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Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

• isrsal 8y ago
  It's a sales driven business, not information driven. Therefore, it wasn't yet disrupted by all the "AI" automatic matching algorithms.
  • baxtr 8y ago
    I don’t understand. Isn’t any business “sales driven”?
    • nothrabannosir 8y ago
      I think what he means by sales driven is high information asymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry It’s a fair call, if you ask me.
      • menssen 8y ago
        It’s too bad that “sales driven” is code for “information hiding.” But it’s true. Anecdotally, I’ve been able to solve the information assymetry problem by drinking recruiters under the table. This is pretty much a prerequisite for me working with you. Your mileage may vary.
    • MisterBastahrd 8y ago
      Recruiters aren't taking your references to figure out whether you're good at your job. I mean they are, but that isn't the main purpose behind taking them. They're taking your references to build a network to acquire business from your employer.
  • beiller 8y ago
    Can't wait for that job market 1 pixel attack. Here comes 500k!
• wonderwonder 8y ago
  I got an email from a local recruiter a few weeks ago and stepped outside during my lunch break to give her a call. On the initial phone call she asked me where I worked currently. After the call I stepped back into my work where I sit back to back with my manager. No more than 5 minutes later his phone rings, its the recruiter calling to see if they have any need of her services. I emailed her while he was on the phone with the recruiter and told her I was not interested and to please remove me from her list for all future positions. That was a stressful 5 minutes.
  • Pxtl 8y ago
    ... is there Yelp for recruiters? Because I'd want to know a recruiter pulls stunts like that before I work with them.
    • ztjio 8y ago
      Have you ever seen Yelp reviews for car salespeople? Recruiters are the used car salespeople of the hiring world. There’s no point in a review system where everyone averages out to 0 stars.
      • mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
        Strongly disagree. I hope you are being hyperbolic. While there is certainly a wide range in competency and the level of value provided by recruiters, many of them are MUCH better than zero stars.
        • asfdsfggtfd 8y ago
          Yes but the unscrupulous ones will be happy to give and receive fake reviews. The more honest ones won't. So it will be hard to tell the difference between a bad recruiter (fake positive and real negative reviews) and a good recruiter (real positive and fake negative reviews).
          • 8y ago
• CM30 8y ago
  On the topic of the first one, am I the only one who finds it strange that a recruiter could 'poach' one of your references? I mean, maybe I'm unusual or it works differently over here, but from what I hear, most people's references in the UK seem to be managers or business owners for the companies they worked with, not the normal employees. Do people usually give their 'normal' colleagues as references in the US?
  • Naritai 8y ago
    If you've been working at a large company for several years, there may be very few people outside your company who know your work well enough to give a meaningful reference. Then, you can't give a manager's name, since they will almost certainly tell your own manager what is going on. That leaves only your co-workers.
    • CM30 8y ago
      Oh, you're talking about someone applying for a job and using a reference from their current company. I always thought people used references from companies they don't work at anymore.
      • Naritai 8y ago
        Yeah, for better or for worse that may be all a given candidate has.
        • CM30 8y ago
          In that case they should definitely avoid giving references until the last possible step. For those that do have other options though, I still think going with a manager/non colleague at a company you're not associated with anymore is the safer bet for these sorts of things, since recruiters won't have anyone to poach and your current boss won't know you're looking. (Solution 2 would be to have as many different references as possible and to give different ones for different applications, so that no one gets too annoyed by all the calls/emails).
• markbnj 8y ago
  Do people still check references? My last two gigs they didn't even bother.
  • xeromal 8y ago
    I feel like it's industry-specific. My girlfriend had all her references called for a position at an engineering (real) consulting firm
  • mathattack 8y ago
    It’s still worth doing even if there’s a just a small chance of turning something up. The only time I haven’t seen it be useful is employee referrals.
    • gtirloni 8y ago
      Honest question: what do you hope to find? As a source of information, references were hand selected by the person with an interest in getting selected, they will like be prepped on what to say, they have zero investment in your company's success, etc.
      • scandox 8y ago
        It's amazing what you get if you just stay on the phone with the reference. People want to talk. They want to say something meaningful. Once the cliches are dispensed with they're forced to say something real and at that point you get to find out the real type of person you're looking at.
      • aggie 8y ago
        Just being able to provide multiple people with meaningful positions (former manager at your company, etc.) who are willing to advocate for you is a signal. There are ways to fake that signal of course, but it's still something of a filter.
      • mathattack 8y ago
        80% of the time you get nothing. 10% you can get confirmation that you correctly spotted the candidate’s development areas. (Everyone has them, so it’s not a gotcha. But if you think the candidate needs to work on their architecture skills, their last boss confirms it but says they’re a great hire, then you can a good conversation later. “I’d love you to do X, how do we make you a great architect along the way?) 10% if the time you catch the candidate in a lie or find yourself asking “Is the best they could find someone to talk about their work?” When I reference checked nannies, the last bucket grew to 50%. And I had one nanny give another as a reference.
• chrisabrams 8y ago
  What do you do when the recruiter contacts your current employer before you even provide references?
  • inertiatic 8y ago
    Lawyer up if you can afford it?
    • ghostly_s 8y ago
      This is certainly scummy but how is it illegal?
      • inertiatic 8y ago
        I'm pretty sure it's illegal in the EU unless you provide explicit consent.
      • EpicEng 8y ago
        You don't have to break a law to be ruled against in civil court (in the US), but I agree with you; I don't see a case here (even checked with a lawyer who happens to be visiting.)
        • dragonwriter 8y ago
          > You don't have to break a law to be ruled against in civil court (in the US) Yes, you do; civil courts enforce civil law, which is actually law.
          • jopsen 8y ago
            If you ask and confirm that they won't contact your current employer, then might it not fall under contract law?
          • EpicEng 8y ago
            ... Yes that makes sense. No idea why I was thinking law == criminal law.
• TamDenholm 8y ago
  Being a contractor in the UK for the last 13 years i quickly learned when i first started that any recruiter that asks for references before they've even sent the CV to the client is a lying cheating scumbag and will get told outright where to go. All they are doing it looking for leads.
  • phkahler 8y ago
    The recruiter doesn't even need references. Once you interview in person you should have direct contact with someone at the company you can give references to if need be. The good ones will make the introduction and get out of the way. Yes, I believe there are some good ones (not many).
  • vosper 8y ago
    Recruiters in the UK are much sleazier than in the US, in my experience.
    • digianarchist 8y ago
      Indeed. I let the recruiter negotiate salary on my behalf as he guaranteed at least 50k which I considered my minimum to move to London. I went through the interview process because of that. They didn’t budge from 45. What a waste of my time and theirs.
    • madeofpalk 8y ago
      This goes for Australia, considering most tech recruiters in Australia are from the UK for some reason.
      • Paraesthetic 8y ago
        They like the weather here a lot better. Honestly they are the sort of people who don't deserve our sunshine.
      • jags-v 8y ago
        One of the reasons, may be how the work reciprocation laws work with UK & Australia
• patorjk 8y ago
  > I do know that my manager called me up pissed off about the phone call he’d received, and told me to not use him as a reference in the future. It's also important for your references to know that they're your references ahead of time. You may think you have a good relationship with someone only to discover that they aren't a reliable positive reference. People also don't like being caught off guard.
  • ageitgey 8y ago
    This is so important! Story time: I once hired someone as a Mid/Senior Dev at a large company in SV who had strong dev skills. Everything seemed great at first and we were very excited to have this person join the team. I respected this dev and had no personal issues with them. Our interactions were positive. However this person quit suddenly after maybe two weeks because they didn't like having to justify their technical approach on their very first project to other team members. They just wanted to work alone and not interact with anyone else. More power to this dev for seeking out their preferred work environment - I totally respect that! - but it wasn't exactly a positive experience for us. We spent weeks and weeks with Recruiting/HR and back and forth on offers to finally end up with someone who quit without any warning after mere days. And of course I get a phone call a few weeks later where this dev (without contacting me in any way) has listed me as a reference for their new job. What do they think I am going to say? "Yes, during the multiple days this person worked with me before they quit, they seemed smart?" Please don't sabotage yourself like that. Check with your references first!
    • trevor-e 8y ago
      Are you legally allowed to mention that? I thought references could only verify if you worked for the company, or otherwise risk being sued. Maybe that's a myth? Regardless, it's pretty odd he would put your company down as a reference after only staying two weeks.
      • magic_beans 8y ago
        References can say whatever they want.
• tqi 8y ago
  1) Your professional references may be better qualified for the role than you This is pretty far fetched. Anyone who would be willing to go behind your back like that probably isn't someone you should list as a reference. Also nothing about being done with the last interview prevents the company from going behind your back like that anyway... 2) You’re giving the recruiter something of great value in exchange for very little In my experience I have never seen house recruiters who add contact info for reference checks into the recruiting CRM. It seems like the kind of idea that sounds great/effective in theory but in practice is too much hassle. Maybe this only applies to 3rd party firms? 3) You may burn your references I don't think you should ever hand out contact info for someone (email/phone #/etc) without clearing it with them first, full stop.
  • hardlianotion 8y ago
    No need to assume nefariousness on behalf of the reference. Most shady recruiters will just tell you a friend referred them.
    • tqi 8y ago
      True. I guess the author's advice really should have been "don't give out reference info without checking with the people first", but that probably doesn't make it to the top of HN
  • ghostly_s 8y ago
    > This is pretty far fetched. Anyone who would be willing to go behind your back like that probably isn't someone you should list as a reference. Also nothing about being done with the last interview prevents the company from going behind your back like that anyway... Presumably some of these shady recruiters might pitch the position to your reference without even telling them they are calling on your behalf in the first place. Based on my meager experience with recruiters, I would not put anything past them. > Maybe this only applies to 3rd party firms? I read the article as primarily applying to 3rd-party recruiters.
  • SteveNuts 8y ago
    > Anyone who would be willing to go behind your back like that probably isn't someone you should list as a reference Well, the recruiter may cold call them without mentioning that they had talked to you previously. They're searching for leads.
• NetOpWibby 8y ago
  I wish I knew this eons ago. I’m sure there are some good ones...somewhere. But, FUCK RECRUITERS.
  • JavaAndChill 8y ago
    Former recruiter here (not a fan of the industry either), just interested: what happened?
    • NetOpWibby 8y ago
      Lots of lying and that lying leading me to not getting paid or putting me in unfortunate situations. Meeting times for potential employers, length of engagement for contracts, date of pay, and so on. Being a young, hopeful professional leads to being taken advantage of because at our core, we all believe that people act in good faith. The more I worked with them (and the older I got), I've learned that once money is in play all bets are off.
      • heavenlyblue 8y ago
        One gentle recruiter has agreed to a job for me. Then tried to blame me for his inability to hire me.
        • NetOpWibby 8y ago
          Sounds about right.
  • tormeh 8y ago
    A bit of nuance: The ones in Germany are seriously good, in my experience.
    • JavaAndChill 8y ago
      I used to be one in Germany, and trust me: there’s stuff going on you don’t want to know. Calls being recorded without your knowledge, zero respect for data privacy, recruiters sending out your CV without your knowledge (if they’re incompetent even to your own employer) - I’ve seen it all.
• mathattack 8y ago
  Isn’t this common knowledge? It takes time to properly prepare them and you don’t want to do that casually. And if it’s a headhunter... - Be explicit that they need your permission to send their resume somewhere else. - Don’t tell them where else you’re interviewing.
• paxy 8y ago
  The recruiter can look up all your connections on LinkedIn or wherever else, so it's not like the name of your old manager or director is some super valuable secret like the author is treating it to be.
  • deoxxa 8y ago
    Seems a bold assumption given that I (and many people I know) don't maintain accounts on linkedin or similar.
    • s1mon 8y ago
      In my industry, I would be highly suspect of someone without a LinkedIn presence. It's table stakes.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tiatia123 8y ago
  I mean, this is a no brainer. In some fields it is not easy to get a job. And in some cultures/some recruiters contact your references to "get a clear picture". What will your former boss[es] say, if the 10th person contacts them? "I am more than happy to provide references that can back up my application but please understand that this is THE LAST STEP in the application process". Always worked for me. Hint: The application process is often a good hint of things to come. Also, never go to an interview without a phone interview first to make sure you are on the same page.
  • daphneokeefe 8y ago
    That preliminary phone interview will also help you to establish your credibility and expertise before they get a look at you. In case you aren't a young white or Asian man.
    • tiatia123 8y ago
      I don't know about Asian males. But, call me crazy, salary is something that I would bring up. I does not make sense to interview for a position that pays far below your current salary. There is really no need to interview if you are not on the same page. This does not only save my time, it also saves yours. By the way, the guy the was the most pushy ever about my references was a guy I insisted on doing a phone interview first. After the interview and the offer he have, I had to kindly decline to proceed on the matter.
• jopsen 8y ago
  Is there really any reason not to just walk around an external recruiter? I had an external recruiter contact me for a position at big-tech-giant, but if was really going to apply for it, why wouldn't I just apply at their careers page? Or email a former co-worker who works at big-tech-giant and ask to be hooked up with a recruiter? I'm curious, what are the upsides to working with an external recruiter?
  • vonmoltke 8y ago
    > why wouldn't I just apply at their careers page? My experience has been that this is largely a black hole. > Or email a former co-worker who works at big-tech-giant and ask to be hooked up with a recruiter? Great plan, if you have former co-workers at companies you want to work for.
  • JavaAndChill 8y ago
    Often people one hear about a job because it’s advertised by a recruiter and they don’t tell you the company’s name until you agree not to apply there yourself. A recruiter can control the process better than an applicant can, and they prepare you for every interview, and (try to) influence the process by selling in your advantages after the interview. They’re also often in contact with the hiring manager instead of the HR person. Those might be reasons to work with them, but there’s also a good amount of reasons why it’s not a great idea
• JavaAndChill 8y ago
  I used to work as a recruiter (not anymore, terrible industry), and one of my colleagues actually sent a candidates CV to their current employer without their knowledge or consent. Things like these happen, because many external recruiters don’t take enough time for you when you’ve only just started working with you and they don’t know whether you’re “loyal” to them or just want to know your market value. And yes, references are used as leads. We were advised to call the companies and offer our services and to headhunt the people. There are SO many black sheep in this industry (such as my old company), and very few trustworthy ones.
  • Zelphyr 8y ago
    What are the trustworthy ones?
    • JavaAndChill 8y ago
      To be honest, I don’t know. I just assume there must be some doing a good job within all this chaos.
      • pavel_lishin 8y ago
        "Somewhere under all this shit must be a pony."
• king_nothing 8y ago
  OMG hellll no. Recruiters will often edit your resume/CV &| cover-letter, so ask to see what was provided to them to compare.
• roburtguy 8y ago
  Personally, I don't think this is that big a deal. If you're a good engineer, there really is no shortage of opportunities. If you're not a good engineer, then that is the root problem that should be fixed. For me, recruiters are just people who helps me do the logistics work so that I never had to apply for a job. "To this day, I don’t know what the recruiter said to my former manager, but I do know that my manager called me up pissed off about the phone call he’d received, and told me to not use him as a reference in the future." I think that's a bad manager. As a manager, especially in tech, you should definitely expect your co-workers to take the best opportunity available. As a professional, the manager him/herself should also take the best opportunity available. It's people's careers, be professional about it.
  • alex_anglin 8y ago
    As a good engineer, surely you recognize that topics such as peoples careers are poorly defined by binary classification...
    • roburtguy 8y ago
      Well of course, but I mean that as if you're not confident enough to recommend other engineers because of competition, then the root cause is probably your own standard of expertise that you have set that you have not met and should meet.
• dm319 8y ago
  How do people deal with present employers becoming aware that you may be looking for another position? Do people hide it (hold references back until a job offer, or give previous employment references) or allow their employer to know?
  • JavaAndChill 8y ago
    Don’t ever let your employer know. If they know you’re not loyal, but don’t find a better job or decide to stay for some other reason, you’re always going to be the one who gets the least trust, the worst projects (you might be gone soon anyway, right?) or even be the one who gets fired if someone has to go. Another reason why you shouldn’t give references that early.
  • phyzome 8y ago
    It's funny how it differs by industry, too. In software land, you keep quiet. In the service sector, people seem to be pretty open about it. In academia, it's definitely openly discussed. I'm kind of curious what it's like in law, civil service, etc.
• jrockway 8y ago
  I've never had anyone call my references. The most anyone has ever wanted is a W-2 form to prove I worked there. I think it would be kind of unusual. What's the incentive to give an unbiased reference for free? If I didn't like someone, I'd say "oh yeah, they're great", because it's not my problem and I don't want to be held accountable for the person not getting a job. If they are great, I'd say the same thing, of course. The truly calculating individual would get a request for a reference and think "wow, I could poach this person from the recruiter by giving them a poor reference and hiring them for less than their market value." I just don't see how references are A Thing. Maybe I'm just cynical.
  • Kluny 8y ago
    The higher you rise in your career, and the better companies you work for, the more you'll find your references are checked. When I applied for a part-time Christmas season job at a Photos with Santa booth last year, no one checked my references. For my current salaried job, they checked every single one (I gave four).
    • ubernostrum 8y ago
      On the other hand... I've been working as a full-time salaried (insert whatever term you like here for people who write code) for coming up on 13 years now. This past month, going through the process with a potential new employer, was the first time anyone insisted on contact information for my previous jobs and made any effort to try to check on them. I have worked at both small (startup) and large (household-name) companies, at increasing levels of seniority. None of them ever did that.
    • defen 8y ago
      What is the downside to just always giving a positive review, though? To rephrase the original question - this is recruiter/company A calling a person who works at company B to see if someone is suitable for company A. If you just always give a nice review, what is the downside for you? Unless you had genuine personal issues with the candidate, why wouldn't you just always give a good review? If the person doesn't work out, what recourse does the recruiter / company A have against you?
• pmoriarty 8y ago
  I never, ever, ever provide my references to recruiters. My references only ever go directly to the hiring company.
• futurix 8y ago
  I thought this was common knowledge? (it certainly is in British IT industry)
  • adventured 8y ago
    Traditionally in the US recruiters know not to call or abuse references, it has been an unwritten rule. Things have gotten a bit sleazier in the last decade or so, you can't trust them as much to stay within what used to be the culturally accepted boundaries. It might be due in part to the considerable increase in recruiters working remotely, they're not being as well policed or screened by their employers.
• alex_young 8y ago
  If a reference is so weak that they will go after the same job from a reference check or decide not to give you references in the future, you should know better and find someone else. Each reference should enthusiastically endorse you and want you to succeed. That often means providing several responses, because you are going to go get competitive offers right?
• pwaai 8y ago
  I'd like to also add another tip for fellow Vancouverites: When a agency recruiters tells you he/she/zir doesn't consider salary as an important metric for gauging quality, hang up immediately, especially when they use a blocked number. I hate commuting 1.5 hours for a 10 minute interview because the recruiter considers engineers as cannon fodder.
• TomMckenny 8y ago
  Or only give your references directly to the potential employer at the end of the interviews. May as well tell the recruiter this is your intent before hand. There are a great many recruiters in the world and it's worth sorting the good from not so good.
• tejtm 8y ago
  Why would you ever give references to a recruiter? They are not employers who have offered you a position you have decided to take.
  • noitsnot 8y ago
    Job offer is at hand and they are required to reference check based on the agreement they made with the company. That is part of the leg-work for the fee.
• hulton 8y ago
  Now I understand your angst. 10 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 3 months, 1yr 4 months, 2 months, 2 yrs 11 months, 4 months, 7 months, 2 yrs 11 months, 5 months, 1 yr 1 months.....
• ngngngng 8y ago
  I don't work with recruiters. 95% of them waste my time and don't bring any value. I don't play those odds.
• bitwize 8y ago
  A crooter once called my work's front desk asking to speak to me, so he could attempt to entice me into a different position on my work phone. Crooters give less of a fuck about your personal data than Zuckerberg. Don't let them have more than they absolutely need. Waiting for crooter firms to be hit with the GDPR banhammer.
• xivzgrev 8y ago
  I have another point to add to article: reference fatigue. If someone volunteers to be a reference you don't want them to have to talk to more than a few companies. If you are giving them out at the beginning that is potentially a lot of requests. I've personally never been asked until after on-site but if i had I would do what this article says: offer to do so after on-site and walk away if that's not ok.
• reureu 8y ago
  I got a call from an external recruiter: "I have a candidate who would be a great fit for your company." I'm just a lowly data scientist with no hiring power, and at that job the entire data science team was quitting. So, I mentioned that I didn't think the team was growing since it seemed to be actively shrinking with no new reqs that I was aware of. Recruiter immediately turned it around and said they could represent me and asked me to send them an (editable, e.g., Microsoft Word document) resume. Nope nope nope nope nope. I'm not giving you a resume that you can modify however you see fit, only to cold call and cold email it around to random people you find on linkedin.
  • keyle 8y ago
    Yes once I've even been told that this employer requires a Word document as Resume. So I converted my full generated resume to PDF into a word document, line by line. Turns out, it was only so they could slap their info on it, reword my words and produce a PDF. I asked the employer later, they said they prefer PDF as it's easier to print.......... Snakes. They're leeches in snake skin.
    • waitButWhy 8y ago
      Dude. It's one page of plain text. Maybe two pages. It will be transcribed by brute force in less than an hour, if need be. Probably by an unpaid intern. You either want recruiters to help do all the leg work for you, or you don't. And you either want the job, or you don't. If they have a policy of lubricating introductions under a branded letterhead, it's gonna go down that way. The file format protects nothing. And by nothing, I mean absolutely nothing. It doesn't even change the pace of what happens by slowing things down.
      • mixmastamyk 8y ago
        ^Cut and paste.
      • jayofdoom 8y ago
        I've been in the situation of an interviewer, having to painfully show the skills the recruiter edited into their resume to get them an interview. I absolutely agree with OP about being worried about edits, except I generally take it to the maximum extreme and don't use dedicated external recruiters at all when looking for work.
• noitsnot 8y ago
  Here's a company that did it to me: Sapphire Technologies U.S., a Randstad Company
• MatthewWilkes 8y ago
  I had one background checking service (run by a credit reference agency) forge a document authorising them to get details of my finances and send it to my referees once. The whole process is infested with the least ethical people imaginable.
• oldcynic 8y ago
  Hard Won Recruiter Bullet Points: Never, ever, give out a contact unless you want to burn that contact. That means no references until offer, no answering the mid-conversation "oh, I forgot, who's (CTO|your manager) there", no giving them the name of someone more suitable that might be interested. (Forward the role and recruiter to your maybe interested friend) Send PDF CV only. Word docs will be branded, changed, and in some cases leave you sat in an interview where you don't recognise the CV and skills that got you there. Yes, this happened. We compared my CVs in interview (I always take along a paper copy). Confirm rates or salary and conditions in interview. See above.
• tjr225 8y ago
  My understanding was that references are explicitly always available upon request and there's nothing more to it. If the prospective employer wants them, I'll give them to them if I'm interested enough. I don't put anything about my references on my resume and I believe this is the common wisdom.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• sfbaytechgirl 8y ago
  I only get references from candidates at the final onsite stage. The candidate can determine what they are comfortable with at all times. There are good external recruiters out there. The last point is the most important one: know your worth. Don’t work with people you don’t fee you can trust.
• BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
  I got asked for SIX (6) professional references at my last interview. Is that normal? Seems ridiculously excessive.
  • fphhotchips 8y ago
    Excessive in my experience, but not out of bounds for a sufficiently senior role.
• Paraesthetic 8y ago
  As someone who has worked in HR previously, this is great information for anyone approached by a recruiter. The whole industry is full of people just trying to pull together whatever they can. They are the used car salespeople of the professional industry.
• daphneokeefe 8y ago
  Wonderful advice from the community here. I always defer providing references as long as possible. There have been a number of occasions when I thought the outside recruiter wanted to make the reference calls because they wanted to make sure a weak reference wouldn't interfere with them making the sale. The hiring HR is happy for the recruiter to do the legwork. The recruiter makes sure their candidate is accepted.
• BadassFractal 8y ago
  We once lost a super promising candidate at the references stage. Guy was a star, we were going to pay him 180 base for a remote position from somewhere fairly affordable. That was a lot to us as a small startup, more than any other IC was being paid at the time. He loved the team, the product, the mission, the comp etc. We called his previous manager (not his current one), one of his references, to ask him about his experience with the candidate. His manager spoke very highly of his past direct report, we were quite happy with the outcome of the call. Except his manager then proceeded to counter-offer the guy with 240, once he realized he was on the market, and the guy was like "Hey guys, you're awesome, the mission is meaningful and all that, but I got a family, I HAVE to take the extra 60k, sorry". That was one day away from him signing. We couldn't afford to counter-offer, so that's that. Lesson: the engineering hiring climate is vicious right now, you might not want ask for references from your star candidates to avoid getting a last second poaching. Backdoor references in general are a lot better, but you still risk disclosing information that will lead to them getting poached.
• ataturk 8y ago
  I had to use Docusign to digitally sign an agreement for a recruiter to represent me on a gig. First time I ever signed up for Docusign. Fucking salesman began harassing me at my company e-mail address after that, trying for any to make a sale. Idiots. I have zero buying authority and used the damn product once so I could find a new job!
• drtz 8y ago
  I once had a recruiter cold-call my employer's main line, ask for me by name and falsely claim to the receptionist that they had already been in contact with me about a position. The whole office heard about it within 30 minutes. Not a good way to make friends.
• duxup 8y ago
  Since I'm looking for a job these days I saw a recruiter post a story on LinkedIn. The story was about this TERRIBLE TREND of some workers "ghosting" recruiters. They describe a process where a recruiter talks to a prospective employee, the prospective employee might even interview with the company. ... and then the prospective employee stops responding to emails, phone calls, any messages. It was theorized that these darned menials just don't know how to behave. I couldn't help but think that the whole article was some sort of recruiter trolling thing because outside of jobs that I've gotten in the past ... every recruiter has ghosted me. Amusing that they'd complain about it themselves. Talking to or working with recruiters is just a constant pain. They don't know anything about the actual technical side of my job (those that say they do know even less it seems) and I have to do this dance with them to fit their expectations and such. Can I please talk to the technical guy now? It will take us maybe 5 min to know if we should keep talking or not...
  • beckler 8y ago
    A few years ago, I decided to try working with a recruiter. I had never worked with one before, and I wasn't sure what to expect. But the first thing the guy did was spam my resume to like 60 something different companies. Eventually I decided not to work with him, and he warned me that if I got hired by any of the companies he spammed within 6 months, he was entitled to some sort of payment. I didn't know who he sent it out to, or if he was even telling the truth, so I just held off on getting a new job for a while.
    • duxup 8y ago
      The line between just a recruiter, a bad recruiter, and scams seem to be blurring.... :( Even looking for a job you hit scams, I've been on legit job sites and been hitting a lot of "fake jobs" that lead you elsewhere and ask for a credit card up front. Like WTF.... hey LinkedIn, this scam job has been up for a week man. Personally I wouldn't mind working with a GOOD recruiter, but I've given up on being able to tell the difference / know their intentions.
    • gmiller123456 8y ago
      You're not required to pay him, obviously, but that doesn't mean you're "free". A lot of companies will only pay a referral or fee if a recruiter brings them new people they don't know about. So those 60 companies who received your resume may have already filled the position it was sent in for, but they still entered your information into their database and keep your resume on file. So if/when you start working with a legitimate recruiter, they may not get paid as much or not at all. And obviously once the recruiter realizes that they may not push hard to get you the job, or even steer you towards other companies that will pay full price. I had a somewhat similar situation happen. A company I wanted to work for had a place on their website to apply for jobs, and I found one I was interested in and applied for. I never heard from them. A friend of mine who worked there eventually asked me about another opening, and they had a referral program where he'd get a few $k. After he talked to HR they said he'd get no referral since I was already in their system. I told him to ask why they never contacted me and he said their response was "Oh, we pretty much never look at applications submitted online". It didn't strike me at the time as to how shady that conduct was until later. Fortunately I went somewhere else anyway.
• tptacek 8y ago
  I give a lot of references and as far as I can tell, the norm is for offers to be contingent on references; that is: references don't gate offers. I think it's reasonable, and would personally recommend, that you demand at least a verbal agreement that an offer is forthcoming before offering a reference.
• ransom1538 8y ago
  Why do people use recruiters? %99 percent of the time you can figure out who the company is they are representing. Often recruiter sites will even list the companies they represent. EVERY startup I have worked for that does hiring, hates paying the %20+ markup for a hire. We would much rather give that cash to the new employee and use it to be more competitive. If there are two candidates with equal skill sets, one is $130k (recruiter (20k) + their salary (110k) ) and the other is $110 (just their salary) -- often management will lean towards the guy for 110k in a strapped for cash startup. They view you as a $130k a year employee NOT a 110k a year employee.
  • fphhotchips 8y ago
    Competent recruiters with good reputations and connections are like gold - especially in markets that aren't "Software Developer in Coastal USA". They know the state of the market, the main players, who is looking, who is good to work for, what the pay is going to be and whether applying is worth your time. They understand the value of establishing relationships with good people and will work to ensure a good fit for all involved, because the only thing better than a $20k bonus for getting someone into a job is getting a $30k bonus a couple years later by doing barely any work because both sides of the deal came to you. This is almost exactly like the difference between good, high value sales, and telemarketing. One is a relationships game, one is a commodified numbers game. Don't be a commodity, and you won't be treated like one.
    • heavenlyblue 8y ago
      OK, in terms of this - anyone from the UK had any actual experience of this caliber?
  • vonmoltke 8y ago
    > If there are two candidates with equal skill sets I thought we had a talent shortage. If there is a talent shortage, this should be such a rare occurrence as to be irrelevant.
• cletus 8y ago
  So the first thing I looked for in this post was whether this was based on experience in the UK because my experience (when I lived there) was absolutely godawful. Like soul-destroying awful. And honestly I don't think the rest of the EU (+Switzerland) was much better. I see no mention of it however. Tactics I saw included fake interviews (cancelled at the last minute; in some cases with places I knew people so I definitively found out they were fake), being forwarded to positions without consent, modifying my resume, pocketing pay raises from the employer (this was a contracting ie hourly/daily rate type deal), being told they were putting me forward for something when they didn't. Honestly the list goes on. So it's been more than a decade since I lived in London and I STILL get emails from some of these agencies (luckily to a now largely abandoned email address). Nowadays, at least in tech, I wonder if you should ever talk to a recruiter at all. The big guys do direct recruitment. Smaller startups tend to be via existing relationships and word-of-mouth (at least that's my impression). And in my experience company recruiters are orders of magnitude better than independent recruiters. On the subject of references, it's been awhile since I've had to deal with this, but the principle of being prudent with revealing your references resonates. In the past I've only done this as part of the company's due diligence after accepting an offer. No one is going to seriously check your references when you're still a resume in a pile. I can totally see recruiters cold calling references.
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• mabynogy 8y ago
  Yeah because some are just looking for names to use as prospects. I'd say don't give references at all. They ask that because they don't trust the candidate. It's a bad sign IMHO.
• kogir 8y ago
  It might also be prudent to register a few numbers in Twilio and have them forward to your references. Then you know if they were called and by whom, all while keeping your references' real numbers private.
• _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  As a manager I've worked with many recruiters. One called me offering a candidate. 5min later he made calls to my team to offer them a new job.
• perfunctory 8y ago
  Don't provide your references to a recruiter, period. After the last interview give your reference to a client/employer directly if they require it.
• vlozko 8y ago
  All these conversions bashing recruiters seem a bit... unfair? I work at a company that almost exclusively does their own recruiting. There's no commission structure or misplaced incentives to get someone in, no matter how bad they could be. As someone who's been interviewing regularly, I frequently interact with some of them and they are very genuine people. I've at one point had a recruiter whom I've had a delightful time working with. None of my interactions with her felt like a sales pitch and when it came time to interview, she provided a wealth of resources on how to perform well on phone screens and how to answer the usual algorithmic questions. On the other hand, I've had a recruiter who emailed me with their entire message in the subject line. Never a message body. He always made it seem like there was some amazing opportunity I was missing out on but the 1 or 2 times I responded out of curiosity, it was another run of the mill individual contributor jobs. I told him I felt like I was being hustled, hoping to get the hint across that I didn't want to work with him. Didn't work. So I told him I'm not interested in any job that doesn't provide a minimum of some outrageous salary and a very senior title. Haven't heard from him since. I guess I can agree with the sentiment that there are enough bad apples in the industry to spoil it as a whole. Also, avoid Talener in Boston. Biggest bunch of hustlers I've ever seen.
  • gmiller123456 8y ago
    >All these conversions bashing recruiters seem a bit... unfair It probably is fair at least to the recruiters they've interacted with. But good recruiters do exist. I used to date someone who was a recruiter, and her complaints about her work showed it was an extremely cut throat business. Not being the cut throat type of person herself, she had to deal with enormous amounts of stress of people screwing her over and pressuring her to do things she didn't agree with. She found great joy in helping people find work they would like, and absolutely loved talking to her recruits and business partners. She eventually couldn't take in anymore and left the industry, but she still interacts with a lot of people she placed even three years later just to keep in touch.
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• alexpotato 8y ago
  In my experience, recruiters who are too honest generally end up getting you a bad deal or not fighting hard enough for you. On the other end of the spectrum, the really slimy ones are so dishonest that the deal doesn't happen at all. The best ones have enough honesty that you can at least bet on them giving you an accurate general picture and they are just slimy enough to do and say what needs to be said to get you the job.
• BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  I was asked once to provide references. I asked the recruiter how this could make sense as I will give her three friends who will swear that I am extraordinary. She said she need three references and that's all. It was at the beginning of my career, I am so glad that such nonsense is over now.
• newtron54 8y ago
  This was great to read after giving my references to a recruiter.