4 ms·

The Importance of Researching your Job Recruiter

11 points by iamdave 17y ago

After spending a good six hours working on updating my resume as an independent recruiter looking to get his foot in the door with a progressive company, I received a number of emails from recruiters. Two of these emails stood out to me. Mainly because despite being from two different recruiters from two different companies, in two different parts of the world, these emails read exactly the same. Verbatim. After some time Googling, I eventually found the originating job post on a company website and became quite infuriated. In fact, one of the emails did not even address me by name, the greeting line was "Hello Consultant". I decided to respond to the emails separately. This is one of them: http://pastie.org/918524 Now, the reason I am sharing this story with you is to share the value of people. As someone who spends a lot of time with people, networking and making connections, I've seem many companies who try to build the ideal candidate based on qualifications and skills. Understandably, I sympathize with their desire to use company resources as best they possibly can. That's where things go sour. They end up hiring black hat recruiters, or employing black hat recruiter techniques like this one: nabbing job postings from future clients and blasting emails across the internet. The goal of this often results in no one actually filling the position, and the recruiter walks away with a number of new resumes. Candidates grow frustrated because they've responded to a recruiter who isn't going to work for them until it's financially convenient (i.e. they find a candidate who pays a juicy enough contingency fee), and the candidate in the long term has to continue burning up their own resources looking for work. Beware the Black Hat recruiters. Research is obviously important when looking for more work. Research is just as important when dealing with recruiters. I just wanted to share that with HN after seeing a couple posts about startups looking to hire.

paulhart 17y ago
Where are you based, Dave? My day-job company is actively seeking a technical recruiter for internal and client placements. (Oh, and I should add that we're pretty damn good at communicating with the people who apply for jobs).
- iamdave 17y ago
  I am located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Tell me more about your company at the profile address email.
  - cperciva 17y ago
    The email address in your profile is only visible to YC staff. If you want people to be able to contact you, put your email address into the about: box.
    - iamdave 17y ago
      Ah, thank you for that.
bhiggins 17y ago
I had this exchange with a recruiter working at Google. Recruiter: I am writing to introduce myself as I recently received your name from a current Googler who mentioned you'd be a strong asset here. I am hoping that you might be open to confidentially exploring engineering opportunities with Google. If not, it'd be wonderful to hear a bit about what you're doing currently so we can keep in touch down the road. Please let me know if you might have a few minutes to discuss. Me: Who recommended me? I'd love to know. Recruiter: I have been asked to keep that confidential. Let me know if you are interested in exploring opportunities that we have here at Google further. Thanks again and have a great day. Me: Thanks for the inquiry but I'm not interested. I also just want you to know that I'm aware of passive recruitment techniques and for some people it's frustrating to engage in a conversation at that level. I don't think it reflects well on you or Google.
- iamdave 17y ago
  That's pretty common as well. I've learned not to be afraid of who recommended me, or where the recruiter found my resume. The point of this is bi-fold, both to your advantage: 1. Check the integrity of the recruiter talking to you, ensuring they're not employing tactics that hurt your reputation with other employers and 2. It's a low tech form of analytics to help you further understand how helpful the job boards your resume is housed are.
  - bhiggins 17y ago
    I didn't have my resume out there. It doesn't serve my interests to aid the recruiter in their fishing expedition.
- paulgb 17y ago
  When I was a freshman, I got an email from Microsoft that said "One of our recruiters recently reviewed your resume and is very interested in speaking with you about your interests and skills". I didn't actually have a résumé at the time. I wouldn't call that particular tactic black hat, but it did raise my suspicions.
  - 17y ago
anamax 17y ago
> Candidates grow frustrated because they've responded to a recruiter who isn't going to work for them until it's financially convenient (i.e. they find a candidate who pays a juicy enough contingency fee), No recruiter actually cares whether you get hired. They care whether they get paid. Since they can get paid when someone else is hired .... > and the candidate in the long term has to continue burning up their own resources looking for work. You can't outsource your career to someone who isn't dependent on your success. (You probably can't outsource your career to anyone.)
lsc 17y ago
so, what, exactly does a company look for in a recruiter? do they care if you can find good people? or are they looking more for someone to sell the job to a potential employee? Both? neither?
kls 17y ago
The one that really gets me are the placement services that require you to pay them before any services are rendered. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with one just the other day. They masquerade as legitimate recruiters and then hit you up to represent you in the unpublished job market; like there are companies out there keeping jobs a secret because they don’t want them filled. They try to prey on fears of the economy and competition and then try to sell you an advantage over that whipped up competition, who by the way, they would sell their service to. It’s not like they are representing you to the exclusion of your competition. After wasting 20 minutes with what I thought was a legitimate recruiter for a CTO position, I was pretty irate. Like I told the scum bag, if you are so sure of your success rate, then why don’t you let me pay your fees after placement? after all if you don’t place me, I have not benefited from your so called advantage. He quickly dismissed that concept with some BS about the payment separates those that are truly looking to advance their career. The part that really bothered me, was the scare tactics and the fact that these people are probably having some success with insecure individuals who are susceptible to this. Given the current conditions and the psychological desperation of being unemployed, I can imagine that this is a very vulnerable demographic. Fortunately for me I have the luxury of time, so I was not susceptible to such carpetbaggery.
nathanh 17y ago
I recently wrote up a bunch of black hat recruiter tactics that I've either experienced personally or have heard about from companies and job seekers. It's crazy how far some recruiters will go. http://blog.nahurst.com/black-hat-recruiter-tactics http://blog.nahurst.com/black-hat-recruiter-tactics

11 points by iamdave 17y ago

paulhart 17y ago

Where are you based, Dave? My day-job company is actively seeking a technical recruiter for internal and client placements. (Oh, and I should add that we're pretty damn good at communicating with the people who apply for jobs).

iamdave 17y ago
I am located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Tell me more about your company at the profile address email.
- cperciva 17y ago
  The email address in your profile is only visible to YC staff. If you want people to be able to contact you, put your email address into the about: box.
  - iamdave 17y ago
    Ah, thank you for that.

bhiggins 17y ago

I had this exchange with a recruiter working at Google. Recruiter: I am writing to introduce myself as I recently received your name from a current Googler who mentioned you'd be a strong asset here. I am hoping that you might be open to confidentially exploring engineering opportunities with Google. If not, it'd be wonderful to hear a bit about what you're doing currently so we can keep in touch down the road. Please let me know if you might have a few minutes to discuss. Me: Who recommended me? I'd love to know. Recruiter: I have been asked to keep that confidential. Let me know if you are interested in exploring opportunities that we have here at Google further. Thanks again and have a great day. Me: Thanks for the inquiry but I'm not interested. I also just want you to know that I'm aware of passive recruitment techniques and for some people it's frustrating to engage in a conversation at that level. I don't think it reflects well on you or Google.

iamdave 17y ago
That's pretty common as well. I've learned not to be afraid of who recommended me, or where the recruiter found my resume. The point of this is bi-fold, both to your advantage: 1. Check the integrity of the recruiter talking to you, ensuring they're not employing tactics that hurt your reputation with other employers and 2. It's a low tech form of analytics to help you further understand how helpful the job boards your resume is housed are.
- bhiggins 17y ago
  I didn't have my resume out there. It doesn't serve my interests to aid the recruiter in their fishing expedition.
paulgb 17y ago
When I was a freshman, I got an email from Microsoft that said "One of our recruiters recently reviewed your resume and is very interested in speaking with you about your interests and skills". I didn't actually have a résumé at the time. I wouldn't call that particular tactic black hat, but it did raise my suspicions.
- 17y ago

anamax 17y ago

> Candidates grow frustrated because they've responded to a recruiter who isn't going to work for them until it's financially convenient (i.e. they find a candidate who pays a juicy enough contingency fee), No recruiter actually cares whether you get hired. They care whether they get paid. Since they can get paid when someone else is hired .... > and the candidate in the long term has to continue burning up their own resources looking for work. You can't outsource your career to someone who isn't dependent on your success. (You probably can't outsource your career to anyone.)

lsc 17y ago

so, what, exactly does a company look for in a recruiter? do they care if you can find good people? or are they looking more for someone to sell the job to a potential employee? Both? neither?

kls 17y ago

The one that really gets me are the placement services that require you to pay them before any services are rendered. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with one just the other day. They masquerade as legitimate recruiters and then hit you up to represent you in the unpublished job market; like there are companies out there keeping jobs a secret because they don’t want them filled. They try to prey on fears of the economy and competition and then try to sell you an advantage over that whipped up competition, who by the way, they would sell their service to. It’s not like they are representing you to the exclusion of your competition. After wasting 20 minutes with what I thought was a legitimate recruiter for a CTO position, I was pretty irate. Like I told the scum bag, if you are so sure of your success rate, then why don’t you let me pay your fees after placement? after all if you don’t place me, I have not benefited from your so called advantage. He quickly dismissed that concept with some BS about the payment separates those that are truly looking to advance their career. The part that really bothered me, was the scare tactics and the fact that these people are probably having some success with insecure individuals who are susceptible to this. Given the current conditions and the psychological desperation of being unemployed, I can imagine that this is a very vulnerable demographic. Fortunately for me I have the luxury of time, so I was not susceptible to such carpetbaggery.

nathanh 17y ago

I recently wrote up a bunch of black hat recruiter tactics that I've either experienced personally or have heard about from companies and job seekers. It's crazy how far some recruiters will go. http://blog.nahurst.com/black-hat-recruiter-tactics http://blog.nahurst.com/black-hat-recruiter-tactics