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TBH I have never been impressed by any technical recruiter I've met. I remember interviewing for a place and the recruiter thought he was an expert coder since

TBH I have never been impressed by any technical recruiter I've met. I remember interviewing for a place and the recruiter thought he was an expert coder since he knew some buzz words. He was saying they wanted someone with SPA experience AND was able to build REST API's. I spent thirty minutes trying to convince him that NodeJS runs on servers and I've been a back-end JavaScript developer writing large REST APIs and back-end services. He was convinced JavaScript only runs on browsers and I was full of shit. That was at a big-name tech startup (one of: Lyft, AirBnB, Uber, Github). Other times I've been told by recruiters things like "Sorry, we want someone with at least 5 years of Ember3 experience, not Ember2". Stupid stuff like that. I don't know if the talent shortage is real, or if companies still haven't figured out recruiting. I think it's probably actually a combo of both. I now write my resumes full of fluffy buzzwords, my GitHub is full of animated GIFS and pretty pictures and I adjust the buzzwords based on the job posting. Much higher conversion rate.

qohen 8y ago
TBH I have never been impressed by any technical recruiter I've met. You know what is impressive about (at least some) technical recruiters I've met? Despite not knowing much about tech, they can pull down $300K/yr (and this is not in SF or NYC).
- yosito 8y ago
  Is that so?
  - qohen 8y ago
    Yep. This may not be 100% right, but: think about this -- imagine you're a recruiter who is a partner in a firm, not someone just starting out and getting paid very little. Let's say you place people with average salaries of $100K. Your firm may take 20% of that. Meaning that $300K would only require placing 15 people per year -- that's a little over 1 per month. Of course, you'd have to share the revenue, pay your share of expenses, etc. But let's say you can place 2 or 3 per month on average. Or 4, whatever. At some point soon, no matter the expenses and revenue-sharing, your cut should reach $300K. It may not be so easy to place one person every week or two. But you're working with other people and maybe you have some low-paid people to do the drudge-work of sifting through resumes and so on. * An interesting point, though, about making those big bucks: the first $300K recruiter I met, some years back, told me this -- yes, you could do well working with him...but he would only hire you if you got yourself trained elsewhere. Meaning, that you'd have take a much lower paying job to start (the number $30K comes to mind, but I don't know how accurate that is -- maybe there are commissions too for successful placements? --- and, in any case, it was a while ago). So, for at least your first job, you'd probably be working at a large outfit with a lot of people, which might be competitive, with a lot of turnover, perhaps because people wash out or whatever -- whenever I talk to a recruiting firm locally that I've dealt with for a while, most (or all) of the folks I knew previously have moved on. In other words, you might not make it through the prerequisite needed to get to the $300K guy's firm (and I'm assuming you probably wouldn't start at $300K, or anywhere near that, since you'd be a junior hire). * The second guy I met who told me he was getting $300K was more recent. He was an internal recruiter -- which struck me as a bit odd, given that he was working for a startup that wasn't very large, so, unless they were to suddenly grow fast, I don't know why they'd need a recruiter that expensive around on a long-term basis, even a very good one. (It appears he moved on after being there close to a year, so maybe they reached this conclusion too...or perhaps that's the gig -- you stay as long as you're needed then move on -- or perhaps he just found a better position elsewhere). * But what do I know? I mean, if I really understood recruiting, maybe I, too, would be making $300K as a recruiter. And, if recruiting occasionally proved to be less interesting than writing software, I'm sure I could come up with ways of amusing myself, such as, say, trolling my candidate-developers by scoffing at the existence of server-side JavaScript and seeing how long I could keep a straight face arguing with them :-)
- goldenManatee 8y ago
  It's perception. They network, get lucky sometimes, and don't stop preaching about it until everyone around starts believing they're valuable authorities in their profession. Snow ball rolls from there and they start attracting candidates based on perceived connection to the top company/people/teams.
  - qohen 8y ago
    The $300K/yr. recruiters I'm thinking of are not people who have some out-sized reputation, at least not as far as I'm aware -- I think the economics of the business simply allow them to make a lot of money if they can regularly place a small number of candidates each month -- see my reply below to another comment about how I figure that might work. * I do know one recruiter who truly does have a good reputation, but not for the reasons you suggest -- I met her years ago and while I haven't seen her for a while, every so often over the years, I'd be talking to someone about job-hunting and they'd say they knew a good recruiter I should talk to and, inevitably, the name they'd then mention was hers. And I don't think she did this by networking or attempting to create a higher profile or becoming an authority or by convincing people she had access to top people at top companies. I think she's just done a good job for people and so those people feel good about her and therefore about recommending her to others. Someone like that might be worth paying a lot to -- for all that good will in addition to her skill and experience. * BTW, it occurs to me that the first $300K recruiter I met told me he ran a Python user-group out of his offices -- and perhaps that wasn't the only group he did this for. That kind of thing, obviously, can help a recruiter become known to developers, but, again, not because of having an out-sized reputation -- rather, by just being around when developers congregate, giving him a chance to introduce himself to them, face-to-face. (I don't know how much business hosting such groups actually brought to his firm, but it obviously couldn't hurt).
deleted 8y ago
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Eridrus 8y ago
> I spent thirty minutes trying to convince him that NodeJS runs on servers and I've been a back-end JavaScript developer writing large REST APIs and back-end services. He was convinced JavaScript only runs on browsers and I was full of shit. I mean, when NodeJS first came out, I thought it was a joke too :p
- icebraining 8y ago
  JS on the server-side is actually pretty old; Netscape implemented it on their web server way back in '95, right after the language was released on their browser.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    And Java had it on its SDK before node as well. The original ASP pages could also be written in JScript.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I had a recruiter insist on Rails 5 experience, at the end of last year. Rails 5 had been out for less than a year. Luckily I was able to talk sense into him that Rails 5 has like 1 new feature. Then the company that put up the listing was dragging its feet, and I ended up choosing another offer that got back to me before I even got an interview with the first. Anyway, not all recruiters are deaf to the voice of reason.
- flukus 8y ago
  I've had many insist on knowing how much experience I have with HTML 5, as though my previous experience with HTML 4 has no relevance. I don't know why the talk about HTML at all, a half decent programmer that's never done web development could learn all they need to know about HTML in a day.

qohen 8y ago

TBH I have never been impressed by any technical recruiter I've met. You know what is impressive about (at least some) technical recruiters I've met? Despite not knowing much about tech, they can pull down $300K/yr (and this is not in SF or NYC).

yosito 8y ago
Is that so?
- qohen 8y ago
  Yep. This may not be 100% right, but: think about this -- imagine you're a recruiter who is a partner in a firm, not someone just starting out and getting paid very little. Let's say you place people with average salaries of $100K. Your firm may take 20% of that. Meaning that $300K would only require placing 15 people per year -- that's a little over 1 per month. Of course, you'd have to share the revenue, pay your share of expenses, etc. But let's say you can place 2 or 3 per month on average. Or 4, whatever. At some point soon, no matter the expenses and revenue-sharing, your cut should reach $300K. It may not be so easy to place one person every week or two. But you're working with other people and maybe you have some low-paid people to do the drudge-work of sifting through resumes and so on. * An interesting point, though, about making those big bucks: the first $300K recruiter I met, some years back, told me this -- yes, you could do well working with him...but he would only hire you if you got yourself trained elsewhere. Meaning, that you'd have take a much lower paying job to start (the number $30K comes to mind, but I don't know how accurate that is -- maybe there are commissions too for successful placements? --- and, in any case, it was a while ago). So, for at least your first job, you'd probably be working at a large outfit with a lot of people, which might be competitive, with a lot of turnover, perhaps because people wash out or whatever -- whenever I talk to a recruiting firm locally that I've dealt with for a while, most (or all) of the folks I knew previously have moved on. In other words, you might not make it through the prerequisite needed to get to the $300K guy's firm (and I'm assuming you probably wouldn't start at $300K, or anywhere near that, since you'd be a junior hire). * The second guy I met who told me he was getting $300K was more recent. He was an internal recruiter -- which struck me as a bit odd, given that he was working for a startup that wasn't very large, so, unless they were to suddenly grow fast, I don't know why they'd need a recruiter that expensive around on a long-term basis, even a very good one. (It appears he moved on after being there close to a year, so maybe they reached this conclusion too...or perhaps that's the gig -- you stay as long as you're needed then move on -- or perhaps he just found a better position elsewhere). * But what do I know? I mean, if I really understood recruiting, maybe I, too, would be making $300K as a recruiter. And, if recruiting occasionally proved to be less interesting than writing software, I'm sure I could come up with ways of amusing myself, such as, say, trolling my candidate-developers by scoffing at the existence of server-side JavaScript and seeing how long I could keep a straight face arguing with them :-)
goldenManatee 8y ago
It's perception. They network, get lucky sometimes, and don't stop preaching about it until everyone around starts believing they're valuable authorities in their profession. Snow ball rolls from there and they start attracting candidates based on perceived connection to the top company/people/teams.
- qohen 8y ago
  The $300K/yr. recruiters I'm thinking of are not people who have some out-sized reputation, at least not as far as I'm aware -- I think the economics of the business simply allow them to make a lot of money if they can regularly place a small number of candidates each month -- see my reply below to another comment about how I figure that might work. * I do know one recruiter who truly does have a good reputation, but not for the reasons you suggest -- I met her years ago and while I haven't seen her for a while, every so often over the years, I'd be talking to someone about job-hunting and they'd say they knew a good recruiter I should talk to and, inevitably, the name they'd then mention was hers. And I don't think she did this by networking or attempting to create a higher profile or becoming an authority or by convincing people she had access to top people at top companies. I think she's just done a good job for people and so those people feel good about her and therefore about recommending her to others. Someone like that might be worth paying a lot to -- for all that good will in addition to her skill and experience. * BTW, it occurs to me that the first $300K recruiter I met told me he ran a Python user-group out of his offices -- and perhaps that wasn't the only group he did this for. That kind of thing, obviously, can help a recruiter become known to developers, but, again, not because of having an out-sized reputation -- rather, by just being around when developers congregate, giving him a chance to introduce himself to them, face-to-face. (I don't know how much business hosting such groups actually brought to his firm, but it obviously couldn't hurt).

deleted 8y ago

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Eridrus 8y ago

> I spent thirty minutes trying to convince him that NodeJS runs on servers and I've been a back-end JavaScript developer writing large REST APIs and back-end services. He was convinced JavaScript only runs on browsers and I was full of shit. I mean, when NodeJS first came out, I thought it was a joke too :p

icebraining 8y ago
JS on the server-side is actually pretty old; Netscape implemented it on their web server way back in '95, right after the language was released on their browser.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  And Java had it on its SDK before node as well. The original ASP pages could also be written in JScript.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I had a recruiter insist on Rails 5 experience, at the end of last year. Rails 5 had been out for less than a year. Luckily I was able to talk sense into him that Rails 5 has like 1 new feature. Then the company that put up the listing was dragging its feet, and I ended up choosing another offer that got back to me before I even got an interview with the first. Anyway, not all recruiters are deaf to the voice of reason.

flukus 8y ago
I've had many insist on knowing how much experience I have with HTML 5, as though my previous experience with HTML 4 has no relevance. I don't know why the talk about HTML at all, a half decent programmer that's never done web development could learn all they need to know about HTML in a day.