3 ms·

First party recruiters are fine, if incompetent in technical matters. Third party recruiters are usually scummy salesmen types.

• scarface74 10y ago
  Third party recruiters are all salesmen - yes. Scummy - not all of them. You just have to understand their incentives and who there customer is - the company not you. Your incentives and the recruiters incentives are partially aligned. The more your first years salary is, the more they make. But they don't care if you make the most possible. They would rather leave some money on the table to get their commission and not take the chance you get a better offer from another company. They could care less whether the job is the best for your long term career goals. Two jobs ago I was working for a large well known stable company but was severely underpaid - over 20K based on the market value. Some recruiters said I should "settle" for a 10K increase and most companies wouldn't be willing to give me a 20K+ increase. I told them I wouldn't start with the process with any company unless they were willing to offer me at least that minimum.
• phaed 10y ago
  How do you differentiate between them?
• hocuspocus 10y ago
  I've dealt with both nice and competent 3rd party recruiters and with terrible internal recruiters (Amazon...) It's usually easy to tell when a 3rd party recruiter is wasting your time (sometimes they don't even read the first line of your LinkedIn profile summary). On the other hand, there isn't much you can do when an otherwise good company has a chaotic recruiting process.