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I’ve used this strategy before, but I find recruiters do not respond politely and I end up getting increasing amounts of spam over time; I suspect from recruite

by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I’ve used this strategy before, but I find recruiters do not respond politely and I end up getting increasing amounts of spam over time; I suspect from recruiters sharing email addresses and especially addresses that are linked with any kind of recent response. When recruiters do respond to these types of messages, my usual experience is that it’s an even more aggressive hard-sell on positions based on some poorly copy / pasted sections of a job description, incoherent lists of buzzwords or technologies that make no sense as skills belonging to one single person (e.g. years of machine learning experience as well as expert in rails), and various all caps or bolded promises that they are paying a lot of money. This comes from every type of recruiter too, from giant big box headhunting looking for contractors to the latest and greatest stuff like cybercoders to boutiques like phaidon / huxley / other finance crap, on down to lone individual recruiters who have been doing it for 20 years and only got my email because a friend highly recommended them as a legit recruiter. Truly, in over a decade of working with all types of recruiters, I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time. It’s pure loss to engage with recruiters.

ryanianian 8y ago
I've not encountered any recruiters responding aggressively. My standard email does have a couple additional sentences in it explaining what I like about where I am and what I would stand to walk away from (RSU/equity wise), so perhaps that gives enough context about why I want what I want. > I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time I don't agree with that at all. I've worked with a handful of really great recruiters over the years who have really treated me like a human being with a career path. One placed me at my last gig by asking the company to create a special role for me. I recognize that's a bit rare but I don't see recruiters as being a waste of time. It's fair to treat them the way they treat you but I don't put them all in the same bucket.
fphhotchips 8y ago
> Truly, in over a decade of working with all types of recruiters, I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time. It’s pure loss to engage with recruiters. Strong disagree. Good recruiters work for employers by maintaining a strong network of candidates across a number of fields, and also by finding candidates for roles that are cheaper/better than others because they come from recruitment pools outside those traditionally used for the role. Example: a company might be looking for a Sales Engineering role - typically pretty difficult positions to recruit because there's a small pool of candidates. But, if you can find someone in consulting or traditional development/engineering that has the right skills, they can be brought on relatively cheaply. Good recruiters know this, and they know how to find and evaluate those candidates so the company doesn't have to. By the same token, recruiters that I maintain a relationship with have made my last three job searches significantly quicker and easier - I know them, they know me and they know who is looking for what. They've added significant value for me, and for the employers that I work with.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  Your comment reads like buzzwordy double-speak. Private recruiters _absolutely_ do not know sophisticated nuances of the skill set for different organizational sales engineering needs. Hardly any of the managers or executives in that company would even know the skills or experience they need for sales engineering, let alone how to recognize them in someone not already working in that position. It’s frankly crazy to hear this, just knowing how incompetent even the most prestige-dripping boutique recruitment firms are, how many totally inappropriate candidates they foist onto firms (I used to run all recruitment for my team at an asset management company and know very well how unhelpful recruiting pipelines are). The other thing is that these types of recruiting pipelines are exactly the well-worn, used-by-everyone pipelines. You mention various times that this approach somehow draws up unusual or untapped recruits, but it’s exactly the opposite. You’re just playing musical chairs with the same pipe of recruits that everyone else is looking at. As a final note, I appreciate how you blow right past the idea that recruiters are supposed to be negotiating in good faith on behalf of the candidate, even going as far as to suggest the recruiter would disingenuously represent a job to someone who shades outside that skill area just for the sake of “getting them cheaply” and not getting them a salary that would more fairly reflect the actual labor value they would be adding. You’ve pretty much made a great case for exactly why nobody should be working with these recruiters. The employer’s going to end up with a wrong-skills / wrong-experience candidate who is sold on one job but walks into the real job and quickly sees they didn’t want it, while earning below market compensation, and everyone’s unhappy in a year.
pault 8y ago
I got my most recent gig through a recruiter/staffing agency, and while they no doubt take a big cut I'm currently making about $60k over any salary I've been offered anywhere else. Also, every person they have sent for newly opened positions on the team have been great, and trying to find the same caliber of developer through job postings would have taken weeks or months. But yeah, most recruiters are terrible and provide far less value than they take in commissions.

ryanianian 8y ago

I've not encountered any recruiters responding aggressively. My standard email does have a couple additional sentences in it explaining what I like about where I am and what I would stand to walk away from (RSU/equity wise), so perhaps that gives enough context about why I want what I want. > I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time I don't agree with that at all. I've worked with a handful of really great recruiters over the years who have really treated me like a human being with a career path. One placed me at my last gig by asking the company to create a special role for me. I recognize that's a bit rare but I don't see recruiters as being a waste of time. It's fair to treat them the way they treat you but I don't put them all in the same bucket.

fphhotchips 8y ago

> Truly, in over a decade of working with all types of recruiters, I have never seen a recruiter add value for any party at any time. It’s pure loss to engage with recruiters. Strong disagree. Good recruiters work for employers by maintaining a strong network of candidates across a number of fields, and also by finding candidates for roles that are cheaper/better than others because they come from recruitment pools outside those traditionally used for the role. Example: a company might be looking for a Sales Engineering role - typically pretty difficult positions to recruit because there's a small pool of candidates. But, if you can find someone in consulting or traditional development/engineering that has the right skills, they can be brought on relatively cheaply. Good recruiters know this, and they know how to find and evaluate those candidates so the company doesn't have to. By the same token, recruiters that I maintain a relationship with have made my last three job searches significantly quicker and easier - I know them, they know me and they know who is looking for what. They've added significant value for me, and for the employers that I work with.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Your comment reads like buzzwordy double-speak. Private recruiters _absolutely_ do not know sophisticated nuances of the skill set for different organizational sales engineering needs. Hardly any of the managers or executives in that company would even know the skills or experience they need for sales engineering, let alone how to recognize them in someone not already working in that position. It’s frankly crazy to hear this, just knowing how incompetent even the most prestige-dripping boutique recruitment firms are, how many totally inappropriate candidates they foist onto firms (I used to run all recruitment for my team at an asset management company and know very well how unhelpful recruiting pipelines are). The other thing is that these types of recruiting pipelines are exactly the well-worn, used-by-everyone pipelines. You mention various times that this approach somehow draws up unusual or untapped recruits, but it’s exactly the opposite. You’re just playing musical chairs with the same pipe of recruits that everyone else is looking at. As a final note, I appreciate how you blow right past the idea that recruiters are supposed to be negotiating in good faith on behalf of the candidate, even going as far as to suggest the recruiter would disingenuously represent a job to someone who shades outside that skill area just for the sake of “getting them cheaply” and not getting them a salary that would more fairly reflect the actual labor value they would be adding. You’ve pretty much made a great case for exactly why nobody should be working with these recruiters. The employer’s going to end up with a wrong-skills / wrong-experience candidate who is sold on one job but walks into the real job and quickly sees they didn’t want it, while earning below market compensation, and everyone’s unhappy in a year.

pault 8y ago

I got my most recent gig through a recruiter/staffing agency, and while they no doubt take a big cut I'm currently making about $60k over any salary I've been offered anywhere else. Also, every person they have sent for newly opened positions on the team have been great, and trying to find the same caliber of developer through job postings would have taken weeks or months. But yeah, most recruiters are terrible and provide far less value than they take in commissions.