10 ms·

Recruiter here, and one who is publicly critical of this kind of behavior in the industry. I write about career topics frequently and try to expose recruiter ba

by fecak 11y ago

Recruiter here, and one who is publicly critical of this kind of behavior in the industry. I write about career topics frequently and try to expose recruiter bad behavior. (1) I completely understand frustration about being contacted for jobs requiring skills that are far out-of-date or that you don't have, the laundry lists of technologies, etc. On behalf of some in my industry, I apologize. Although criticism of recruiters and their approaches are frequent, I don't see nearly as much guidance that might help recruiters in what information to share in an introduction. If you don't want to hear from recruiters at all, mentioning that on a LinkedIn/GitHub profile might prevent some of these unwanted contacts. The signal to noise ratio from recruiters is terrible, and it makes it incredibly difficult for recruiters with a targeted and applicable message to get heard. I enjoyed the days post dot com bust and in the recession when inexperienced or ineffective recruiters had to leave the industry. Instead of parody, I'd like to seem someone write something that they think would be appropriate. What type of approach might get you to reply to a recruiter? What would get your attention? (1) http://jobtipsforgeeks.com http://jobtipsforgeeks.com has multiple pieces exposing recruiting tactics.

sarciszewski 11y ago
Does this help? https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruiter-misery https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruit...
- fecak 11y ago
  Unless I missed something, no. You can't go too far (on HN, Reddit, etc.) without seeing some recruiter shaming and explanations of what not to do, but how often do you see a post that says "I just received the most interesting introduction from a helpful and highly knowledgeable recruiter, and here it is"? What you linked isn't so different from OP's post. We highlight the bad, but have you shown recruiters what they should be doing instead? The only thing I see in your piece that is potentially constructive is "treat me like a human being" with local jobs and applicable technologies. If we're not complaining about relevant tech and geography, it's the list of too many skills (or not enough). Or it's not enough information on the company (OP's link is way more info than most recruiters would give, and the more common complaint is lack of info). So we can agree that location and tech need to be relevant. Does that make for a good intro? "You look like a good fit for $COMPANY, now hiring $LANGUAGE developers for positions in $CITY. Let's discuss." Is that going to catch your eye?
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    Well, strictly personally speaking, I'm more interested in remote opportunities than $CITY. If the communication also indicated whether or not one/more of their clients were interested in remote employees, that would personally have been helpful when I used to use recruiters. (Now I don't any more.)
    - fecak 11y ago
      That filter should make it pretty easy for you to filter out all but the worst offending recruiters. "Seeking only remote opportunities" should scare them away.
      - sarciszewski 11y ago
        No, the absolute best filter is being a convicted federal felon. The few that I've worked with despite this fact have actually been pretty decent.
ljk 11y ago
> Instead of parody, I'd like to seem someone write something that they think would be appropriate. What type of approach might get you to reply to a recruiter? What would get your attention? It's simple really, just put yourself in the recipients' shoes when writing emails, would you respond to the email you're sending them?
- fecak 11y ago
  I agree with the sentiment, but we're also putting a one-size-fits-all approach to that. It's hard to gauge the recipient's shoes. Someone in the comments here suggested they weren't interested in who the investors are or vacation policy. I imagine there are many who would be very interested in that information. I think I do a pretty good job of keeping introductions on point and avoiding some of the less interesting elements of a job, but there's only so much you can say in these intros.
  - ljk 11y ago
    That's true, I've never sent snarky emails to recruiters because I've always tried to give them the benefit of the doubt
ditonal 11y ago
This is like a telemarketer asking what's the best way to sell their life insurance policy when interrupting someone's dinner. The problem is that there is a general lack of empathy in almost all of these 'introductions'. I already know there's a lot of developer jobs out there. So what are you accomplishing by emailing me, other than spamming me that the companies you represent are also hiring? How it is going to help my career to leave my current position and join yours? Are you going to give me new experience in an interesting field? Let me lead a critical project? Pay me more money? Telling me what VCs have invested, how 'fast-paced' the company is, how 'work-hard-play-hard' you are is pretty much irrelevant to me, other than I guess the somewhat desperate sounding angle that your equity will be worth a lot. Usually the reason you can't answer the questions I asked above is because you don't have a good answer to them - you are just trying to spam me by 'selling' a mediocre product with no differentiating advantages. So you're just spamming me, so don't send the email. If you can't answer the question of why it will be great for my career, past OMG WE'RE DEFINITELY THE NEXT FACEBOOK or WE HAVE MICROBREWS AND UNDEFINED VACATION POLICY, then you're just a telemarketer/spammer and there's no sane advice to give you other then don't click send. Keep it on the job board and out of people's inboxes.
- fecak 11y ago
  I appreciate the insight, and I should probably add that I've been recruiting for almost 20 years so my question is more geared towards helping those in the industry improve and not for my personal use. Shaming recruiters is so easy and trite. The telemarketer comparison is interesting, but telemarketers aren't generally offering things that change someone's life. Being "offered" a job is significantly different than being offered pet insurance. It's hard to determine how a job will help your career until we learn more about you. I don't know if it will pay more money until I know what you make. I agree that most people don't want to hear about the nonsense that you've listed. But the things you want to hear about, or at least a couple of the things you listed here ($, leadership, help your career), are almost impossible to determine via a GitHub, LinkedIn, and even a short conversation.
  - thwarted 11y ago
    Being "offered" a job is significantly different than being offered pet insurance. Not in a sellers' market, which tech hiring is right now. The email/messages from recruiters at issue are the ones that are obviously the result of lame mailmerges and/or show a complete lack of time or effort to understand the person being recruited. Additionally, a job offer from someone you know, and who knows you, is much more valuable than a job offer from someone contacting you out of the blue who is working to bring people in. A job offer from some who knows you, is a peer, and who is recruiting for the company they work for is even more valuable (because by working there, they are vouching for the company).
neogodless 11y ago
I reply to recruiter often, though it rarely leads to me being ready to submit an application for a position. However, I'm just really friendly and eager for new opportunities. That being said, as others pointed out, think about what email would actually be refreshing in the inbox of valuable talent. They are humans - ask lots of questions what's important to them. What kind of work do you like to do? What are important elements of company culture to you? What motivates you? What leaves you feeling accomplished? Stop telling me what the company needs and stop guessing what I want and listen for a change.
- fecak 11y ago
  These are questions I always ask in conversation, worded a bit differently, and people are more than happy to answer them. These aren't questions most will respond to in an introductory email though. I'll often include something like "I'd like to learn more about you so I can only share opportunities that I know will interest you based on your background and career objectives", but I think there is so much noise out there that readers just see "recruiter" and delete.
llamataboot 11y ago
My LinkedIn profile says clearly. "Recruiters. Please don't contact me. I love the company I work for and I'm not interested in switching." Still get 10 boilerplate emails per week.
- fecak 11y ago
  If that isn't at the top of your profile, moving it up might help. Recruiters probably make the decision to contact you early on in the profile (if they are even reading it), and might not make it to the bottom where LinkedIn typically keeps the "Advice for Contacting" section.
roflc0ptic 11y ago
I have recently been replying to recruiters because I want information about the market I'm in. Some prescriptive, rather than proscriptive points: 1. respect my time. Three people from TekSystems called me in one day. There was no "Is this a good time to talk? I know I am calling you during business hours and your resume says you're employed", or any explanation about the course of conversation they were trying to have - just a whole lot of questions, which seemed to be scripted. Then one dude told me to go online to take a technical evaluation. "Please do this tonight." How about I have plans tonight, and please fuck off? 2. Respect developers, generally. I have been told repeatedly times "I never would guess you were a technologist" based off of appearance and personal presentation. What exactly do you think of the class of people I belong to? I spent years figuring out how to present as normal, so it's kind of flattering, but not very far down at all I'm a weird dude, and I take the contempt personally. 3. Respect me, personally. The relationship is sour to start with, because I am a resource to be packaged and sold. The trick - and I'm not saying this is easy - is to actually empathize with me. 4. Be concise. This is about respecting my time, but it's also about putting in respectable effort. Tell me in five sentences or less why you think I might want to work at this place. "You're a python developer with experience in GIS. This is a position writing python for GIS systems. It's a quail hunting company and remuneration is in-kind: 6-10 quail per week, depending on experience. Are you looking for work?" If you can't do that, you don't understand what you're trying to sell me, and you are an obstacle to get past rather than a facilitator. 5. Don't try to impress me unless it's with financial remuneration. "We have 20% growth and $50 million in gross income last year!" is worthless to me when asking for $55/hr ends the conversation. I don't care about your income if you're not sharing. 6. If I ask, be up front with me about how much money you stand to make off of me. It's hilarious how uncomfortable recruiters get when I ask what their take is. The only value to hiding it from me is to maintain a power imbalance, and I assume you're negotiating against me rather than for me.
- fecak 11y ago
  1 - You had me at "TekSystems". 2 - I'm guessing you wouldn't just get that from recruiters though, do you? I'd think recruiters aren't any more apt to say something like that than other technologists. That seems like social skills issues, and I don't think recruiters are generally considered poor in that area. 3 - The relationship is often sour on both sides, to some degree, for a variety of reasons. Recruiters would have to be blind not to see the contempt from many technologists. I think part of this is the knowledge that the candidate holds the final say in a transaction that might net the recruiter tens of thousands of dollars. That gives the technologist a feeling of power - "If I turn down this offer, the recruiter 'loses' 25K". Some recruiters make more money than the technologists they represent, which might also cause some issues. 4 - Agreed. Concise makes sense for both sides of the equation. Time is money for recruiters on commission. And if you are a Py dev that knows GIS, we should talk. (sorry, couldn't help myself) 5 - Again, as I've said to others here, we can't even try to read your minds. One candidate doesn't want to hear about benefits, one doesn't want to hear about the office, and you don't want to hear about company growth or stability. The problem here isn't that they are growing, the problem here is that they aren't paying you what you want. They could say whatever they wanted and you probably wouldn't care if they offered you 100/hr. 6 - This is a genuine problem, and I have no problem sharing that with candidates. I actually make a point of sharing it on most occasions, as I want to make sure candidates weigh my advice based on my incentives. If I stand to make 50K off a transaction, you might think I could be less truthful than if I only stood to make 5K. Incentive to lie decreases as the value of your reputation increases. You mention hourly rate, so I assume you've done contract work. One interesting aspect of recruiting is that a recruiter increases his/her personal income when negotiating higher salaries for permanent hire candidates (where FEE = $SALARY x $FEEPERCENTAGE, but in contracting the recruiter maximizes income by negotiating hourly rate down (where the recruiter earns $BILLRATE - $PAYRATE). Thanks for sharing your thoughts, interesting perspective.
bitwize 11y ago
Although criticism of recruiters and their approaches are frequent, I don't see nearly as much guidance that might help recruiters in what information to share in an introduction. From my experience with recruiters, something like 90% of them DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I tried offering them constructive feedback and they acted like it went in one ear and out the other and kept doing the same shit they always did. You know what they say about those who won't listen to reason: the only recourse is mockery. Part of the problem is it takes actual effort to engage with an experienced candidate in a way that will interest them, and recruiters -- almost invariably -- go for breadth not depth. You gotta act like you read their résumé and it didn't just pop up as the top hit in a database search. You gotta look at their relevant experience and guess at their interests or even -- gasp -- ask them! You gotta learn something about the work they've done and help them find work in line with what they'd enjoy or be skilled at -- in a manner that goes beyond mere keyword match. For example, C++ is not a "technology" -- it's a programming language and it's broad enough to encompass many fields. A person who wrote robot control software in C++ for instance is unlikely to want to get a job writing Win32 COM client-server apps for a bank. So DON'T TELL THEM WHAT A "GREAT FIT" THEY'D BE FOR THE BANK APP ROLE JUST BECAUSE IT SAID C++.
- fecak 11y ago
  >From my experience with recruiters, something like 90% of them DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I tried offering them constructive feedback and they acted like it went in one ear and out the other and kept doing the same shit they always did. This isn't exclusive to recruiters, but I get it. I sometimes get the same resume without context applying for every job I have listed. I'll suggest they might want to mix up their job search tactics, and then the same resume hits my inbox 10x a month later. Happens more frequently than you'd expect. >You gotta look at their relevant experience and guess at their interests or even -- gasp -- ask them! I don't find the candidates answer questions like this in an intro. Responses to "I'd like to get to know you so I can share relevant jobs" aren't as likely as one might hope. I understand the complaints. I obviously don't get emails from recruiters, so my insight is largely based on the mockery that we all see everywhere.
ufmace 11y ago
> If you don't want to hear from recruiters at all, mentioning that on a LinkedIn/GitHub profile might prevent some of these unwanted contacts. Seems like the worst of both worlds - the recruiters who actually read your profile and have something of value to offer will pay attention and not contact you. The annoying ones who spam everything won't pay any more attention to that than they did to the rest of the profile.

by fecak 11y ago

sarciszewski 11y ago

Does this help? https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruiter-misery https://scott.arciszewski.me/blog/2014/08/technology-recruit...

fecak 11y ago
Unless I missed something, no. You can't go too far (on HN, Reddit, etc.) without seeing some recruiter shaming and explanations of what not to do, but how often do you see a post that says "I just received the most interesting introduction from a helpful and highly knowledgeable recruiter, and here it is"? What you linked isn't so different from OP's post. We highlight the bad, but have you shown recruiters what they should be doing instead? The only thing I see in your piece that is potentially constructive is "treat me like a human being" with local jobs and applicable technologies. If we're not complaining about relevant tech and geography, it's the list of too many skills (or not enough). Or it's not enough information on the company (OP's link is way more info than most recruiters would give, and the more common complaint is lack of info). So we can agree that location and tech need to be relevant. Does that make for a good intro? "You look like a good fit for $COMPANY, now hiring $LANGUAGE developers for positions in $CITY. Let's discuss." Is that going to catch your eye?
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Well, strictly personally speaking, I'm more interested in remote opportunities than $CITY. If the communication also indicated whether or not one/more of their clients were interested in remote employees, that would personally have been helpful when I used to use recruiters. (Now I don't any more.)
  - fecak 11y ago
    That filter should make it pretty easy for you to filter out all but the worst offending recruiters. "Seeking only remote opportunities" should scare them away.
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      No, the absolute best filter is being a convicted federal felon. The few that I've worked with despite this fact have actually been pretty decent.

ljk 11y ago

> Instead of parody, I'd like to seem someone write something that they think would be appropriate. What type of approach might get you to reply to a recruiter? What would get your attention? It's simple really, just put yourself in the recipients' shoes when writing emails, would you respond to the email you're sending them?

fecak 11y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but we're also putting a one-size-fits-all approach to that. It's hard to gauge the recipient's shoes. Someone in the comments here suggested they weren't interested in who the investors are or vacation policy. I imagine there are many who would be very interested in that information. I think I do a pretty good job of keeping introductions on point and avoiding some of the less interesting elements of a job, but there's only so much you can say in these intros.
- ljk 11y ago
  That's true, I've never sent snarky emails to recruiters because I've always tried to give them the benefit of the doubt

ditonal 11y ago

This is like a telemarketer asking what's the best way to sell their life insurance policy when interrupting someone's dinner. The problem is that there is a general lack of empathy in almost all of these 'introductions'. I already know there's a lot of developer jobs out there. So what are you accomplishing by emailing me, other than spamming me that the companies you represent are also hiring? How it is going to help my career to leave my current position and join yours? Are you going to give me new experience in an interesting field? Let me lead a critical project? Pay me more money? Telling me what VCs have invested, how 'fast-paced' the company is, how 'work-hard-play-hard' you are is pretty much irrelevant to me, other than I guess the somewhat desperate sounding angle that your equity will be worth a lot. Usually the reason you can't answer the questions I asked above is because you don't have a good answer to them - you are just trying to spam me by 'selling' a mediocre product with no differentiating advantages. So you're just spamming me, so don't send the email. If you can't answer the question of why it will be great for my career, past OMG WE'RE DEFINITELY THE NEXT FACEBOOK or WE HAVE MICROBREWS AND UNDEFINED VACATION POLICY, then you're just a telemarketer/spammer and there's no sane advice to give you other then don't click send. Keep it on the job board and out of people's inboxes.

fecak 11y ago
I appreciate the insight, and I should probably add that I've been recruiting for almost 20 years so my question is more geared towards helping those in the industry improve and not for my personal use. Shaming recruiters is so easy and trite. The telemarketer comparison is interesting, but telemarketers aren't generally offering things that change someone's life. Being "offered" a job is significantly different than being offered pet insurance. It's hard to determine how a job will help your career until we learn more about you. I don't know if it will pay more money until I know what you make. I agree that most people don't want to hear about the nonsense that you've listed. But the things you want to hear about, or at least a couple of the things you listed here ($, leadership, help your career), are almost impossible to determine via a GitHub, LinkedIn, and even a short conversation.
- thwarted 11y ago
  Being "offered" a job is significantly different than being offered pet insurance. Not in a sellers' market, which tech hiring is right now. The email/messages from recruiters at issue are the ones that are obviously the result of lame mailmerges and/or show a complete lack of time or effort to understand the person being recruited. Additionally, a job offer from someone you know, and who knows you, is much more valuable than a job offer from someone contacting you out of the blue who is working to bring people in. A job offer from some who knows you, is a peer, and who is recruiting for the company they work for is even more valuable (because by working there, they are vouching for the company).

neogodless 11y ago

I reply to recruiter often, though it rarely leads to me being ready to submit an application for a position. However, I'm just really friendly and eager for new opportunities. That being said, as others pointed out, think about what email would actually be refreshing in the inbox of valuable talent. They are humans - ask lots of questions what's important to them. What kind of work do you like to do? What are important elements of company culture to you? What motivates you? What leaves you feeling accomplished? Stop telling me what the company needs and stop guessing what I want and listen for a change.

fecak 11y ago
These are questions I always ask in conversation, worded a bit differently, and people are more than happy to answer them. These aren't questions most will respond to in an introductory email though. I'll often include something like "I'd like to learn more about you so I can only share opportunities that I know will interest you based on your background and career objectives", but I think there is so much noise out there that readers just see "recruiter" and delete.

llamataboot 11y ago

My LinkedIn profile says clearly. "Recruiters. Please don't contact me. I love the company I work for and I'm not interested in switching." Still get 10 boilerplate emails per week.

fecak 11y ago
If that isn't at the top of your profile, moving it up might help. Recruiters probably make the decision to contact you early on in the profile (if they are even reading it), and might not make it to the bottom where LinkedIn typically keeps the "Advice for Contacting" section.

roflc0ptic 11y ago

I have recently been replying to recruiters because I want information about the market I'm in. Some prescriptive, rather than proscriptive points: 1. respect my time. Three people from TekSystems called me in one day. There was no "Is this a good time to talk? I know I am calling you during business hours and your resume says you're employed", or any explanation about the course of conversation they were trying to have - just a whole lot of questions, which seemed to be scripted. Then one dude told me to go online to take a technical evaluation. "Please do this tonight." How about I have plans tonight, and please fuck off? 2. Respect developers, generally. I have been told repeatedly times "I never would guess you were a technologist" based off of appearance and personal presentation. What exactly do you think of the class of people I belong to? I spent years figuring out how to present as normal, so it's kind of flattering, but not very far down at all I'm a weird dude, and I take the contempt personally. 3. Respect me, personally. The relationship is sour to start with, because I am a resource to be packaged and sold. The trick - and I'm not saying this is easy - is to actually empathize with me. 4. Be concise. This is about respecting my time, but it's also about putting in respectable effort. Tell me in five sentences or less why you think I might want to work at this place. "You're a python developer with experience in GIS. This is a position writing python for GIS systems. It's a quail hunting company and remuneration is in-kind: 6-10 quail per week, depending on experience. Are you looking for work?" If you can't do that, you don't understand what you're trying to sell me, and you are an obstacle to get past rather than a facilitator. 5. Don't try to impress me unless it's with financial remuneration. "We have 20% growth and $50 million in gross income last year!" is worthless to me when asking for $55/hr ends the conversation. I don't care about your income if you're not sharing. 6. If I ask, be up front with me about how much money you stand to make off of me. It's hilarious how uncomfortable recruiters get when I ask what their take is. The only value to hiding it from me is to maintain a power imbalance, and I assume you're negotiating against me rather than for me.

fecak 11y ago
1 - You had me at "TekSystems". 2 - I'm guessing you wouldn't just get that from recruiters though, do you? I'd think recruiters aren't any more apt to say something like that than other technologists. That seems like social skills issues, and I don't think recruiters are generally considered poor in that area. 3 - The relationship is often sour on both sides, to some degree, for a variety of reasons. Recruiters would have to be blind not to see the contempt from many technologists. I think part of this is the knowledge that the candidate holds the final say in a transaction that might net the recruiter tens of thousands of dollars. That gives the technologist a feeling of power - "If I turn down this offer, the recruiter 'loses' 25K". Some recruiters make more money than the technologists they represent, which might also cause some issues. 4 - Agreed. Concise makes sense for both sides of the equation. Time is money for recruiters on commission. And if you are a Py dev that knows GIS, we should talk. (sorry, couldn't help myself) 5 - Again, as I've said to others here, we can't even try to read your minds. One candidate doesn't want to hear about benefits, one doesn't want to hear about the office, and you don't want to hear about company growth or stability. The problem here isn't that they are growing, the problem here is that they aren't paying you what you want. They could say whatever they wanted and you probably wouldn't care if they offered you 100/hr. 6 - This is a genuine problem, and I have no problem sharing that with candidates. I actually make a point of sharing it on most occasions, as I want to make sure candidates weigh my advice based on my incentives. If I stand to make 50K off a transaction, you might think I could be less truthful than if I only stood to make 5K. Incentive to lie decreases as the value of your reputation increases. You mention hourly rate, so I assume you've done contract work. One interesting aspect of recruiting is that a recruiter increases his/her personal income when negotiating higher salaries for permanent hire candidates (where FEE = $SALARY x $FEEPERCENTAGE, but in contracting the recruiter maximizes income by negotiating hourly rate down (where the recruiter earns $BILLRATE - $PAYRATE). Thanks for sharing your thoughts, interesting perspective.

bitwize 11y ago

Although criticism of recruiters and their approaches are frequent, I don't see nearly as much guidance that might help recruiters in what information to share in an introduction. From my experience with recruiters, something like 90% of them DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I tried offering them constructive feedback and they acted like it went in one ear and out the other and kept doing the same shit they always did. You know what they say about those who won't listen to reason: the only recourse is mockery. Part of the problem is it takes actual effort to engage with an experienced candidate in a way that will interest them, and recruiters -- almost invariably -- go for breadth not depth. You gotta act like you read their résumé and it didn't just pop up as the top hit in a database search. You gotta look at their relevant experience and guess at their interests or even -- gasp -- ask them! You gotta learn something about the work they've done and help them find work in line with what they'd enjoy or be skilled at -- in a manner that goes beyond mere keyword match. For example, C++ is not a "technology" -- it's a programming language and it's broad enough to encompass many fields. A person who wrote robot control software in C++ for instance is unlikely to want to get a job writing Win32 COM client-server apps for a bank. So DON'T TELL THEM WHAT A "GREAT FIT" THEY'D BE FOR THE BANK APP ROLE JUST BECAUSE IT SAID C++.

fecak 11y ago
>From my experience with recruiters, something like 90% of them DON'T GIVE A SHIT. I tried offering them constructive feedback and they acted like it went in one ear and out the other and kept doing the same shit they always did. This isn't exclusive to recruiters, but I get it. I sometimes get the same resume without context applying for every job I have listed. I'll suggest they might want to mix up their job search tactics, and then the same resume hits my inbox 10x a month later. Happens more frequently than you'd expect. >You gotta look at their relevant experience and guess at their interests or even -- gasp -- ask them! I don't find the candidates answer questions like this in an intro. Responses to "I'd like to get to know you so I can share relevant jobs" aren't as likely as one might hope. I understand the complaints. I obviously don't get emails from recruiters, so my insight is largely based on the mockery that we all see everywhere.

ufmace 11y ago

> If you don't want to hear from recruiters at all, mentioning that on a LinkedIn/GitHub profile might prevent some of these unwanted contacts. Seems like the worst of both worlds - the recruiters who actually read your profile and have something of value to offer will pay attention and not contact you. The annoying ones who spam everything won't pay any more attention to that than they did to the rest of the profile.