6 ms·

I despise recruiters with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. That leaves me (and you) with a few viable options:

I despise recruiters with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. That leaves me (and you) with a few viable options: 1) Use a matching service like interviewing.io or TripleByte to get connected directly with companies. (Effectiveness: Questionable but promising) 2) Use a job listing site like Indeed.com to find positions that you're interested in applying to. (Effectiveness: It works, but is like throwing mud on a wall to see what sticks -- hard and not very lucrative.) 3) Use Indeed / AngelList / whatever to find companies that are hiring, then use LinkedIn or some other method to find the hiring manager directly. Email them directly with your resume and cover letter (since it's effectively a cold-call, make that cover letter damned impressive). (Effectiveness: works great, in my experience) 4) Use your network. Email old bosses and coworkers and let them know you're on the market. If you've left a good impression, they'll usually be more than happy to do whatever they can to get you into good companies. (Effectiveness: fantastic, assuming you have a network in the first place.) There are tons of other ways, but those are the strategies I've used. In the mean time, study up for your technical interviews. Good luck!

torhorway 10y ago
hired.com worked pretty well for me too
progressive_dad 10y ago
#3 is how I've gotten every job I've ever held, except 1 where I signed up for the mailing list of the company in question and the signup process had an "Occupation" box. I filled in my current job title and two days later THEY called ME and asked if I'd be willing to interview.
laxatives 10y ago
The entire recruiter economy is an enormous conflict of interest. They are like realtors. They are paid by commission and make significantly more money based on quantity of hires, rather than quality. So they have no real incentive to fight for you or help with your negotiations and a strong incentive to be mildly dishonest or exaggerate without burning bridges. This is terrible for both you and your employer (but most importantly you). They just want to fill as many positions as quickly as possible. There's possibly even a incentive to hiring folks that quit/leave in a short period of time to increase the number of opportunities that need to be filled and people that want to be placed.
- doeshelooklikea 10y ago
  I have to disagree with you a bit on this one. Don't get me wrong, most recruiters are worthless and add little to no value. Recruiting firms have guarantee clauses in their client agreements - meaning if a placed candidate ceases to be employed (referred to as a 'fall off' in the industry) for any reasons in a specific time period (typically 3 months) the recruiter must conduct the search again at no additional cost to the client. Moreover, if a recruiter has more than a few candidates fall off, most clients will take their business elsewhere.
  - lj3 10y ago
    It's a distinction without a difference. The likelihood of a candidate "fall off" is low because companies tend to be extra aggressive in vetting candidates that apply through recruiting agencies. My personal experience with applying through recruiters is it puts you at a disadvantage right from the get go. Most hiring managers believe applicants that come through recruiters are more likely than not to be of low quality, so right off the bat their first impression is suspicion and skepticism. On top of that, if they hire the candidate they have to pay the recruiter a percentage on top of what they pay the new hire. If you're not exceptional in every way they could possibly imagine, you're not getting the job. Of course, there are exceptions. If a company has worked with an exceptional recruiter in the past and trusts him or her, then things are different. I have yet to meet even one recruiter that fits that description, though.
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  I also feel that the recruiting industry leeches off of developers -- if companies are paying recruiting firms $30k per developer (with some companies I've seen having about a 1year turnover rate), then that's 30k that is essentially coming out of my salary.
  - laxatives 10y ago
    Agreed. I'd happily take 20k of that and do the negotiation myself. Win-win, right?
  - 10y ago
TrevorJ 10y ago
Depending on the market, recruiters can at least be a useful signal for directing your search for companies that are hiring. Not in silicon valley, but I like to do my research and on at lest one occasion the obfuscated description about an opening was enough for me to find the company directly after about 10 seconds of Googling.
encoderer 10y ago
I never read the cover letters, nor the "objective" on a resume. I do invest a lot of time finding the right people to join our team, but in a resume, my choice to move you to a phone screen will never hinge on those details, and nothing in your resume matters much once we start actually talking. I don't mean to detract from your overall assessment -- i think you've made good points. Edit: My resume advice? Give me your work history with a few sentences for each one, and if you have a "skills summary" section, list only the skills that you've fully mastered. Include only the relevant jobs. This is a resume, not a CV, and it's only goal is to get you to the hiring manager who can make a decision to give you a phone screen.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I could not disagree more about listing only skills you've mastered. As long as you're honest about your proficiency, you should absolutely list skills apart from just what you've mastered. In every job I've ever had, skills that fell way outside the core areas that I have mastered have been critical for success, and skills that were huge parts of the job description, hazing interviews, and smack in the middle of my core areas ended up literally never being used and having no impact on the work whatsoever. This has even occurred in jobs with highly specific needs. I got grilled on GPU programming, then never wrote or read a single line of GPU code. I got grilled on how the Buffer Protocol works in Python, then never implemented an extension class making use of it and never touched anyone else's class that did either -- even though it was "critical" for someone to have "significant experience" in these technologies when I was interviewed. As it turned out, my limited exposure to Python's setuptools and distribution/package management, and my (very limited) experience with an open-source optimization library called CVXOPT ended up dwarfing the usefulness of GPU or Buffer Protocol experience, and neither package management nor quadratic programming were even mentioned anywhere in either of those job listings, nor spoken about at all during interviews. Employers, generally, are utterly terrible at communication or understanding what they need in their next hire, and they revert to simple heuristics, like algorithm or programming language trivia, just to avoid that hard work. There has always seemed to be this silly and inexplicable emphasis in hiring on acting like candidates need to be perfect. They can't say they have a skill unless they are the world fucking grandmaster of that skill. Any honest admission of weakness means you're garbage, instant rejection. It's the same with performance during an interview. Someone clearly articulated an O(N^2) solution under time pressure? Firing squad. If they can't rattle off the optimal solution without hints then omg how did they ever get a college degree? It's just nuts. People don't seem to think much at all about the person's aggregated productivity over time, what they can learn on the job, how their performance in a real-life, low-pressure situation will be different than a gimmicky interview. It's just all of this "we only hire the best" nonsense that leads to an arms race for candidates to overfit to interview processes and creates a whole generation of vapid engineers with no substance beyond looking pretty on paper.
deal1990 10y ago
Interviewing.io is a phenomenal platform, for whose effectiveness I can personally attest. While cold emailing and general networking have their merits, interviewing.io was a very nice surprise in the sheer number of technical screens/onsites I was able to attain within a few weeks on the platform. The main draw, in my opinion, is that they routinely host interviewers from top-tier companies to perform anonymous technical screens. After which, if you perform well, can expedite you to late-stage interviewing with those same companies. For those with non-traditional backgrounds like myself, interviewing.io gives you a helping hand in bypassing unwarranted resume and recruiter bias. This is especially true if you're competent, as interviewing.io will help shine light on your abilities. The platform also has routine practice sessions each week to expose you to real interviewers and sharpen your interviewing wits. I realize I may very well sound like a zealot, but interviewing.io is a must-have in your interviewing arsenal. I understand it is relatively new to the scene, but it's free and at the very least gives you the ability to practice interviewing. For the company rounds, you will definitely be able to start dialogues with some pretty interesting/reputable companies that would have otherwise rejected your application in the ever-present fear of false-positives. Hope this helps.
risforrob 10y ago
I went through this same experience over the past year and a half. At some point I intend to write a more detailed blog post about my process, but the short version is that I did a boatload of research ahead of time, and leveraged the heck out of my network. In places where I found my network to be lacking, I invested additional time/effort to build connections. I had more success through networking and personal connections than I ever did via resumes or direct submissions. I didn't work with any recruiters, so I don't feel qualified to speak to their effectiveness. I actually have some experience interviewing.io. I initially starting using it as a way brush up on my technical interviewing skills (it had been years since I was last an interviewee vs. interviewer) and it ended up being through interviewing.io that I was introduced to Mattermark where I was eventually hired. It was a great tool to have in my job-hunting tool belt as I was able to 1) brush up on my tech interviewing 2) meet/network with interviewers (when an interview went well) and 3) do a few 1st round interviews with a couple of prospective companies. I wouldn't use interviewing.io as my only means to land an interview with a company. Especially since everything is anonymous, and thus only in specific circumstances do you know the company that your interviewer is associated with. But it was a great way to do low/no risk interviews that at least had the potential to count as a first round interview.
- agrenader 10y ago
  "only in specific circumstances do you know the company that your interviewer is associated with" Currently interviewing.io is setting up and testing system, where engineers who did well at the practice interviews can choose companies to have anonymous interview with.

torhorway 10y ago

hired.com worked pretty well for me too

progressive_dad 10y ago

#3 is how I've gotten every job I've ever held, except 1 where I signed up for the mailing list of the company in question and the signup process had an "Occupation" box. I filled in my current job title and two days later THEY called ME and asked if I'd be willing to interview.

laxatives 10y ago

The entire recruiter economy is an enormous conflict of interest. They are like realtors. They are paid by commission and make significantly more money based on quantity of hires, rather than quality. So they have no real incentive to fight for you or help with your negotiations and a strong incentive to be mildly dishonest or exaggerate without burning bridges. This is terrible for both you and your employer (but most importantly you). They just want to fill as many positions as quickly as possible. There's possibly even a incentive to hiring folks that quit/leave in a short period of time to increase the number of opportunities that need to be filled and people that want to be placed.

doeshelooklikea 10y ago
I have to disagree with you a bit on this one. Don't get me wrong, most recruiters are worthless and add little to no value. Recruiting firms have guarantee clauses in their client agreements - meaning if a placed candidate ceases to be employed (referred to as a 'fall off' in the industry) for any reasons in a specific time period (typically 3 months) the recruiter must conduct the search again at no additional cost to the client. Moreover, if a recruiter has more than a few candidates fall off, most clients will take their business elsewhere.
- lj3 10y ago
  It's a distinction without a difference. The likelihood of a candidate "fall off" is low because companies tend to be extra aggressive in vetting candidates that apply through recruiting agencies. My personal experience with applying through recruiters is it puts you at a disadvantage right from the get go. Most hiring managers believe applicants that come through recruiters are more likely than not to be of low quality, so right off the bat their first impression is suspicion and skepticism. On top of that, if they hire the candidate they have to pay the recruiter a percentage on top of what they pay the new hire. If you're not exceptional in every way they could possibly imagine, you're not getting the job. Of course, there are exceptions. If a company has worked with an exceptional recruiter in the past and trusts him or her, then things are different. I have yet to meet even one recruiter that fits that description, though.
mmanfrin 10y ago
I also feel that the recruiting industry leeches off of developers -- if companies are paying recruiting firms $30k per developer (with some companies I've seen having about a 1year turnover rate), then that's 30k that is essentially coming out of my salary.
- laxatives 10y ago
  Agreed. I'd happily take 20k of that and do the negotiation myself. Win-win, right?
- 10y ago

TrevorJ 10y ago

Depending on the market, recruiters can at least be a useful signal for directing your search for companies that are hiring. Not in silicon valley, but I like to do my research and on at lest one occasion the obfuscated description about an opening was enough for me to find the company directly after about 10 seconds of Googling.

encoderer 10y ago

I never read the cover letters, nor the "objective" on a resume. I do invest a lot of time finding the right people to join our team, but in a resume, my choice to move you to a phone screen will never hinge on those details, and nothing in your resume matters much once we start actually talking. I don't mean to detract from your overall assessment -- i think you've made good points. Edit: My resume advice? Give me your work history with a few sentences for each one, and if you have a "skills summary" section, list only the skills that you've fully mastered. Include only the relevant jobs. This is a resume, not a CV, and it's only goal is to get you to the hiring manager who can make a decision to give you a phone screen.

p4wnc6 10y ago
I could not disagree more about listing only skills you've mastered. As long as you're honest about your proficiency, you should absolutely list skills apart from just what you've mastered. In every job I've ever had, skills that fell way outside the core areas that I have mastered have been critical for success, and skills that were huge parts of the job description, hazing interviews, and smack in the middle of my core areas ended up literally never being used and having no impact on the work whatsoever. This has even occurred in jobs with highly specific needs. I got grilled on GPU programming, then never wrote or read a single line of GPU code. I got grilled on how the Buffer Protocol works in Python, then never implemented an extension class making use of it and never touched anyone else's class that did either -- even though it was "critical" for someone to have "significant experience" in these technologies when I was interviewed. As it turned out, my limited exposure to Python's setuptools and distribution/package management, and my (very limited) experience with an open-source optimization library called CVXOPT ended up dwarfing the usefulness of GPU or Buffer Protocol experience, and neither package management nor quadratic programming were even mentioned anywhere in either of those job listings, nor spoken about at all during interviews. Employers, generally, are utterly terrible at communication or understanding what they need in their next hire, and they revert to simple heuristics, like algorithm or programming language trivia, just to avoid that hard work. There has always seemed to be this silly and inexplicable emphasis in hiring on acting like candidates need to be perfect. They can't say they have a skill unless they are the world fucking grandmaster of that skill. Any honest admission of weakness means you're garbage, instant rejection. It's the same with performance during an interview. Someone clearly articulated an O(N^2) solution under time pressure? Firing squad. If they can't rattle off the optimal solution without hints then omg how did they ever get a college degree? It's just nuts. People don't seem to think much at all about the person's aggregated productivity over time, what they can learn on the job, how their performance in a real-life, low-pressure situation will be different than a gimmicky interview. It's just all of this "we only hire the best" nonsense that leads to an arms race for candidates to overfit to interview processes and creates a whole generation of vapid engineers with no substance beyond looking pretty on paper.

deal1990 10y ago

Interviewing.io is a phenomenal platform, for whose effectiveness I can personally attest. While cold emailing and general networking have their merits, interviewing.io was a very nice surprise in the sheer number of technical screens/onsites I was able to attain within a few weeks on the platform. The main draw, in my opinion, is that they routinely host interviewers from top-tier companies to perform anonymous technical screens. After which, if you perform well, can expedite you to late-stage interviewing with those same companies. For those with non-traditional backgrounds like myself, interviewing.io gives you a helping hand in bypassing unwarranted resume and recruiter bias. This is especially true if you're competent, as interviewing.io will help shine light on your abilities. The platform also has routine practice sessions each week to expose you to real interviewers and sharpen your interviewing wits. I realize I may very well sound like a zealot, but interviewing.io is a must-have in your interviewing arsenal. I understand it is relatively new to the scene, but it's free and at the very least gives you the ability to practice interviewing. For the company rounds, you will definitely be able to start dialogues with some pretty interesting/reputable companies that would have otherwise rejected your application in the ever-present fear of false-positives. Hope this helps.

risforrob 10y ago

I went through this same experience over the past year and a half. At some point I intend to write a more detailed blog post about my process, but the short version is that I did a boatload of research ahead of time, and leveraged the heck out of my network. In places where I found my network to be lacking, I invested additional time/effort to build connections. I had more success through networking and personal connections than I ever did via resumes or direct submissions. I didn't work with any recruiters, so I don't feel qualified to speak to their effectiveness. I actually have some experience interviewing.io. I initially starting using it as a way brush up on my technical interviewing skills (it had been years since I was last an interviewee vs. interviewer) and it ended up being through interviewing.io that I was introduced to Mattermark where I was eventually hired. It was a great tool to have in my job-hunting tool belt as I was able to 1) brush up on my tech interviewing 2) meet/network with interviewers (when an interview went well) and 3) do a few 1st round interviews with a couple of prospective companies. I wouldn't use interviewing.io as my only means to land an interview with a company. Especially since everything is anonymous, and thus only in specific circumstances do you know the company that your interviewer is associated with. But it was a great way to do low/no risk interviews that at least had the potential to count as a first round interview.

agrenader 10y ago
"only in specific circumstances do you know the company that your interviewer is associated with" Currently interviewing.io is setting up and testing system, where engineers who did well at the practice interviews can choose companies to have anonymous interview with.