I’ve Worked with Hundreds of Recruiters – Here's What I Learned
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1. Programmers don't like recruiters and would prefer not to have to work with them.
2. Companies think recruiting firms are experts and are adept at finding qualified candidates, which is false.
3. There are good companies that need good employees and good employees who want to work at good companies. Currently the 'solution' is to use the same corporate middle men who shuffle bad employees to bad companies and mediocre employees to mediocre companies.
The recruiting system we have is very well entrenched.
I note that when we go through this process as passive participants we further entrench the established norm.
Contingency recruiting is the overall source of the problem. Someone could make a few lucky hits a year and make good enough money to stay in business. If fees were say half of what they are now, that would put many out of business, and I'd assume those would the recruiters that everyone complains about.
The size of fees also leads to the ethics problems. You may or may not lie for $5, but what kind of lies might you tell for say $30,000? The large numbers and competitive nature make it a high-reward game that gives incentive to cheat and lie when necessary.
Smaller fees. I use small flat fees with a portion paid up front. The fees are small enough that I have little incentive to lie, and the up front portion is small enough that I'm going to hustle to get the second payment.
Contingency recruiters absorb 100% of the risk, meaning they can work hundreds of hours on a search but if the recruiter down the street fills it they get nothing. This is the reason fees are high - the risk factor. If you remove that risk to some degree (or share the risk) by paying some money up front, recruiters should agree to lower fees and companies should like the results.
As a recruiter, would I rather compete against 20 bigger firms for a 30K fee or would I rather be practically guaranteed a 15K fee? The answer for me is the latter, but may differ for others.
I care a lot about recruiters utterly wasting my time with garbage resumes, even when I've told them what I wanted.
I would prefer to see two or three resumes a month of people I want to talk to than two or three resumes a day of people that don't meet the bar.
Most of the good hires come from referrals anyway. Very, very few recruiter-fed folks have passed interviews and worked out, at any company I've worked at.
Take away the recruiters incentive to send everybody they see, and you'll see quality go up.
Sounds easier than it is, but it starts with lower fees in my mind.
Business starts picking up, all employees are working at capacity, and suddenly the pipeline dries up. This is when founders (and engineering leaders) start hitting up recruiters from their past. It's also the point where the company might be on the radar of recruiters, so engineering leaders are also getting incoming calls soliciting their business.