5 ms·

I am a recruiter (albeit for salespeople), and I think there are a few big value points that we provide, when we do our jobs right. 1: Filtering. The downside

I am a recruiter (albeit for salespeople), and I think there are a few big value points that we provide, when we do our jobs right. 1: Filtering. The downside of the internet making it easy to apply for jobs is that the candidates that do apply, don't tend to be the candidates you want. If you put a job up on Monster / Indeed etc, you're going to get a lot of candidates who aren't remotely qualified for what you're looking for. There's a lot of sifting that needs to happen. If you're a hiring manager you don't want to spend 20 hours initially qualifying and disqualifying candidates, when you can spend 2-3 hours talking to the most qualified people. 2: Talent attraction. A good recruiter finds out what someone wants in their career and then matches them with an opportunity. This sort of discovery doesn't happen that well on the internet. 3: Candidate pipeline management: A lot of companies have stupid complicated interview processes and end up losing a lot of talent that way. If you aren't Google, you can't put people through that sort of thing (and even Google lose a lot of candidates like that). By and large HN doesn't understand sales particularly well. Selling companies things for $XX,XXX - $XXX,XXX is that you aren't doing the greasy used car / insurance sell. A lot of enterprise is project management with multiple stakeholders. Permanent recruiting is a similar situation.

xmt 9y ago
This. I've stopped applying to companies directly because it takes too much of my time and the response rate is too low. With a recruiter I'm pretty much guaranteed at least the first round of interviews with just a 15 minute phone call. I imagine it's gotten to that point for a lot of job seekers.
- seem_2211 9y ago
  Yep exactly. Apply online and you fall into a black hole of no reply. A big part of my value prop for candidates is we collapse the client interview side into two steps (occasionally 3), and our value prop for clients is we only send them 3-4 good candidates to talk to.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Maybe if you can find a good one, but I've given up on them. Frankly, most (for candidate and company) are horrible and should've been fired years ago. One exception to my experiences was a guy working internally at Google in Switzerland that I had contact with, who hands down was great.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    I was suddenly out of a job last year and a recruiter who cold called me had me in front of a hiring manager 48 hours later (who hired me on the spot). Very satisfied with my recruiter, worth their weight in gold. I bought them a very nice bottle of wine to return the favor.
gt_ 9y ago
Reading these comments has made me feel very stupid for treating recruiter messages like spam. Better late than never! I have been off the job market for almost a decade and things appear to have changed a lot. Do you have any advice for working with recruiters, beyond basically doing the opposite of what I have been doing?
- seem_2211 9y ago
  Just reply back :)
- xmt 9y ago
  Some of them are definitely spammy. If they are vague about the job I pass or if they don't seem very knowledgeable and clearly haven't read my resume I pass. Recruiters that specialize in your area are better. I've found linked-in recruiters to be better than job board recruiters. Just put some in demand skills on your profile and they will come to you. I should also mention this probably works better if you already have a job and some experience and isn't so great if you are just starting or switching fields.
- vfulco 9y ago
  A bit oblique but don't lose sight of a really well done LI Profile. I admit this is self-serving since I run a firm editing resumes, performing LI Profile enhancement and interview coaching in Shanghai, China. I am not selling here. However, I have had numerous clients with de-minimus LIPs and a bit stuck in their careers. They hired me to spruce theirs to "all-star" status. After turning on the "want to hear from interested parties setting", reaching out to old colleagues for referrals and building a broader network, they started hearing from HHers and HR who they would not have otherwise. And some found new work within the month. It does work if you pull all the levers. You can CERTAINLY do your own LIP if you are willing to put the time in and have an acute eye for detail. It is an excellent investment to get it presentable.
  - matt_the_bass 9y ago
    I think it is valuable to keep a decent profile before you need/want to use it. That is if you hope to use it in the future.
javi830810 9y ago
I agree with the values you mention they are "supposed" to provide. But in reality Filtering, I dont think they do it correctly. At least in Technology. See technology nowadays it's a lot about buzzwords, and usually recruiters just look for keywords inside resumes. If you dont have one of those keywords, you're off the hook. Technology hiring, could have another layer of analysis. For example every developer knows that if you've been doing mysql, and php, and web development. You probably can manage a CMS like Drupal or Wordpress. A recruiter would dismiss you for not having one of those in your resume. Maybe this is good. Maybe not, my point is, job hiring is not only plain resume reading, and they usually dont go beyond that.
- seem_2211 9y ago
  That's fair from what I've seen in technical hiring (as mentioned, I only do sales recruitment). A lot of the big outfits hire kids straight out of school who don't understand the difference between C# and Javascript or the difference between front-end or server-side development. A lot of the issues with recruiters stem from the fact that recruiting companies (ironically) don't hire all that well.

xmt 9y ago

This. I've stopped applying to companies directly because it takes too much of my time and the response rate is too low. With a recruiter I'm pretty much guaranteed at least the first round of interviews with just a 15 minute phone call. I imagine it's gotten to that point for a lot of job seekers.

seem_2211 9y ago
Yep exactly. Apply online and you fall into a black hole of no reply. A big part of my value prop for candidates is we collapse the client interview side into two steps (occasionally 3), and our value prop for clients is we only send them 3-4 good candidates to talk to.
charlesdm 9y ago
Maybe if you can find a good one, but I've given up on them. Frankly, most (for candidate and company) are horrible and should've been fired years ago. One exception to my experiences was a guy working internally at Google in Switzerland that I had contact with, who hands down was great.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  I was suddenly out of a job last year and a recruiter who cold called me had me in front of a hiring manager 48 hours later (who hired me on the spot). Very satisfied with my recruiter, worth their weight in gold. I bought them a very nice bottle of wine to return the favor.

gt_ 9y ago

Reading these comments has made me feel very stupid for treating recruiter messages like spam. Better late than never! I have been off the job market for almost a decade and things appear to have changed a lot. Do you have any advice for working with recruiters, beyond basically doing the opposite of what I have been doing?

seem_2211 9y ago
Just reply back :)
xmt 9y ago
Some of them are definitely spammy. If they are vague about the job I pass or if they don't seem very knowledgeable and clearly haven't read my resume I pass. Recruiters that specialize in your area are better. I've found linked-in recruiters to be better than job board recruiters. Just put some in demand skills on your profile and they will come to you. I should also mention this probably works better if you already have a job and some experience and isn't so great if you are just starting or switching fields.
vfulco 9y ago
A bit oblique but don't lose sight of a really well done LI Profile. I admit this is self-serving since I run a firm editing resumes, performing LI Profile enhancement and interview coaching in Shanghai, China. I am not selling here. However, I have had numerous clients with de-minimus LIPs and a bit stuck in their careers. They hired me to spruce theirs to "all-star" status. After turning on the "want to hear from interested parties setting", reaching out to old colleagues for referrals and building a broader network, they started hearing from HHers and HR who they would not have otherwise. And some found new work within the month. It does work if you pull all the levers. You can CERTAINLY do your own LIP if you are willing to put the time in and have an acute eye for detail. It is an excellent investment to get it presentable.
- matt_the_bass 9y ago
  I think it is valuable to keep a decent profile before you need/want to use it. That is if you hope to use it in the future.

javi830810 9y ago

I agree with the values you mention they are "supposed" to provide. But in reality Filtering, I dont think they do it correctly. At least in Technology. See technology nowadays it's a lot about buzzwords, and usually recruiters just look for keywords inside resumes. If you dont have one of those keywords, you're off the hook. Technology hiring, could have another layer of analysis. For example every developer knows that if you've been doing mysql, and php, and web development. You probably can manage a CMS like Drupal or Wordpress. A recruiter would dismiss you for not having one of those in your resume. Maybe this is good. Maybe not, my point is, job hiring is not only plain resume reading, and they usually dont go beyond that.

seem_2211 9y ago
That's fair from what I've seen in technical hiring (as mentioned, I only do sales recruitment). A lot of the big outfits hire kids straight out of school who don't understand the difference between C# and Javascript or the difference between front-end or server-side development. A lot of the issues with recruiters stem from the fact that recruiting companies (ironically) don't hire all that well.