4 ms·

to me, recruiters === job boards. The interesting openings are through direct connections and referrals.

by shados 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago
Recruiters are not the same as job boards. I have recruiters that I’ve worked with for years as both a job seeker and hiring employees, I have met them for lunch. I can sit back, tell recruiters I’m looking for a salary that pays no less than $X and sit back. It’s never taken me more than a month from the time I’ve started looking to having another job.
lovich 8y ago
It's always going to be better for you if you get direct connections and referrals, but that is not happening at a fast enough rate to satsify employer demand for vetted employees. Additionally it's putting the onus on the employees entirely for making sure they are a good fit for the companies. If they truly have a shortage of workers they are going to either reduce the stringency of their requirements, raise wages to entice workers to come to them instead of competitior's, or train employees. The SF area does some of the wage raising, when they aren't colluding with each other to keep wages down, but the rest of the country seems content to just complain about a lack of qualified people without doing anything to change their situation
- scarface74 8y ago
  I kept a spreadsheet of when I was looking for a job in 2015 using recruiters. This was after filtering for location and salary. This was all within a two week period. I network like crazy - with people who know where the jobs are. Leads: 16 Position filled: 4 Phone Screens: 9 I didn’t like tech stack: 2 Didn’t have qualifications and didn’t apply: 1 In person interviews: 4 Offers: 4 Rejections: 0 - I took myself out of the running after accepting an offer. I actually had 6 phone screens in one day from different companies. Notice that out of the 16 “leads” none of my resumes disappeared down a black hole. I always knew where I was in the process and I knew that someone in the position to hire me was considering my resume. Also, I don’t contribute my 100% non failure rate to being a special snowflake. I was able to discuss each lead with a recruiter and had inside knowledge of what the hiring manager was looking for. I’ve worked with recruiters to hire people. The good ones form a professional relationship with the hiring company. Back in 2012, I left a job with nothing in the pipeline for a new job. I called one of the recruiters I had been working with and within 4 days I had an offer making $10K more with what was then a Fortune 10 company. My last job search last year took 7 days from the time I started looking to getting an offer with the salary, (slightly higher), the technology stack, the location, and the company size I wanted. The pickings do of course get a lot slimmer though the higher your salary requirements.
  - lovich 8y ago
    I don't doubt there's people like you who can make it happen and have it better off but there's no way your results are typical. I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. Additionally look at all the work you've put in. "Networking like crazy" as you say. This obviously had benefits for you and is probably worth it for the vast majority of engineers. However, why is this amount of work necessary to find a job in an industry that constantly complains about a shortage of engineers? It seems like they're crying wolf when they say there's a shortage but the hiring process gets more insane every year
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - scarface74 8y ago
      I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. The Fortune 10 company having a fast hiring process was dumb luck. The department I got hired in was originally a small startup that had been acquired by the larger company. The hiring manager was the founder of the original company. At the time, they hadn't been fully integrated with the company as a whole. As far as the results not being typical, I've had a former coworker who was laid off that contacted me because they call me the "job whisperer". I put him in contact with three of my recruiters and he also had a job within three weeks working for a large well known company. I did help him with his resume. As far as why I had so many leads, I attribute that to aggressively learning only what the market cares about, and at the time, my salary requirements were right in the median for what the market was paying for senior developers (and still $10K more than I was making).[1] I've since changed jobs again, but the learn things->change jobs -> make more money process stops being as affective and gets slower once your salary requirements go up. [1] I stayed at one job way too long and became an "Expert Beginner". My skillset and salary suffered the consequences. 10 years, 5 jobs, and a lot of studying later, I'm just now at the median salary for an "architect" and still have some gaps I want to fill in my skillset. Networking like crazy" as you say. This obviously had benefits for you and is probably worth it for the vast majority of engineers. However, why is this amount of work necessary to find a job in an industry that constantly complains about a shortage of engineers? It seems like they're crying wolf when they say there's a shortage but the hiring process gets more insane every year Out of all of the interviews I've done, I don't think any have been "insane". My technical interview at $largecompany consisted of a pair programming exercise correcting a program and making the unit tests pass. All of my other interviews have been the standard "explain your projects", talking and demonstrating architecture and best practices. I didn't have any programming work for my last two sets of interviews. But with so many "developers" out thier who can't implement FizzBuzz, you have to be careful.

to me, recruiters === job boards. The interesting openings are through direct connections and referrals.

by shados 8y ago

to me, recruiters === job boards. The interesting openings are through direct connections and referrals.

Recruiters are not the same as job boards. I have recruiters that I’ve worked with for years as both a job seeker and hiring employees, I have met them for lunch. I can sit back, tell recruiters I’m looking for a salary that pays no less than $X and sit back. It’s never taken me more than a month from the time I’ve started looking to having another job.

lovich 8y ago

It's always going to be better for you if you get direct connections and referrals, but that is not happening at a fast enough rate to satsify employer demand for vetted employees. Additionally it's putting the onus on the employees entirely for making sure they are a good fit for the companies. If they truly have a shortage of workers they are going to either reduce the stringency of their requirements, raise wages to entice workers to come to them instead of competitior's, or train employees. The SF area does some of the wage raising, when they aren't colluding with each other to keep wages down, but the rest of the country seems content to just complain about a lack of qualified people without doing anything to change their situation

scarface74 8y ago
I kept a spreadsheet of when I was looking for a job in 2015 using recruiters. This was after filtering for location and salary. This was all within a two week period. I network like crazy - with people who know where the jobs are. Leads: 16 Position filled: 4 Phone Screens: 9 I didn’t like tech stack: 2 Didn’t have qualifications and didn’t apply: 1 In person interviews: 4 Offers: 4 Rejections: 0 - I took myself out of the running after accepting an offer. I actually had 6 phone screens in one day from different companies. Notice that out of the 16 “leads” none of my resumes disappeared down a black hole. I always knew where I was in the process and I knew that someone in the position to hire me was considering my resume. Also, I don’t contribute my 100% non failure rate to being a special snowflake. I was able to discuss each lead with a recruiter and had inside knowledge of what the hiring manager was looking for. I’ve worked with recruiters to hire people. The good ones form a professional relationship with the hiring company. Back in 2012, I left a job with nothing in the pipeline for a new job. I called one of the recruiters I had been working with and within 4 days I had an offer making $10K more with what was then a Fortune 10 company. My last job search last year took 7 days from the time I started looking to getting an offer with the salary, (slightly higher), the technology stack, the location, and the company size I wanted. The pickings do of course get a lot slimmer though the higher your salary requirements.
- lovich 8y ago
  I don't doubt there's people like you who can make it happen and have it better off but there's no way your results are typical. I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. Additionally look at all the work you've put in. "Networking like crazy" as you say. This obviously had benefits for you and is probably worth it for the vast majority of engineers. However, why is this amount of work necessary to find a job in an industry that constantly complains about a shortage of engineers? It seems like they're crying wolf when they say there's a shortage but the hiring process gets more insane every year
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I don't know of a single fortune 10 company that even has a hiring pipeline that could be gotten through in 4 days unless you know someone with some pull, and the entire industry can't be friends with that small group of people. The Fortune 10 company having a fast hiring process was dumb luck. The department I got hired in was originally a small startup that had been acquired by the larger company. The hiring manager was the founder of the original company. At the time, they hadn't been fully integrated with the company as a whole. As far as the results not being typical, I've had a former coworker who was laid off that contacted me because they call me the "job whisperer". I put him in contact with three of my recruiters and he also had a job within three weeks working for a large well known company. I did help him with his resume. As far as why I had so many leads, I attribute that to aggressively learning only what the market cares about, and at the time, my salary requirements were right in the median for what the market was paying for senior developers (and still $10K more than I was making).[1] I've since changed jobs again, but the learn things->change jobs -> make more money process stops being as affective and gets slower once your salary requirements go up. [1] I stayed at one job way too long and became an "Expert Beginner". My skillset and salary suffered the consequences. 10 years, 5 jobs, and a lot of studying later, I'm just now at the median salary for an "architect" and still have some gaps I want to fill in my skillset. Networking like crazy" as you say. This obviously had benefits for you and is probably worth it for the vast majority of engineers. However, why is this amount of work necessary to find a job in an industry that constantly complains about a shortage of engineers? It seems like they're crying wolf when they say there's a shortage but the hiring process gets more insane every year Out of all of the interviews I've done, I don't think any have been "insane". My technical interview at $largecompany consisted of a pair programming exercise correcting a program and making the unit tests pass. All of my other interviews have been the standard "explain your projects", talking and demonstrating architecture and best practices. I didn't have any programming work for my last two sets of interviews. But with so many "developers" out thier who can't implement FizzBuzz, you have to be careful.