's obsession with whiteboarding. too many people in SV conflate good performance at whiteboarding with good performance at work. the true measure still is good performance at work though.

If they don't understand the meaning of terms in a resume and how that may or may not align with the requirements of the job, then what value do recruiters bring?

If they're merely there to "match" on buzzwords and technical jargon- then that could easily be done by software. What else do tech recruiters bring to the table?

Kind of like when two realtors pretend they're adding $100K of value to a transaction...

The difference is the realtors want you to pay them money for their services. The recruiters want to pay you money for your services.

Sort of. They sell your services to a company and make money on the sale. Even recruiters that technically work in-house for a company are usually on contract and won't be there long, I really doubt they are thinking about their job as paying you for something they want.

I meant from the perspective of the user/consumer/customer.

One says "I am very useful, please pay me $100k!"

The other says "I think you are very useful, please consider this $100k signing bonus!"

Yes, they're both trying to sell you something. But it's very different when someone is trying to take your money and someone is trying to offer you money.

But it's not their bonus to give. The recruiters' incentives are structured the same way as the realtors: they're facilitating a transaction while taking a commission. Sell-side realtor:employer-side recruiter::buy-side realtor:employee-side recruiter. The main difference is that you're not legally obligated to go through a recruiter to get a job, so recruiters have to work a bit harder to justify their value.

Okay, I am obviously failing to communicate my point.

I don't care whether or not recruiters literally have money to pay you. The point is, recruiters are in a position of trying to offer you money in exchange for services. Realtors are in the position of trying to offer you services in exchange for money. That was the juxtaposition I was pointing out.

I agree, it does look nicer from the recruit's side :)

No the recruiter wants to get paid by their employer. As long as the checks keep coming in they're just going to keep doing whatever it is they're doing.

They call you and sell you. Once your sold now you go into a bundle who the employer gets to pick from.

The selling you part.. and possible hyping you up.

If you just put up a job listing on Craigslist or some zero filter site, you get a lot of applications that are just unusable, from the absurd like “I have built a calculator app in JavaScript so I can design FPGAs” to the really sad like “I’ve just gotten out of prison after 20 years on a drug charge and I don’t know how to use a computer but maybe I can learn.” The recruiters job is to filter out bad applicants and the reason you need a human is that the applicants are actively trying to defeat the filter.

It is a vicious cycle. Clueless companies use clueless recruiters.

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