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LinkedIn yes, Indeed no. Almost all recruiters (internal and external) are active on LinkedIn. It definitely doesn't hurt to have a good profile... people will

LinkedIn yes, Indeed no. Almost all recruiters (internal and external) are active on LinkedIn. It definitely doesn't hurt to have a good profile... people will reach out to you. Recruiters get a lot of scorn, but I've had good experiences with them as long as you understand their incentives. They usually get some percentage of your starting salary, so let's say they make 15k if your offer is 100k (making up these numbers, but probably in the ballpark. Also, they only get paid if you stick around for at least a few months). If your offer is for 120k, they might make 3k more, so they have some incentive to get you a higher salary, but really, their incentive is to close as many deals as possible. Better to close two deals for 15k each then to drag out one deal for 18k. As long as you understand that their incentives are somewhat aligned with yours but not completely, you might have a good experience with recruiters. I've found some who are great and many others who suck. But the good ones will get you in the door with the right people and guide you through the interview process.

5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
I would say they mostly suck. Very slimy, unwilling to divulge basic information and will ghost you in a heartbeat.
- crisper78 5y ago
  I would say they don't mostly suck, everyone of them who I have worked with has opened up doors that wouldn't be open otherwise. Made my salary go way up too! Thanks recruiters you are mostly awesome!
- digitalsushi 5y ago
  And if your cell phone ends up in their list, woo-ee they will call you at 11pm on a Sunday if it means you're more likely to pick up. It would have panicked me to get a call at 11pm at one point in my life, but thanks to recruiters I just never answer the phone at all. Voicemail is my butler.
  - 5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
    I once had a recruiter call my companies reception, tell them he was my friend and have the call forwarded to my desk phone. Talk about shameless :D
  - philwelch 5y ago
    I get so many phone scams that I’ve set my phone to ignore all calls from unidentified contacts.
  - evilbob93 5y ago
    In the US, there are laws against calling after 9:00. And like you, I don't answer calls from unknown numbers any more, whether or not my phone identifies it as likely scam.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  From my experience there are 2 kinds of recruiters. Those most likely operating out of the same boiler rooms as tech support scammers who have pitch terrible roles and employ a spray & pray approach where it's just a spam campaign with very little effort on their side. Those are a waste of time, the roles are terrible and are pretty much never matched to your profile, and when you go through anyway the recruiter will not provide any value (I had one insist on me writing a short resume of my profile... I mean you have my resume in front of you, why don't you do it?). The rest which are typically alright. Again, quality varies, but I haven't had any outright "bad" experiences with any of this category. On the top-end of this category are those that understand the industry very well and what you're looking for and will only pitch you the right roles at the right time. The right recruiters can essentially be your sales team and are absolutely worth having on your side. I suspect most people's interactions here would be exclusively those from the first category as they're the ones that typically send unsolicited spam. The second category will typically show much more restraint in reaching out out of the blue, so unless you explicitly seek them out you may not even be aware they exist.
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    The real two types of recruiters are experienced and inexperienced. Most recruiters have not made a successful placement. It's a sales job and many recruiting firms hire entry level. These are also the recruiters who send the most inmail spam because their "training" is learning on the job. The chances of interacting with a junior third party recruiter is very high. A very small percentage of third party recruiters stay third party once they have a year or two of experience. If they are any good but don't love sales they go internal (recruiter for an actual company - less pay but far far less stress). A tiny percentage of recruiters stay as third party recruiters and are actually good. They often built networks from their early inmail spam days when they did get lucky and place someone so they don't send as many inmails now. You are almost always dealing with near entry level third party recruiters who are learning on the job. That is in large part why dealing with recruiters on average sucks. This is never going to change but if you are looking for a new job or you are interested in a role a recruiter reaches out to you about you can absolutely ask to speak to a lead or a manager of their team instead of them. "Hey I know the third party recruiting industry is tough. I am very interested in this position. Do you have a lead or a manager who I can speak with to learn more about this position and how to prepare for the interview?" That is how you get to the person who actually knows what they are doing. The immediate recruiter might make a stink but their manager likely wont. If you are actually a good fit for the job your chances of landing there do go up if they spend time to speak with you and help you prepare. They only get paid if you actually start there.
- deleted 5y ago
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- donkeyd 5y ago
  I agree that they mostly suck. The sucky ones are just very easy to filter. So you either engage them because they have a specific role at a specific company you would like to work for... Or you ignore them. If they work for a (recruitment) company, I'll look at vacancies on their web site. If I don't like them, I'll either tell them why (if I feel like they may be of use later), give them an annoyed reply (if they annoyed me) or ignore them. Sometimes, I literally tell them to either give me more info up front, because I can't keep having phone calls just so you can tell me you have 10 vacancies that I might be a good fit. I'd be on the phone talking about Java jobs all day long (I don't have any Java experience). If they don't send me more info, that's fine. If they do, I'll give them some feedback and possibly schedule a call if I like it. In short, this means I ignore most recruiters and the ones I've spoken to have mostly been pretty pleasant.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Add a code word or number to your profile like "If you are a recruiter and want to contact me about a position, please put this number in the email subject to confirm you saw this text and isn't a bot". 99% of the time a "recruiter" contacts me, it's a sweatshop spam recruiter who invariably says "Your profile looks interesting" and of course, has not seen the profile.
- giantg2 5y ago
  From the hiring side, I've seen some help the candidate cheat the interview. In my experience on both ends, they don't care about good fit nor qualifications. It's a numbers game - throw almost any candidate at a position to hope it gets filled, or contact as many devs as possible to make them a client. Recruiters that are actually part of the company tend to be better in my experience. I won't even talk to 3rd party recruiters.
- whateveracct 5y ago
  Good recruiting/hiringstaff tends to be a decent signal for a good company in my experience. When the recruiters treated me well, so did the company. When the recruiters or HR treat me poorly (e.g. after the offer was signed, the nature of my remote work & travel was trifled over with little guilt trips), the company inevitably ended up being what was being reflected.
orangepanda 5y ago
> They usually get some percentage of your starting salary Why they get a percentage instead of a flat per-head fee? Its not in companies' best interest to agree to a percentage, and recruiters have no leverage to push it.
- Lucasoato 5y ago
  Finding a Senior Dev is much harder than finding a Junior one, so maybe they charge a percentage for simplicity because the former simply has an higher salary and it would be too complex to charge different flat fees depending on the position category.
- nhumrich 5y ago
  I knew of a company that did a per head price. The problem is the higher the salary, the harder the role is to fill. They ended up going the percentage route eventually. I am sure there is a better price structure, but flat percent (20) seems to be the standard pricing these days.
wantsanagent 5y ago
FWIW internal and external recruiters can have very different incentive structures. What you describe is typical for external (independent) recruiters, but our internal recruiting staff are salaried and don't operate on commission/bonus.
bluedino 5y ago
> but really, their incentive is to close as many deals as possible. Better to close two deals for 15k each then to drag out one deal for 18k. Similar to how a Realtor doesn't really care to get you the highest offer for your house, or lowest price on the one you're buying.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
I second this. I switched jobs a few months ago after a recruiter reached out to me based on a crappy LinkedIn profile that hadn't been updated in at least 6 years. I get a fair amount of interest from recruiters and I don't consider it spam: they're doing their jobs and it might benefit me at some point. It's easy enough to decline someone's invitation if you don't want to connect with them.
waylandsmithers 5y ago
I think recruiters are great, as long as they actually work at the company they are hiring for. My policy has always been to respond to their linkedin messages saying thanks for reaching out but i'm not interested right now. One of those ended up becoming my current job. The outside recruiters, "I have a client in XYZ industry with 100M in funding!" type where they don't even tell you the name of the company, you should just ignore.
DrNuke 5y ago
> I've found some who are great and many others who suck. Seconding this, and LinkedIn being more viable than Indeed. Serious recruiters, at the very least, have a clear incentive to find suitable candidates. On the contrary, though, so many offers coming directly from employers are just used to test waters: therefore, you need to send them a direct e-mail to stand out from the pile of applications.

5350-uiop-1130 5y ago

I would say they mostly suck. Very slimy, unwilling to divulge basic information and will ghost you in a heartbeat.

crisper78 5y ago
I would say they don't mostly suck, everyone of them who I have worked with has opened up doors that wouldn't be open otherwise. Made my salary go way up too! Thanks recruiters you are mostly awesome!
digitalsushi 5y ago
And if your cell phone ends up in their list, woo-ee they will call you at 11pm on a Sunday if it means you're more likely to pick up. It would have panicked me to get a call at 11pm at one point in my life, but thanks to recruiters I just never answer the phone at all. Voicemail is my butler.
- 5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
  I once had a recruiter call my companies reception, tell them he was my friend and have the call forwarded to my desk phone. Talk about shameless :D
- philwelch 5y ago
  I get so many phone scams that I’ve set my phone to ignore all calls from unidentified contacts.
- evilbob93 5y ago
  In the US, there are laws against calling after 9:00. And like you, I don't answer calls from unknown numbers any more, whether or not my phone identifies it as likely scam.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Nextgrid 5y ago
From my experience there are 2 kinds of recruiters. Those most likely operating out of the same boiler rooms as tech support scammers who have pitch terrible roles and employ a spray & pray approach where it's just a spam campaign with very little effort on their side. Those are a waste of time, the roles are terrible and are pretty much never matched to your profile, and when you go through anyway the recruiter will not provide any value (I had one insist on me writing a short resume of my profile... I mean you have my resume in front of you, why don't you do it?). The rest which are typically alright. Again, quality varies, but I haven't had any outright "bad" experiences with any of this category. On the top-end of this category are those that understand the industry very well and what you're looking for and will only pitch you the right roles at the right time. The right recruiters can essentially be your sales team and are absolutely worth having on your side. I suspect most people's interactions here would be exclusively those from the first category as they're the ones that typically send unsolicited spam. The second category will typically show much more restraint in reaching out out of the blue, so unless you explicitly seek them out you may not even be aware they exist.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  The real two types of recruiters are experienced and inexperienced. Most recruiters have not made a successful placement. It's a sales job and many recruiting firms hire entry level. These are also the recruiters who send the most inmail spam because their "training" is learning on the job. The chances of interacting with a junior third party recruiter is very high. A very small percentage of third party recruiters stay third party once they have a year or two of experience. If they are any good but don't love sales they go internal (recruiter for an actual company - less pay but far far less stress). A tiny percentage of recruiters stay as third party recruiters and are actually good. They often built networks from their early inmail spam days when they did get lucky and place someone so they don't send as many inmails now. You are almost always dealing with near entry level third party recruiters who are learning on the job. That is in large part why dealing with recruiters on average sucks. This is never going to change but if you are looking for a new job or you are interested in a role a recruiter reaches out to you about you can absolutely ask to speak to a lead or a manager of their team instead of them. "Hey I know the third party recruiting industry is tough. I am very interested in this position. Do you have a lead or a manager who I can speak with to learn more about this position and how to prepare for the interview?" That is how you get to the person who actually knows what they are doing. The immediate recruiter might make a stink but their manager likely wont. If you are actually a good fit for the job your chances of landing there do go up if they spend time to speak with you and help you prepare. They only get paid if you actually start there.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
donkeyd 5y ago
I agree that they mostly suck. The sucky ones are just very easy to filter. So you either engage them because they have a specific role at a specific company you would like to work for... Or you ignore them. If they work for a (recruitment) company, I'll look at vacancies on their web site. If I don't like them, I'll either tell them why (if I feel like they may be of use later), give them an annoyed reply (if they annoyed me) or ignore them. Sometimes, I literally tell them to either give me more info up front, because I can't keep having phone calls just so you can tell me you have 10 vacancies that I might be a good fit. I'd be on the phone talking about Java jobs all day long (I don't have any Java experience). If they don't send me more info, that's fine. If they do, I'll give them some feedback and possibly schedule a call if I like it. In short, this means I ignore most recruiters and the ones I've spoken to have mostly been pretty pleasant.
alkonaut 5y ago
Add a code word or number to your profile like "If you are a recruiter and want to contact me about a position, please put this number in the email subject to confirm you saw this text and isn't a bot". 99% of the time a "recruiter" contacts me, it's a sweatshop spam recruiter who invariably says "Your profile looks interesting" and of course, has not seen the profile.
giantg2 5y ago
From the hiring side, I've seen some help the candidate cheat the interview. In my experience on both ends, they don't care about good fit nor qualifications. It's a numbers game - throw almost any candidate at a position to hope it gets filled, or contact as many devs as possible to make them a client. Recruiters that are actually part of the company tend to be better in my experience. I won't even talk to 3rd party recruiters.
whateveracct 5y ago
Good recruiting/hiringstaff tends to be a decent signal for a good company in my experience. When the recruiters treated me well, so did the company. When the recruiters or HR treat me poorly (e.g. after the offer was signed, the nature of my remote work & travel was trifled over with little guilt trips), the company inevitably ended up being what was being reflected.

orangepanda 5y ago

> They usually get some percentage of your starting salary Why they get a percentage instead of a flat per-head fee? Its not in companies' best interest to agree to a percentage, and recruiters have no leverage to push it.

Lucasoato 5y ago
Finding a Senior Dev is much harder than finding a Junior one, so maybe they charge a percentage for simplicity because the former simply has an higher salary and it would be too complex to charge different flat fees depending on the position category.
nhumrich 5y ago
I knew of a company that did a per head price. The problem is the higher the salary, the harder the role is to fill. They ended up going the percentage route eventually. I am sure there is a better price structure, but flat percent (20) seems to be the standard pricing these days.

wantsanagent 5y ago

FWIW internal and external recruiters can have very different incentive structures. What you describe is typical for external (independent) recruiters, but our internal recruiting staff are salaried and don't operate on commission/bonus.

bluedino 5y ago

> but really, their incentive is to close as many deals as possible. Better to close two deals for 15k each then to drag out one deal for 18k. Similar to how a Realtor doesn't really care to get you the highest offer for your house, or lowest price on the one you're buying.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

I second this. I switched jobs a few months ago after a recruiter reached out to me based on a crappy LinkedIn profile that hadn't been updated in at least 6 years. I get a fair amount of interest from recruiters and I don't consider it spam: they're doing their jobs and it might benefit me at some point. It's easy enough to decline someone's invitation if you don't want to connect with them.

waylandsmithers 5y ago

I think recruiters are great, as long as they actually work at the company they are hiring for. My policy has always been to respond to their linkedin messages saying thanks for reaching out but i'm not interested right now. One of those ended up becoming my current job. The outside recruiters, "I have a client in XYZ industry with 100M in funding!" type where they don't even tell you the name of the company, you should just ignore.

DrNuke 5y ago

> I've found some who are great and many others who suck. Seconding this, and LinkedIn being more viable than Indeed. Serious recruiters, at the very least, have a clear incentive to find suitable candidates. On the contrary, though, so many offers coming directly from employers are just used to test waters: therefore, you need to send them a direct e-mail to stand out from the pile of applications.