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Understand that I'm not singling you out here because I see similar kinds of comments on lots of recruitment related threads on HN, but this comment: > My advi

Understand that I'm not singling you out here because I see similar kinds of comments on lots of recruitment related threads on HN, but this comment: > My advice for engineers is: understand what manner of communication you most prefer, state this clearly whereever you have a profile and stick rigidly to this. There is really no reason why a recruiter should have your number, and if they do, no reason for you to answer it if the number is unrecognised I understand what you're trying to convey to recruiters here but, and please understand that my intent isn't to be unkind (and certainly not to you specifically because I'm talking about a whole class of comments), what you may not understand is how this comes across and why it is not good advice for other engineers who may read your comment. It comes across as entitled and demanding, and marks you out as somebody who possibly lacks flexibility, and might be difficult to work with. You might like to think that you are very special and very talented, and maybe you are, but here's a dose of reality for you: I work for a company that nobody's ever heard of and, even here, we get far more applicants for our engineering roles than we have roles available. Inevitably that means we unfortunately turn down some very special and very talented people because there are simply too many of them in our pipeline to employ them all (much as I might like to). This in turn means we get to be choosy about who we hire and who we don't. If you come off as maybe a bit difficult to work with, or a bit inflexible, or maybe nursing a sense of entitlement, you're probably not going to get the job. Why? Because we know there's somebody else in the pipeline with the same skills and who is going to be easier and more pleasant to work with. So, at every stage of our selection process we're selecting against those former traits, and for the latter traits. And, let me state this again, I don't work for a famous company that loads of people want to work at. I've never really worked for a famous company, apart from one multinational retailer on a contract, yet this is the way it's worked at every single one of them and they've never really struggled to hire. (Of course companies moan that it's hard to hire engineers but what I've come to realise is that most of the time what they mean is that it's more effort than they expected or would like - a sort of reverse entitlement, if you like: "well, these people should obviously just fall into our laps.") We all have our preferences, and I hate talking to recruiters and going through selection processes but, when all's said and done, if you want the job you've got to play the game. I know there are far too many recruiters who appear to have picked up their social skills from the local reptile sanctuary, but (and especially if you want the job) do not be a pain in the ass to the recruiter, whether they're external or in-house. FOR ADDITIONAL CONTEXT ONLY: I am not a recruiter (I'm very much a programmer at heart), but I do recruit people for my own teams, and in fact I regard building a strong team as possibly my most important responsibility. This is because without that strong team I can't really discharge my other key responsibilities effectively.

MillenialMan 5y ago
I'll be blunt, I don't think this is true. I fully believe that forcing a recruiter to operate on your terms comes across as inflexible and I doubt they like it, but I don't think it will hurt your employability at all. If a company could afford to purge people for being skeptical of recruiters, they wouldn't be spending money on recruiters. Engaging in recruitment by definition means you don't have an adequate hiring pool. If you want me to talk to you, you can make time in your schedule and I can keep my number secret. I don't work for you, I don't need to be flexible. You reached out? Then you operate on my terms. That's completely reasonable and anyone who tries to suggest it isn't reasonable, is being unreasonable - and I think any protestations to the contrary are probably hot air. If they want me, that's not going to be the tipping point (nor should it be).
- bartread 5y ago
  It's possible this might vary by company or by recruiter. We don't make much use of external recruiters for technical roles (there are a couple that we do use from time to time). We do talk to them about their candidates, and they have warned us off people they've spoken to who were rude or demanding. We also have an in-house recruiter as part of our HR. In technology we don't often approach people directly (i.e., headhunt). I seem to recall we used it once for a leadership role a year or two back, but ended up hiring a referral instead. If you're demanding with our recruiter I may not even hear about it because they might reject you on my behalf (a decision that I will always support). But if you have been tricky to deal with, we'll certainly talk about it. That doesn't mean we're completely inflexible either: we pick a time of mutual convenience to talk, but we are going to want to talk. Quite often people will want to talk to use to find out more about a role before they go into a formal selection process. Again, we schedule these at a time of mutual convenience. We often reschedule telephone and in-person interviews (not that we've been doing a whole lot of those for the past 15 months) at candidates request because life happens. There seems to be some belief amongst a number of posters on this thread that the only or main reason we want to talk to you is so we can cut to a salary negotiation and hammer you down. That simply isn't true. Here are a couple of other important reasons we want to talk: - We can learn a lot more about who someone is by talking to them than we ever can by email; the same goes in reverse. That call is as much about helping you figure out whether you want to proceed with your application as it is about us taking you forward. - It's generally a lot quicker to deal with candidate questions on a phone call than it is in a potentially long email chain: I'd rather have a 10 minute call with someone than spend 30 minutes writing an email. This has benefits for both parties: both are usually busy. Time is often of the essence for both. We often do not talk about salary at all in an initial conversation unless we're concerned that there's a significant mismatch in expectation: we don't want to waste anybody's time. Again, let me reiterate the advice: don't be difficult. It doesn't matter whether you contacted them, or they contacted you: if you're really interested in the job, then be accommodating. This doesn't mean you can't come to some mutually convenient arrangement, but don't be a pain about it. If you're not interested then either ignore them (they won't take it personally, or even remember), or politely decline. You can even politely ask for more detail and politely decline if they're not forthcoming. That's fine, but there is no scenario in which it is beneficial for you to be difficult. This advice holds true with every company I've worked for and every reputable recruiter I've worked with. [This is not to say I've never lost my rag with a recruiter: I gave one a polite but firm telling off the other day because he kept phoning me to try to hawk candidates to me (yes, they can be as painful for hiring managers as for candidates). His line of thinking was that because he'd sent me an email in the morning saying he'd like to talk to me in the afternoon, my silence was a tacit approval for him to call me. It was probably the third time he'd called me when I was either in the middle of a meeting, or feverishly doing pre- or post- work between meetings, and I'd just had enough and pointed out to him that this was not OK. I still said please and thank you, and I did not shout or swear at him. I do get that pushy recruiters are annoying but this guy's behaviour represents only a tiny, tiny minority of my interaction with recruiters over the course of my career.]

MillenialMan 5y ago

I'll be blunt, I don't think this is true. I fully believe that forcing a recruiter to operate on your terms comes across as inflexible and I doubt they like it, but I don't think it will hurt your employability at all. If a company could afford to purge people for being skeptical of recruiters, they wouldn't be spending money on recruiters. Engaging in recruitment by definition means you don't have an adequate hiring pool. If you want me to talk to you, you can make time in your schedule and I can keep my number secret. I don't work for you, I don't need to be flexible. You reached out? Then you operate on my terms. That's completely reasonable and anyone who tries to suggest it isn't reasonable, is being unreasonable - and I think any protestations to the contrary are probably hot air. If they want me, that's not going to be the tipping point (nor should it be).

bartread 5y ago
It's possible this might vary by company or by recruiter. We don't make much use of external recruiters for technical roles (there are a couple that we do use from time to time). We do talk to them about their candidates, and they have warned us off people they've spoken to who were rude or demanding. We also have an in-house recruiter as part of our HR. In technology we don't often approach people directly (i.e., headhunt). I seem to recall we used it once for a leadership role a year or two back, but ended up hiring a referral instead. If you're demanding with our recruiter I may not even hear about it because they might reject you on my behalf (a decision that I will always support). But if you have been tricky to deal with, we'll certainly talk about it. That doesn't mean we're completely inflexible either: we pick a time of mutual convenience to talk, but we are going to want to talk. Quite often people will want to talk to use to find out more about a role before they go into a formal selection process. Again, we schedule these at a time of mutual convenience. We often reschedule telephone and in-person interviews (not that we've been doing a whole lot of those for the past 15 months) at candidates request because life happens. There seems to be some belief amongst a number of posters on this thread that the only or main reason we want to talk to you is so we can cut to a salary negotiation and hammer you down. That simply isn't true. Here are a couple of other important reasons we want to talk: - We can learn a lot more about who someone is by talking to them than we ever can by email; the same goes in reverse. That call is as much about helping you figure out whether you want to proceed with your application as it is about us taking you forward. - It's generally a lot quicker to deal with candidate questions on a phone call than it is in a potentially long email chain: I'd rather have a 10 minute call with someone than spend 30 minutes writing an email. This has benefits for both parties: both are usually busy. Time is often of the essence for both. We often do not talk about salary at all in an initial conversation unless we're concerned that there's a significant mismatch in expectation: we don't want to waste anybody's time. Again, let me reiterate the advice: don't be difficult. It doesn't matter whether you contacted them, or they contacted you: if you're really interested in the job, then be accommodating. This doesn't mean you can't come to some mutually convenient arrangement, but don't be a pain about it. If you're not interested then either ignore them (they won't take it personally, or even remember), or politely decline. You can even politely ask for more detail and politely decline if they're not forthcoming. That's fine, but there is no scenario in which it is beneficial for you to be difficult. This advice holds true with every company I've worked for and every reputable recruiter I've worked with. [This is not to say I've never lost my rag with a recruiter: I gave one a polite but firm telling off the other day because he kept phoning me to try to hawk candidates to me (yes, they can be as painful for hiring managers as for candidates). His line of thinking was that because he'd sent me an email in the morning saying he'd like to talk to me in the afternoon, my silence was a tacit approval for him to call me. It was probably the third time he'd called me when I was either in the middle of a meeting, or feverishly doing pre- or post- work between meetings, and I'd just had enough and pointed out to him that this was not OK. I still said please and thank you, and I did not shout or swear at him. I do get that pushy recruiters are annoying but this guy's behaviour represents only a tiny, tiny minority of my interaction with recruiters over the course of my career.]