9 ms·

This is not how it works. Recruiters generally spam everyone based on an inventory of jobs they have, and half the time, the recruiter is more interested in pum

by p4wnc6 10y ago

This is not how it works. Recruiters generally spam everyone based on an inventory of jobs they have, and half the time, the recruiter is more interested in pumping you for information about where you currently work or where else you've applied. When recruiters do put you forward for a job, they require you to give up all negotiation power in advance, and generally they are paid bonuses on top of their commission if they can ensure a candidate accepts a low salary. When they say "my commission is based on the salary you get so I'm trying to get you the most that I can" it is, truly, complete bullshit. When you make ridiculous requests of a recruiter, they don't help you. They just get off the call and figure you're not enough of a shmuck so they won't be able to fool you, and auto-dial the next possible shmuck. Even if you're a LinkedIn user (and it is very, very dubious whether LinkedIn adds or subtracts value for users), dealing with head hunters is a terrible idea unless you love being jerked around, misled, and having your time wasted. The cases such as what you describe are so exceedingly rare as to warrant basically being ignored. That guy won the recruiter lottery, but it was still irrational for him to play.

merpnderp 10y ago
Maybe I should contact his recruiter and find out :P don't tell my boss.
linkregister 10y ago
I was going to say that this seems like an overly cynical reaction to the parent poster's anecdote. But then I read your story in another comment that described your 14-month unemployment. I have had good experiences with recruiters from LinkedIn, leading all the way to reasonable offers. To be fair, I have the halo effect of being currently employed. I acknowledge that the software industry has a highly irrational aversion to unemployed developers, much to its detriment. I do want to add that for new graduates and the currently employed, recruiter messages on LinkedIn aren't strictly a fishing expedition and do lead to offers. n=2 in this comment thread, though. I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for. As trite and uninformed as it sounds, perhaps temporarily moving back to Boston or another high job-density area would help overcome this. It wasn't clear in your other post if you were willing to relocate.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I'm definitely willing to relocate, but cannot do so unless the company provides relocation. If I can move for a definite job, that's one thing, and I can make arrangement here in the family situation to handle that. But I can't put the family stuff on hold just to move on a whim and maybe find a job. Even when I was already living in Boston, I didn't have much luck there and especially found the start-up working conditions quite poor.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    I have been in a similar situation before. At that time I took whatever I could get and downplayed my qualifications which were orthogonal to the work. It was literally a short-term, moderately dangerous laborer job so enthusiasm and talk about my exercise regimen helped me the most when applying. At the time I didn't have to support a family so I was more flexible with income. I'm sharing my anecdote to illustrate that maybe it's worthwhile to accept some red flags for stable employment for a year or two. I don't know your situation in detail so there are likely many factors I haven't considered. I wish the best of luck to you.
taurath 10y ago
After pouring through your comments throughout this thread I'm kinda left with the following conclusion (take it for what its worth, a random person on the internet): you have a mindset problem, and you're generalizing to the point that you wouldn't be able to accept nearly any job, or be happy in one. You've determined: Most companies are bad/wrong/awful/burnout machines All recruiters are either spambots or leeches If you have this mindset, you've set the bar way too high. You say you've turned down many positions, and yet are in a big financial struggle now. Take a job that doesn't sound quite as bad as the others, before you're forced to take ANY job. I'll bet this rubs off on anyone who's interviewing you as well. You obviously have the skills and experience necessary to be a good engineer from what you've said, but engineers are in higher demand now than just about ever. If you can't find a job to your liking, the problem is you, not the industry.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I understand where you're coming from, but I also feel there's a serious argument to be made, Moral Mazes / Peopleware style, that most companies are bad/wrong/awful/burnout machines. The fact that open-plan offices are widely used is a perfect example. It's a condition fundamentally at odds with the productivity it is alleged to facilitate. Cost has long been disproven as a favorable factor for choosing open-plan, as the productivity losses quickly destroy any real estate savings. Instead it's about status and affiliation -- accepting non-functional designs in order to seem impressive looking in a superficial way. And something like open-plan offices are merely the tip of the iceberg. Superficial reasons for big showy tech re-orgs around the latest and greatest trends are very similar. The ambient background of political dysfunction intensified in start-up environments, etc. Huge exposes in major media outlets describing the way e.g. Amazon employees are made to cry frequently at their desks and encouraged to use gossip hotlines to backstab colleagues, followed shortly by their own CEO releasing a statement to shareholders basically saying if you don't like the cutthroat, anti-human environment then just get out. ... It is a mammoth challenge to find employment that is minimally acceptable for human cognitive health. The way corporations behave, a la Moral Mazes, is just exceptionally maladaptive for human cognitive function. There is real theory behind it. In my own experience, part of what made my previous employment so disastrous is that it involved an employer doing some substantially illegal things to me -- to the point that I had to hire an expensive employment attorney when leaving that company and go through a bunch of hoops to document things. Maybe you've been lucky to never have been treated this way by a company, but I can tell you it's real, and many, many executives go absolutely unchecked and have incredibly harmful views about how they believe they are allowed to treat people.
snark42 10y ago
> When recruiters do put you forward for a job, they require you to give up all negotiation power in advance, and generally they are paid bonuses on top of their commission if they can ensure a candidate accepts a low salary. When they say "my commission is based on the salary you get so I'm trying to get you the most that I can" it is, truly, complete bullshit. You are dealing with some really bad recruiters (the type that spam everyone) if they force you to give up any/all negotiation power. I've found a number of jobs through recruiters and I always got a 10-20% increase total cash compensation and full negotiating power to say no or ask for more before saying yes.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  I've dealt with several recruiters each from Huxley, NJF, Selby Jennings, Open System Technologies, Crystal Equation, Workbridge Associates, Jobspring Partners, Cybercoders, and Grady Levkov. And also one from Gina's Tech Jobs, and two freelance recruiters who had been recommended to me by friends. If, for example, you say you won't reveal your previous salary or your current expectations until after speaking with someone to get a sense of whether you're a good fit for the role, then they will throw every excuse at you to get you to say a number first, and if you still don't, they simply will not work with you. No matter how much I practiced and no matter how politely and professionally I dodged the question, I did not ever encounter a single recruiter who would agree to help me without first having me name a concrete, specific number for my salary. In a few cases, the recruiter even told me that to submit any applications on my behalf, they needed years of salary history including any equity or bonus payments. In one case when the number of years needed was 7, when I refused, I never heard from her again. That recruiter was actually referred to me by a trusted friend who had used her help to get a job, so it was not some fly-by-night scamster. While my friend, I guess, was OK sharing 7 years of data with some random recruiter, I was not, and so they simply did not contact me further. On the few occasions that I've opened up about what would actually make me excited about a job (having a quiet, private office is by far #1), they basically just say "yeah right, never going to happen, move on." So if I stick up for what I am seeking (or at least was seeking at that time) they also just discontinue all contact. Finally I just gave up on this and stopped ever telling recruiters anything at all that I felt they might think would make me 'weird' or 'unusual' or 'quirky' to present as a candidate, but because they all solely cared about getting that concrete salary number in the first conversation, this largely had no impact other than at least making the conversations take less time. They also often submitted my email/phone/resume to their general recruiters, so then I started getting spam mail and unsolicited phone calls at odd hours about positions that are extremely inappropriate for someone with my particular background. The time spent patiently explaining my background and current career goals to recruiters has been painfully wasted. If there is some way to locate good recruiters apart from the firms I've contacted and the people referred to me by friends, I certainly do not know how to do it.

by p4wnc6 10y ago

merpnderp 10y ago

Maybe I should contact his recruiter and find out :P don't tell my boss.

linkregister 10y ago

I was going to say that this seems like an overly cynical reaction to the parent poster's anecdote. But then I read your story in another comment that described your 14-month unemployment. I have had good experiences with recruiters from LinkedIn, leading all the way to reasonable offers. To be fair, I have the halo effect of being currently employed. I acknowledge that the software industry has a highly irrational aversion to unemployed developers, much to its detriment. I do want to add that for new graduates and the currently employed, recruiter messages on LinkedIn aren't strictly a fishing expedition and do lead to offers. n=2 in this comment thread, though. I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for. As trite and uninformed as it sounds, perhaps temporarily moving back to Boston or another high job-density area would help overcome this. It wasn't clear in your other post if you were willing to relocate.

p4wnc6 10y ago
I'm definitely willing to relocate, but cannot do so unless the company provides relocation. If I can move for a definite job, that's one thing, and I can make arrangement here in the family situation to handle that. But I can't put the family stuff on hold just to move on a whim and maybe find a job. Even when I was already living in Boston, I didn't have much luck there and especially found the start-up working conditions quite poor.
- linkregister 10y ago
  I have been in a similar situation before. At that time I took whatever I could get and downplayed my qualifications which were orthogonal to the work. It was literally a short-term, moderately dangerous laborer job so enthusiasm and talk about my exercise regimen helped me the most when applying. At the time I didn't have to support a family so I was more flexible with income. I'm sharing my anecdote to illustrate that maybe it's worthwhile to accept some red flags for stable employment for a year or two. I don't know your situation in detail so there are likely many factors I haven't considered. I wish the best of luck to you.

taurath 10y ago

After pouring through your comments throughout this thread I'm kinda left with the following conclusion (take it for what its worth, a random person on the internet): you have a mindset problem, and you're generalizing to the point that you wouldn't be able to accept nearly any job, or be happy in one. You've determined: Most companies are bad/wrong/awful/burnout machines All recruiters are either spambots or leeches If you have this mindset, you've set the bar way too high. You say you've turned down many positions, and yet are in a big financial struggle now. Take a job that doesn't sound quite as bad as the others, before you're forced to take ANY job. I'll bet this rubs off on anyone who's interviewing you as well. You obviously have the skills and experience necessary to be a good engineer from what you've said, but engineers are in higher demand now than just about ever. If you can't find a job to your liking, the problem is you, not the industry.

p4wnc6 10y ago
I understand where you're coming from, but I also feel there's a serious argument to be made, Moral Mazes / Peopleware style, that most companies are bad/wrong/awful/burnout machines. The fact that open-plan offices are widely used is a perfect example. It's a condition fundamentally at odds with the productivity it is alleged to facilitate. Cost has long been disproven as a favorable factor for choosing open-plan, as the productivity losses quickly destroy any real estate savings. Instead it's about status and affiliation -- accepting non-functional designs in order to seem impressive looking in a superficial way. And something like open-plan offices are merely the tip of the iceberg. Superficial reasons for big showy tech re-orgs around the latest and greatest trends are very similar. The ambient background of political dysfunction intensified in start-up environments, etc. Huge exposes in major media outlets describing the way e.g. Amazon employees are made to cry frequently at their desks and encouraged to use gossip hotlines to backstab colleagues, followed shortly by their own CEO releasing a statement to shareholders basically saying if you don't like the cutthroat, anti-human environment then just get out. ... It is a mammoth challenge to find employment that is minimally acceptable for human cognitive health. The way corporations behave, a la Moral Mazes, is just exceptionally maladaptive for human cognitive function. There is real theory behind it. In my own experience, part of what made my previous employment so disastrous is that it involved an employer doing some substantially illegal things to me -- to the point that I had to hire an expensive employment attorney when leaving that company and go through a bunch of hoops to document things. Maybe you've been lucky to never have been treated this way by a company, but I can tell you it's real, and many, many executives go absolutely unchecked and have incredibly harmful views about how they believe they are allowed to treat people.

snark42 10y ago

> When recruiters do put you forward for a job, they require you to give up all negotiation power in advance, and generally they are paid bonuses on top of their commission if they can ensure a candidate accepts a low salary. When they say "my commission is based on the salary you get so I'm trying to get you the most that I can" it is, truly, complete bullshit. You are dealing with some really bad recruiters (the type that spam everyone) if they force you to give up any/all negotiation power. I've found a number of jobs through recruiters and I always got a 10-20% increase total cash compensation and full negotiating power to say no or ask for more before saying yes.

p4wnc6 10y ago
I've dealt with several recruiters each from Huxley, NJF, Selby Jennings, Open System Technologies, Crystal Equation, Workbridge Associates, Jobspring Partners, Cybercoders, and Grady Levkov. And also one from Gina's Tech Jobs, and two freelance recruiters who had been recommended to me by friends. If, for example, you say you won't reveal your previous salary or your current expectations until after speaking with someone to get a sense of whether you're a good fit for the role, then they will throw every excuse at you to get you to say a number first, and if you still don't, they simply will not work with you. No matter how much I practiced and no matter how politely and professionally I dodged the question, I did not ever encounter a single recruiter who would agree to help me without first having me name a concrete, specific number for my salary. In a few cases, the recruiter even told me that to submit any applications on my behalf, they needed years of salary history including any equity or bonus payments. In one case when the number of years needed was 7, when I refused, I never heard from her again. That recruiter was actually referred to me by a trusted friend who had used her help to get a job, so it was not some fly-by-night scamster. While my friend, I guess, was OK sharing 7 years of data with some random recruiter, I was not, and so they simply did not contact me further. On the few occasions that I've opened up about what would actually make me excited about a job (having a quiet, private office is by far #1), they basically just say "yeah right, never going to happen, move on." So if I stick up for what I am seeking (or at least was seeking at that time) they also just discontinue all contact. Finally I just gave up on this and stopped ever telling recruiters anything at all that I felt they might think would make me 'weird' or 'unusual' or 'quirky' to present as a candidate, but because they all solely cared about getting that concrete salary number in the first conversation, this largely had no impact other than at least making the conversations take less time. They also often submitted my email/phone/resume to their general recruiters, so then I started getting spam mail and unsolicited phone calls at odd hours about positions that are extremely inappropriate for someone with my particular background. The time spent patiently explaining my background and current career goals to recruiters has been painfully wasted. If there is some way to locate good recruiters apart from the firms I've contacted and the people referred to me by friends, I certainly do not know how to do it.