Comment by shanelja | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shanelja | Hacker News Reader

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I'm 19 and skipped college and university to travel, I freelanced for a couple of years and worked on games and personal hobby projects during this time and currently work at a small web development company.

I only have 6 months of commercial experience but I get approached literally daily by recruitment companies because of a single resume I posted on a website and it is driving me crazy.

They all ring me up and say "Don't trust another company, they will screw you over, trust us instead" and "The job states it wants 5 years of experience, but that doesn't matter, I'll send your resume too."

Honestly, I wouldn't mind as much, but it all feels half assed, they don't want to find me a job, they want to find their company an employee, telephoning me and pretending to give a crap about my life is all well and good, but to be honest, when you go cold for a week after that without a single email it makes the candidate feel worthless.

That and the fact that if a candidate isn't accepted for an interview, the de facto method of rejection is simply not getting back to them unless they contact you.

This space really needs to be disrupted, for the love of a God, why isn't there a humane recruitment company?

I feel you. For sure, most recruiters are basically trying to fill a position - they work for commissions, and the hiring company, not you. Expecting a recruiter who contacted you to represent your interests is like expecting the lawyer for a company suing you to give you legal advice.

I think your expectation is a little off, and you may view it differently if you viewed them as someone you are doing business with, not an advisor. When someone is trying to sell you a car, they will butter you up the same way.

There ARE humane recruiters who can be more representative of your needs, but they don't usually cold call with specific positions in mind. They build a network of good candidates and people who would have good referrals, then reach out to them when they have a position that's a good fit.

Of course, you've proved my point above :) It doesn't take much to get smothered by recruiters.

Frankly I think the original article is linkbait. It presupposes a problem that does not exist.

Ouch, not so much fun. I should have been much more specific that this post was about getting interviews at companies, not getting agencies to put you into their mill. There are some good recruiting agencies, but the problem is there's no way to know which is which unless you've worked with a lot of them and have context. You're right, this would be a good area for disruption (or maybe a good new feature for GlassDoor).

>why isn't there a humane recruitment company

Sounds like you've found the business you need to start!

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