3 ms·

Two things not mentioned: When I was hiring, a resume that came direct (e.g. through an employee referral) was always the first choice to interview. Even a cold

Two things not mentioned: When I was hiring, a resume that came direct (e.g. through an employee referral) was always the first choice to interview. Even a cold referral ("I don't know him, but he replied to my tweet about jobs") was a resume that had a "$0" recruiting fee attached to it, while a similar candidate from a headhunter carried a $10K+ fee. No matter which way you shuffle things, as an employer I want to talk to qualified candidates that don't have a heavy fee dragging them down. Either I save money, or I have more flexibility about pay, it's a win for everyone except the head hunter. Therefore, i always encourage people to network. It could be that you are marginally less attractive than another resumé, but if you don't have a fee, you'll get the interview and that may give you the chance to win the job. In which case, it's worth a lot more than $10K to talk directly to the employer.

raganwald 16y ago
I forgot the other thing: One good thing about recruiters from the company's perspective is that provide plausible deniability about poaching. While perfectly legal, if I personally start cold-calling developers around Toronto when I need to hire, I'm going to make a few enemies. But everyone knows that recruiters are going to be aggressive about finding candidates. For whatever social reason, it's perfectly acceptable to hire someone away from another company through a recruiter, but depending on how you do it you can step on toes doing the same thing directly. FWIW, almost any intermediary or pretext takes you off the hook. Meet someone at a conference? Hire them away. Meet someone at a developer lunch? Hire them away. Meet someone through a blind date service? Hire them away. But cold-calling them... Tacky and taboo.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I think the Toronto scene is especially sensitive to this because it is fairly small and seasoned developers are in short supply.

raganwald 16y ago

I forgot the other thing: One good thing about recruiters from the company's perspective is that provide plausible deniability about poaching. While perfectly legal, if I personally start cold-calling developers around Toronto when I need to hire, I'm going to make a few enemies. But everyone knows that recruiters are going to be aggressive about finding candidates. For whatever social reason, it's perfectly acceptable to hire someone away from another company through a recruiter, but depending on how you do it you can step on toes doing the same thing directly. FWIW, almost any intermediary or pretext takes you off the hook. Meet someone at a conference? Hire them away. Meet someone at a developer lunch? Hire them away. Meet someone through a blind date service? Hire them away. But cold-calling them... Tacky and taboo.

jacquesm 16y ago
I think the Toronto scene is especially sensitive to this because it is fairly small and seasoned developers are in short supply.