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Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter

• bravetraveler 5y ago
  I ignore recruiters all the time lol. I haven't had issues with finding good paying work - history, references, and a good bit of research in the places where I apply has served me well /shrug
• aluminussoma 5y ago
  I don't think the recruiter gets 10% of the salary anymore. I have seen recent recruiter fees for 20% of the first year base salary. People should know that.
• abledon 5y ago
  Love the idea of automating my linkedin email funnels... I might throw a GPT3 into the mix to spice things up...
• serverholic 5y ago
  Sorry but I do not care enough about my career to put in this much effort. Recruiters are a dime a dozen these days and it's so much easier to just wait until you need one. Even if it's a bit less optimal.
• kache_ 5y ago
  I always just respond with a "whats the salary range?" response, merely for data collection purposes
  • A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    This. It works. And it saves time for both sides ( and remember that recruiters have no motive not to disclose it -- the more you get the better it is for them ).
  • organsnyder 5y ago
    Same. Also to normalize discussing salary up-front. I'd say at least half of recruiters are forthcoming with this information.
    • wildrhythms 5y ago
      One question I have- recently some states (notably Colorado, California, Connecticut) have required job postings to specify the salary range. Is this something recruiters are required to provide via contact over email/Linkedin message? https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/states-and-cities-where-employers-must-share-salary-ranges-when-hiring.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/states-and-cities-where-empl...
• thomasfromcdnjs 5y ago
  I've been doing a variation of this myself over the years, it's gotten me good jobs. Sometimes, I'd simply say I want X salary that is ~20% more than I currently would have thought I was worth. Then sometimes the recruiter would come back and say that is actually possible.
• gloryjulio 5y ago
  You can get better data points from levels.fyi and teamblind
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    This is for part two!!!
  • rodiger 5y ago
    Those are great for larger companies but most smaller places won't have much listed there
    • gloryjulio 5y ago
      I agree. Although as someone who has been burnt before, I would not consider the position from a small company unless its a very senior and generous offer.
• dsr_ 5y ago
  The typical recruiting-house recruiter has a script that was given to them by someone else, has no particular job in mind for you, and does not know the difference between Java and JavaScript. They are, in short, one small step above spammers. Unless you are currently thinking about changing jobs, you should definitely ignore them. None of that applies to an in-house recruiter. Someone who works in HR for the hiring company, directly, may have years of experience, good training, and have a good idea of what the hiring manager is looking for. You shouldn't ignore them, although if you're entirely happy you should have a short message prepared -- "Thanks for thinking of me. I'm happy with my current position, but you never know what the future holds. Feel free to check in with me again in six months or so." TL;DR: reputation counts.
  • swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    Absolutely true. 3rd party recruiting agencies have very different motives than an in-house HR department recruitment. An easy tell-tale sign is that they withhold the name of the company until they get you on the phone. They have a contract saying once you're in direct contact with the recruiter, you are in their pipeline and they get rights to bill a portion of your contract. 3rd party agencies are incentivized to get you the most amount of money they can, so they can skim off the top. They are highly motivated to move you through and get you signed as quickly as possible, qualified or not. In house recruiting doesn't have this constant need to move candidates, and will be fast or slow depending on the needs within the company.
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    Hmmm... maybe I should have been clearer and more explicit about the fact that there are times when you ignore the script entirely. Companies that are known to pay top of market... Like you're not going to hammer Facebook or Netflix by saying "how much sucker?" if you're in a bottom of the market bracket. I also ignore the script when it is a company that I'm really interested in and excited by. I should clean that up. Thanks for the comments.
    • llampx 5y ago
      I liked your article, you don't need to cover every edge case imho. Its on people who want to take inspiration from your script whether they apply it like a sledge hammer or a goldsmith's tool.
• Spinnaker_ 5y ago
  I also recommend a response to every recruiter, but you don't need to explain your privilege, you don't need to suck up to them, and you don't need to justify your actions. "Hey ____. Before we move forward, can you provide me with the company name, a job description, and the expected compensation. Regards"
  • wnolens 5y ago
    This is what I do. That email in OP is gross. "Hi, thanks for the message. I would appreciate as much detail as you can via message. Interested in location, compensation, and what specific problems they need help solving. Thanks!" I don't take a call unless the work description is specific enough. I don't want to work on your "backend". If asked, I tell them my comp expectation is min +50k over what I currently make. And I sure as hell am not moving to the bay area.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    Or just a canned, "Thanks for getting in touch, but I'm not looking for a change right now."
    • dewey 5y ago
      If it's just that you might as well just ignore it and not cause any additional noise.
      • derwiki 5y ago
        Not GP but I can’t shake that it feels rude, even if expected. But more practically: if I decline after the first, I don’t get the other 4 emails they have queued up for me
        • wccrawford 5y ago
          If they cold-contact you, it is not rude to simply ignore them. If you have an existing relationship with them, then it could be considered rude, but it would depend on your relationship.
• duxup 5y ago
  My current approach: I don't have time ... the volume of messages is too high, and the amount of 'legitimate' inquiries are too low. And the odds of getting ghosted by the recruiter too high. If they're a recruiter from a company that I know and they WORK FOR that company, I'll respond. Having said that I think that is a good article and I really like that email.
  • CoastalCoder 5y ago
    Is there a decent way to determine that? I know there are two extremes: (a) recruiter is a regular employee of hiring company, vs. (z) recruiter works for an unaffiliated placement company. But i.e. if a recruiter is a temporary contractor with the hiring company, they'd still have an email address from that company, right?
    • macksd 5y ago
      I suppose it is possible that a temporary contractor has an email address from that company, but I think you can get reasonably high signal by looking at their LinkedIn history. Switching positions every few months is a red flag. Even if they're an independent contractor, longer-term arrangements with each client suggest better relationships and better commitment to real outcomes. I see plenty of recruiters who just work for recruiting firms and don't hide that fact. Anyone who won't immediately tell me who they're recruiting for gets ignored. I'm sure I end up talking to the occasional contractor but you can easily filter out a lot of obvious low-hanging (and rotten) fruit).
    • duxup 5y ago
      I find that a lot of people working for a recruiting company actually make it clear in their email with the address or signature. To some extent a contractor who working for the company I know ... I'd still consider that a direct company reaching out to me type situation that I'd be more inclined to respond. I don't find that it is hidden all that often, but that's just my experience.
• jppope 5y ago
  Great article, very thoughtful and definitely a useful template/ concept
• vmception 5y ago
  How could anyone come to this contrarian conclusion, even after reading the article it is baffling. There is a time and place for in-house recruiters and third party recruiters. This article does not identify them and obsessively takes the contrarian view with no supporting rationale for doing so.
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    Hey! Thanks for your feedback. I would love to try and understand what you're saying but I'm struggling a little. Can you explain what you mean by "There is a time and place for in-house recruiters and third party recruiters." what is that time and place? I honestly tried to be really nuanced (but clearly failed a little, thanks for that data point). I think it does speak to the fact that I have seen 20 years of the prevailing narrative that there is zero value to recruiters and this realization was, to me, pretty mind-blowing. I appreciate that "never" is a word that lacks nuance, maybe that was a little too clickbait of me. Sorry for that. Thanks again for the feedback.
    • Kalium 5y ago
      I wouldn't go so far as to say zero value, but I would say that engaging with third-party recruiters is generally an activity with a negative expected value. Generally they don't actually have or aren't willing to share the incredibly useful real and direct insights you wisely point to. Personally, I've found that high quality messages from recruiters are usually painfully obvious. They lead with the name of the company and show evidence that the recruiter read my profile. These are so rare that I completely skip any kind of bot-ish response to handle them. Most of the responses I can expect to the kind, compassionate, empathetic script you've so helpfully provided will not contain all three data points requested. At best, we can expect to get a JD and maybe a company name. Comp is usually withheld and the cycle goes around again. Treating the recruiter-spammers as humans, unfortunately, does not really seem to produce the results we would all love it to. It mostly seems to be treated as proof that the spammer has hooked a fish and just has to reel them in.
    • vmception 5y ago
      I like third party recruiters because I like to use them strategically. I know how they are compensated and they learn what I want to do, so I could get raises every 15-18 months by switching companies that they placed me at and they could get paid multiple times because turns out I'm a reliable employee! We knew to ignore each other for 15 months. It was a good symbiotic relationship. Sometimes they knew I wanted side gigs and would hook me up with the companies that "needed something yesterday!" while they knew I was employed at one of their client companies. sometimes the recruiter hired me on their payroll directly instead of letting me be a contractor with their clients. it was a fun time for some time. This has almost nothing to do with random outreach from them on linkedin. It is barely the same topic. But thats what I used them for. In-house recruiters are distinctly different animals with a couple of overlapping daily tasks and the same name, but the way to use them is very different. A company with one of those wouldn't be using third party recruiters and thats fine, in house recruiters can somewhat bat for you in a unique and more holistic way but they are still just gatekeepers you want to get passed so you can talk technical stuff with hiring managers.
• pizza234 5y ago
  I give an extremely simple answer, where I state that in the present, for $real_reason, I'm not looking for other opportunities, but in the future, I may. It worked! I actually spend a little bit of effort to filter out (block) incompetent recruiters, but that's all.
• pjc50 5y ago
  Possibly, but they left out the possible outcomes of "simply refuse to talk salary, or to talk salary in email" and "just lie about the salary and/or the job".
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    I did have that in there at one point. In my case I tend to either practice refining my script, or just thank them and walk away. It's in the autoresponse "without that data I'm unable to continue further discussions" You do have to stick to that, but it's IMO pretty clear but also concise enough that you don't well on it. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
• dschuetz 5y ago
  Interestingly, I have employed a similar sentiment so far, without knowing that it might be actually a good thing. I am trying to give at least one short and comprehensive answer that: I am not looking for new challenges, thanks though. Exceptions might apply to especially annoying recruiters who just don't care and ignore my wishes and send me useless messages regardless.
• Apreche 5y ago
  The problem I have is that almost every recruiter that emails me lists the positions they are trying to fill. Almost all of those positions are ones to which I am morally opposed. It's a waste of both of our time to respond positively and interview for positions that I won't accept under any realistic circumstance.
  • capableweb 5y ago
    I'm not sure how you go from "Never ignore a recruiter" to "Always respond positively and interview with a recruiter". There is a middle-ground where you can reply, without being positive and not setting up an interview, while not burning bridges that you might want to cross in the future.
• throwaway202202 5y ago
  This may be familiar by now but developers are very lucky. I left computers to move to investments, make 500k+/year but I envy the stability and choices that developers have. If I lost my job tomorrow it is not clear I could find another similar job. You have lots of options. It looks like the situation will remain this way during our lifetimes (you never know), but you should at least appreciate it.
  • dogman144 5y ago
    Great take. I turned down a path into finance to go computers, and did so to target the reverse of what you notice. Few other jobs offer pay and stability similar to a Dr. or Lawyer without the working hours and with geo-flexibilty. Few other jobs offer a shot at a massive personal liquidity event without the direct exposure to a recession like in finance. Few other jobs offer this pay for what's basically a trade without a tough physical lifestyle like working in O&G. If more "normal" people went into engineering, as in the normal white collar types who are smart but go into MBAs/MDs instead, I think we'd see interesting social impacts as more people discover that you can do flavors of digital nomad work without being the stereotypical tech bro. I think this is just starting to happen with MBAs who go into TPM roles. Eng paths re-enanble lifestyles that I feel were lost post-1970 for much of the general working population. Now, you can live and work nearly anywhere. No requirements to suck it up in Cleveland, NYC, whatever for the kids because of good schools and a good local white collar job. If you want to pack up and go to Europe, you can grab a visa from big US tech there, or small startups. Just meet the right recruiter. Wild stuff.
  • dboreham 5y ago
    I think this means that your compensation reflects the cost to your employer should you decide to quit.
• NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  I ignore 99.9999% of recruiters, but anything that interests me I just toss salary numbers that I find are funny. Makes it easier on all of us
• democracy 5y ago
  not worth it - they have a very high turn over, making connections there with everyone is a waste of time
• anonygler 5y ago
  Strong disagree. I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time out of sheer incompetence and disinterest. I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy. But the real secret sauce is referrals. Companies always prioritize a strong referral, ignoring mediocre interview performance, and will even skip the reference checks so I don't have to bug my network.
  • dvtrn 5y ago
    Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time Or share your data. I made a throwaway, but not obnoxious email on my domain just for recruiters a few years ago, so I could try tracking who I was talking to. Via three consecutive third-party recruiters I started getting cold calls and e-mails from recruiters I’d never contacted, never met, or never before engaged with from agencies that weren’t the ones I spoke to or sent a CV to. Soon I started getting other completely irrelevant email. Then the robocalls came. I later found that email address among five different data leak sources. Just so happened to be a different popular recruiting company that has “Cyber” in the name.
    • Tade0 5y ago
      I always ask where do they have this number from. One time the guy told me that the person who referred me "preferred to remain anonymous". I asked him if he realised that this is a violation of GDPR and that a typical candidate would recognize it as such? No coherent answer.
      • Cd00d 5y ago
        I've more than once asked a cold-call recruiter how they got my number where the answer has been a rather candid, "there are markets for such information". Kinda makes me regret the few years my LinkedIn profile had my phone number public, but I do wonder how successful these questionable personal data marketplaces are. I certainly haven't had a conversation get beyond "this is spam".
• eatonphil 5y ago
  That's a pretty big wall of text when most recruiters reach out with a single sentence or few sentences.
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    I like to think of it as spamming the spammers! The marginal cost of extra words in a "select all -> copy -> paste" is pretty low so I think it makes a lot of sense to be very clear and address any objections they might have in advance. I also have found through experimentation that posting one liners like "how much?" just results in the recruiter reverting to their own script of "objection handlers" The size and clarity of the message really does say "this isn't a conversation", "no bullshit" and "let's not fuck around here" This is my own experience though. I've been running with it and refining for about 6 months to a year. Maybe It could be better. :)
    • eatonphil 5y ago
      I think you could get the same effect but in like 6-8 sentences, 1-2 paragraphs. If I saw this text in a response, personally (and I'm not a recruiter), I'd move on since the person seems hard to handle. But yeah my approach is different in the first place. I only respond to recruiters who seem to put good thought and background research into their conversation starter.
      • AlexC04 5y ago
        I'd love to see your version of the same thing. The exact response isn't really as important as writing something that is authentic and in "your voice" You're probably right that a different response would work well for you. Though if a recruiter wasn't willing to read through that for the ~$30k payday I'd represent if they are successful, maybe that's one that I don't want to work with either. But we all gravitate towards people who we think we'd fit with. Maybe someone skips over me for coming across as a stuffy and a lot of work and maybe someone else says "finally a type-a jackass like me! we're gonna crush this thing" ha ha ha
• JohnWhigham 5y ago
  A recruiter got me my first job a decade ago when I was fresh out of college and my internship place didn't hire me and I was panicking to find something as I didn't have a backup plan. He helped me interview at multiple places until he found one for me (the pay sucked but it was a job). So yeah, they're annoying, but I do understand their place.
• k__ 5y ago
  There are few people in my life that wasted as much of my time as recruiters.
  • muh_gradle 5y ago
    The trick is to ignore them. Then they can't waste your time as effectively.
• frockington1 5y ago
  Add NYC to that list as well. There's no reason to move to either of those cities in 2022.
  • boringg 5y ago
    Outside of the fact that if you like the city, the surrounding land and the people that live there. As well as many other great reasons to live in the cities. Just because you guys don't like them doesn't mean many other people love those areas, please stop unnecessarily dumping on cities you don't like.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • datavirtue 5y ago
      I love city energy. Just have to opt out of the pollution. The automotive exhaust alone is rediculous (as a truck rolls coal in front of my house).
  • 1270018080 5y ago
    I can understand the Bay Area, but it's a little bit crazy to think there's no reason to live in NYC.
    • CoastalCoder 5y ago
      "No" reason is probably an overstatement. But it's certainly a different lifestyle than e.g. living in a suburban / rural area and working remotely. Many of us would consider it a step backwards unless the net increase in income was life-changing.
      • wnolens 5y ago
        Step backwards in take home pay and square footage. Step forwards in social life, romantic life, culture (if you weren't getting it elsewhere). If you're married with kids, NYC doesn't make sense. If you're single with passions outside work - it's great.
• speedgoose 5y ago
  I don’t want to work for a company that needs recruter spam to hire. It must not be a very attractive place.
  • llampx 5y ago
    - Groucho Marx
• dboreham 5y ago
  Always ignore recruiters.
• robin_reala 5y ago
  Who else has real and direct insight into how much money any given role pays? Your union?
  • mrweasel 5y ago
    I get access to salary statistics every year via my union. They collect everything from the member, support is almost always around 80%. Just plug in area, experience, title and if you have a management role. So yeah, my answer would be: most people have insight in salary levels. Also remember that in some countries you income is public record that can be looked up by anyone.
• tra3 5y ago
  Great advice, in my opinion. The incentives for recruiters are clear; to get you hired. They cannot however force a hire and there's a threshold for submitting duds -- their clients will stop working with them. I look at recruiters as a helping hand in the hiring process. That said I've had a couple that have wasted my time, so there's that. Typically, unless you're getting flooded, it takes almost nothing to engage with them temporarily. I like the approach the author recommends. Recruiters are folks that are trying to make a living too, there's no need to be nasty.
• thrower123 5y ago
  Recruiters need to pass the bozo test to prove that they have read and understood the first sentence of my LinkedIn profile before they rate anything beyond having their email reported as spam. It's a high bar for them to cross; I've only seen two or three in the past few years, and those I think were sold my data by Triplebyte instead.
• 1270018080 5y ago
  Counterpoint: Always ignore recruiters.
• andrew_ 5y ago
  I run a small agency in addition to my full-time gig. Every time a recruiter sends me a message I respond with a script that includes criteria for work that I'll do, work that I won't do, and interview limitations. I also include an agency hourly rate which makes most of them run for the hills. Every great once in a while I'll get a short-term contract out of it. The lone full-time contract I took on came about from recruiter contact, but he wasn't one of those keyword carpet bombing mooks. I've only ever landed one full-time job without a referral in 20 years in the industry. Referrals and niche market sites (e.g. AngelList) are the way to go.
• habeebtc 5y ago
  I make a habit of responding to each and every recruiter. The ones who send me jobs I am way overqualified for, or simply don't pay enough, I tell them my current compensation package with the advice to send relevant offers in the future. Realistically though, every external recruiter I have talked to since I got into my current big tech company has been a waste of time. They can't usually touch my comp package, and only the other big tech companies are likely to be able to (or internal recruiters).
• dogman144 5y ago
  I'm always nice to recruiters if they make the bare minimum effort. If the job isn't a fit, I offer to stay in touch. It has led to great opportunities for me simply by taking advantage of the network effects offered by a recruiter link. Things turn up if you talk around enough.
  • CoastalCoder 5y ago
    I try to be nice to recruiters who demonstrate that they've actually spent 60+ seconds considering if my resume was a match for the position. (Including my stated location requirements.) Occasionally I'll tell them that I'm not working on a different level of the software stack than their position requires, and try to point them in the right direction. No idea if that's helpful to them, but it's nice to feel like I've been kind to a stranger.
  • ibi5 5y ago
    The key to me is transparency. If they're going to beat around the bush about the details I ask for I'm not going to waste my time on them.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• onphonenow 5y ago
  "It is a wonderful position of privilege to be in and I’m thankful for it." Insta-delete if I'm doing hiring... ? I've found folks who actually deliver seem to have less of this type of long winded stuff.
  • Tehchops 5y ago
    Do you have hard data to back that up or is it just anecdotal personal bristling whenever someone says "privilege"?
    • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Real tech people don't blather. Yeah, I know, that's not "hard data". It's a pretty consistent pattern, though. Tech people have to be able to communicate with precision; they usually don't do "blowing smoke".
      • tomp 5y ago
        We also know that most (99%) of people aren’t like that. So while I’ll communicate straight, efficiently, “with precision” with other tech people, I’ll adapt a nice “professional, formal” style for most other business communications. Is this unusual?
      • Tehchops 5y ago
        > Real tech people Ah this fun gatekeeping meme rears it's head again. So how do you define "tech" people? Do you have a scorecard? How do they meet your assessment for "real"? Cohesive organization of atomic matter generally constitutes "real" in a lot of physics definitions. I'd argue trying to label someone a "real tech person" is a laughably subjective exercise that's so corrupted by personal bias and toxicity as to be utterly useless in evaluating someone's capability to participate in organized software engineering. Case in point: I have worked with several folks, in FAANG, who by all technical standards were "real" tech people. Polyglot programmers, could tackle any sticky logic problem. Ask them to communicate their solution to other engineers? To communicate with others with empathy? Be able to navigate conversations with directors and VPs about broadly implementing their solutions? Absolutely, 100% fell on their face. Couldn't do it. They couldn't form a cohesive, understandable, actionable statement about their work to save their lives. They'd go off on some completely pointless technical tangent that had little to do with the problem at hand. Code reviews they participated in ground to a complete fucking halt. Not because they actually addressed meaningful technical issues. No, they wanted to pontificate and show off how much smarter they were. In my not totally hard-data experience, people that maybe didn't have quite the "real tech people" skills but were expressive, capable communicators often actually shipped more meaningful work, more often, and built organizational equity not just for themselves, but for their teammates and managers too. Software development at any scale, like it or not, involves working with other people. In my experience people that go around gatekeeping and using some hilariously subjective ruler to grade "realness" aren't very effective at all.
• manuelabeledo 5y ago
  Good advice on salary negotiation, awful about "answer all the calls". Truth is, many first contacts are just to add you to their database. In some cases, there aren't any immediate openings either.
• emilyridler 5y ago
• MattGaiser 5y ago
  Eh, you need to use some heuristics on them. Any with "urgent requirement" should be utterly ignored. A personalized LinkedIn message is worth taking. The problem is that far too many of those companies are using an external recruiter to fill the job as the job is low paid garbage.
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  I have one rule about life: I do not work with spammers. This includes my career. Recently, I've been solicited for jobs where it was clear that the recruiter never looked at my resume. (I'm a software engineer, and the roles had nothing to do with software engineering.) I flagged these as SPAM. Reading resumes is work. Reading job openings is work. When a recruiter spams a job opening without screening the recipients, they're just trying to push their work onto strangers.
• city41 5y ago
  I think there is a better middle ground. > you don’t want to be a jerk to the one in 100 who have taken the time to carefully craft a high quality message to you alone. I agree with this. If I get the sense the recruiter put effort into the email, then I will usually respond. I'm sure I still fall for automated messages with this. But some recruiters really do their homework, really research you, have interesting and fitting opportunities, and can be valuable. The 99.99% of recruiters who are just spamming? Totally ignore them.
• lifeplusplus 5y ago
  Not sure how this got upvoted
• caffeine 5y ago
  I’ve been doing this for years. It’s good advice.
• atum47 5y ago
  Maybe once you're a respected programmer with some solid companies on your resumeé recruiters maybe nice to you. Fresh out of college, like I was a few years back, recruiters really don't care about you. They spam you likedin inbox and you email with generic messages to see if anyone bites. Back in my day they went as far as sending me whatsapp messages - the funny thing is - they don't even bother to properly answer you. I was coming back from the south of the country to my city, a long drive, and I received a whatsapp message from a recruiter telling me about an opportunity, since I was fresh out of college looking for a job, I stopped the car to talk to them, only to find out they won't respond you right away. I only got a answer from this person like 3 days later.
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    That's baked into the assumption of the script though. If your response is a copy and paste, who cares about the ones that ghost you after one message? Doesn't matter because the cost of interaction was quite low. If they send the ball back after your initial response THEN you know you can open a conversation up until that point, just assume it is spam and you're spamming them back.
• praptak 5y ago
  I am currently at my 4th full time job. Each and every one of them I got via someone I knew, even the first one. I spoke to recruiters but they were pretty useless for getting a job.
• rthomas6 5y ago
  I wonder if it would work to respond with a link to an online form to fill out with the job details. This website would also contain your resume and descriptions/code for your software projects. Kind of a script flip, making potential employers apply to you, rather than the other way around. Obviously this will only work if you are really good, and know it.
  • AlexC04 5y ago
    I've heard of that being done. It's actually the thing that inspired me to write the note in the first place. I didn't have time to take on the overhead of setting up a cool site / form to go with the response, but I could have the response. The form version of this works as an even bigger filter. Fewer leads will come though, more leads will be higher quality.
• hsn915 5y ago
  If you want a high salary you're not going to get one by going through recruiters.
  • vultour 5y ago
    Maybe in SF, but in London you'll often see recruiters working for hedge funds which offer pretty much the best compensation around.
• __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  I get a lot of recruiters that are trying to fill positions at defense contractors. So right away I know two things: - I'm not interested - They aren't at liberty to talk about the technical details So I always respond with something like: > Oh yeah, I'm pretty decent at {language}. But I want to keep growing, so I'm really not interested in writing {very old version of language}. Can you tell me what version they're using? I figure it's a good balance between "screw off" and bothering with a phone call that won't be fruitful for either of us. It keeps me in their rolodex (in my experience, recruiters have a very high turnover rate--so who knows who they'll be recruiting for tomorrow). Also, I like to imagine that some poor engineer is trying to convince the machine to let him upgrade, and maybe I can help them out, whoever they are, by making the old version seem like a recruiting hazard.
• rharb 5y ago
  Just today I responded to a recruiter who directly emailed me "because my LinkedIn bio looked promising", asking: 1) How he got my email address, since it is not affiliated with my LinkedIn profile (uses my work email and only contains information about my current position) 2) That I wasn't interested, thanking him for his time He responded, seemingly offended, that I "have a Gmail account, a very public account" that his "team of Search Engineers" found.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    I've gotten a bunch of recruiters at work too and in a few cases they sent the email to the wrong Matt because they just spammed every common email name combo for corporate emails.
• Rd6n6 5y ago
  > … and one in a hundred can double your salary. The time required to work with the 99 who can’t double your salary isn’t nothing, that’s a part time or even full time job spent courting people who are just spamming everybody on linkedin with a pulse
• qubyte 5y ago
  Most of the recruiter traffic comes from LinkedIn, which is not particularly surprising. The very first line of my profile there reads: Please do not contact me about cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFTs, or associated technologies. Almost all recruiters who contact me on LinkedIn are talking about... cryptocurrency, blockchains, or NFTs etc. If a recruiter isn't prepared to read even the first line of my profile then I think I'm fine to ignore them. For all other recruiters I'll send a polite and friendly "thanks, but I'm not looking at this time".
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    I have one line from 2017 about working on blockchain proposals. I never wrote any blockchain code. But it is half of my LinkedIn inbox.
    • qubyte 5y ago
      I think it happens to me because I mention that I'm dabbling in rust in my profile, and I guess that's a keyword they scrape for.
      • cableshaft 5y ago
        There are certain platforms that support smart contracts written in Rust (like Solana), so yeah, there's a chance that's triggering them.
    • duskwuff 5y ago
      Honestly, I'd recommend taking that off your resume, or describing it in a way that avoids using keywords. Your resume doesn't have to mention every job you've ever had, especially if they aren't relevant to the work you're looking for.
  • dariusj18 5y ago
    I bet you it's those keywords in your profile that draw them to send you a message
• CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I'm happy to invest in a relationship with recruiters who will be around for a while. But I get the impression that most recruiters have only short stints in that work. P.S. I would like to give credit to one recruiter though: Markus Edmunds. He'd been recruiting for a particular technical specialty a year or two ago. He really got to know my preferences and strengths, and never ghosted me when individual companies passed on my resume. I know that's indistinguishable from him acting in enlightened self-interest, but it was still a productive relationship.
• mikece 5y ago
  I like the template but I bristle at the notion that being a software engineer is a "privilege." I have spent countless hours training and re-training myself on technologies that change every few years: don't confuse my work ethic and interest in software engineering with some sort of passive privilege that fell into my lap. There are people far smarter than me who either cannot or don't have the perseverance to stay in this industry because it means having a never-ending commitment to learning and starting over (as opposed to having the privilege of getting hired as a manager at a company because of your blood line).
  • q845712 5y ago
    Is it easier if you reframe it as "good fortune"? For instance suppose that you or an immediate loved one suddenly developed a condition which was treatable and tolerable within your current life but took up 10+ hours per week. It sounds like thus far you've had the good fortune to always be able to find the time to continuously learn and re-train. Or if you think back to your earliest contacts with technology, whether someone gave you a book, told you the name of some tech to learn, helped you get access to a computer, etc., I think all of us who are working in tech have had the good fortune to have access to technology and resources that helped us train ourselves but I can imagine having had substantially less access earlier in my life and the deficit that could've left. So I think I've been overall very fortunate, and that's part of what's meant by the word "privilege."
  • cortesoft 5y ago
    It probably depends on how you got into the line of work. I always say I am lucky and privileged because through random chance, I developed an interest in programming as a kid and it became my favorite hobby, long before I chose it as a career. I spent hour and hours at it because it was how I played, and I became good at it because it matched my way of thinking about the world and I spent all my free time doing it. This was luck. I could easily have had gardening as my favorite hobby, or art, or playing music. I would have had a lot harder time turning those into a lucrative career, so in that sense I am lucky. Now, many people came into the field in different ways, so not everyone in the industry is lucky in the same way, but that doesn’t chance the fact that I am personally lucky.
• onion2k 5y ago
  I don't ignore recruiters. I tell them to $%^& off.
• gadders 5y ago
  After reading the responses, all I can say is that the US recruiting industry must be a lot different from the UK one. Or maybe it's different because I'm not in a popular niche like Python dev or something. I'm in the UK and I just looked at my latest linkedin recruiter message. They told me the company type, the role, the skills they were looking for. An accurate enough description to make me think it was a real role. They didn't include the rate, but that would have been my next question if I had been interested. If I'm not interested in the role, I normally reply with "Thank you for thinking of me but it's not right for me because [reason]. Good luck in your search." I might even refer them on to a friend if I know one that fits the requirement and may be looking.
• beeskneecaps 5y ago
  Ignore recruiter if they: * are a part of a large firm * use multiple fonts, sizes, or any color in their emails * send an email _and_ an InMail * text or call you * jokingly or seriously refer to themselves as a stalker * automatically substitute in your skills or past company name * ask for your resume when they can obviously download the LinkedIn pdf * don’t disclose comp * don’t disclose the company name * use tracking pixels or redirect links * send an automated sequence of follow-up emails (4 follow-ups = bot) Write them back if they seem like a human! “Not interested at this time, but let’s keep in touch. Thanks for your time” should do.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If they seem like an intelligent human, don't just write them back. Keep their name. When you decide that you're looking, let them know.
  • lbriner 5y ago
    It's no unreasonable to check if the Resume on Linked In is up to date by asking for an up to date one is it?
    • beeskneecaps 5y ago
      Agreed, it just is highly unlikely that the LinkedIn resume is out of date for most folks. Asking for a resume without asking if the LinkedIn resume is okay also creates a source of confusion. For example, if they don't ask if the LinkedIn resume will do, are they implying that a LinkedIn resume _won't do_? Do they need me to open up Word and retype my LinkedIn?
  • l33t2328 5y ago
    How can you detect tracking pixels?
    • woodruffw 5y ago
      Tracking pixels are just embedded 1x1 images in HTML emails. They're not hidden; they're just stuffed in the rendered HTML. For example, here's one from B&H photo: <img src="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bimages/email-icons/1pximgfortracking.jpg?email=status" /> Detecting them automatically is probably tricky, but you can avoid the entire problem by not loading external resources in HTML emails (or, better yet, always load the plaintext version of the email.)
• rr808 5y ago
  Does anyone know what the salary range is now though? It seems pretty random. Levels.fyi has a lot of very high numbers. Blind has crazy high numbers. I'm not sure if people are lying or including RSUs that have gone up 10x. Most experienced people in HCOL areas still earning 150k-200k max. When I talk to a recruited and ask for 300k often they'll say its possible but dont say if you have to be a superstar to get that. Meta seems paying 500k+ often and random big tech cos are all over the place.
  • comp_throw7 5y ago
    Compensation is multi-modal and depends mostly on these three factors: 1) Company 2) Level 3) Country (location-based pay is a thing, but the adjustment is typically much smaller than the differences resulting from changing #1 and/or #2) Top-of-band senior offers (annualized over 4 years) are in the range of 500-600k right now (Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Stripe), with a much longer list of companies hitting in the 400-500k range (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Lyft, Snap, Coinbase, Brex, Dropbox, Doordash, Square, Robinhood, Instacart, Snowflake, etc). Most of these places are hiring remotely. There's "way too many to list" companies paying in the 200-350k range for seniors; pretty much any publicly-traded tech company that grants RSUs should be hitting those numbers, as well as tech-adjacent companies. Some examples: Microsoft, Salesforce, VMWare, Grubhub (which is in the same space as Doordash but pays much less), Disney, Walmart, Workday, etc. Under that you have startups (with equity grants of varying levels of risk & EV) and non-tech companies.
    • rr808 5y ago
      That's a great answer, thanks
• throwingawayyou 5y ago
  I've gone back and forth on this issue. The bottom line, some recruiters help and can get your resume into the right hands. Aka, not on the shit heap.
• civilized 5y ago
  Does anyone, recruiter or otherwise, want a screenful of auto-response text? I'd cut it down to 2-3 sentences and make it much more direct.
• cletus 5y ago
  I went into this thinking I was going to disagree because honestly I hate recruiters and the time-wasting involved but I actually agree. Here's why: by having a template that he just copy-pastes. This is extremely low effort and will filter out a lot of recruiters. I also agree with working with company recruiters over third-party recruiters. The first thing many recruiters will want to do is "hop on a call". Resist this urge. In fact, don't even give them your phone number. Force them to use email to contact you. A phone call is a good way of wasting your time. If you actually need to call them on the phone, call them. There are lots of techniques recruiters will use to waste your time. One common one is if pressed on compensation range you'll get the answer that it's "competitive". Use a template like this to simply filter out time-wasters. If they want to get on a call, resist giving concrete details or otherwise just give you bad vibes, just stop responding. They can't call you. They don't have your number. Move on.
  • milkytron 5y ago
    > There are lots of techniques recruiters will use to waste your time. Why is this? Why do they insist on wasting a candidate's time when answering some simple questions via email is much more efficient? I've talked to HR people about this, and the answers I've received are not satisfying. A common response is that they want to get to know you, hear how you speak, determine if you might be a good fit. BUT, shouldn't they figure out if the candidate is even interested by verifying basic needs/requirements? The responses come down to basically they don't value our time as much as we do.
    • cletus 5y ago
      > Why is this? Why do they insist on wasting a candidate's time when answering some simple questions via email is much more efficient? That's easy: they want you invested. The sunk cost fallacy works. Think about it another way: being a recruiter is being in sales. Sales people love pipelines (funnels) so if you think about the recruitment stages a simplified view might be: 1. Email candidate 2. Candidate responds to email 3. Discuss on phone 4. Candidate submits resume 5. Organize phone screen 6. Conduct interviews 7. Negotiate offer 8. Accept offer Each of these steps has a conversion rate. Imagine you get paid $20,000 for placing a candidate. Work backwards through this pipeline and you might figure out you have to send 5,000 emails to place one candidate. That means each email you send, you've "earned" $4. Imagine if the response rate is 20%. Well, getting a candidate to respond by changing up the content or presentation of the email means you've now "earned" $20. If only 1 in 3 talk on the phone then each phone introduction you make "earns" you $60. And so on. it's a numbers game. They're just trying to get you to the next stage in the pipeline.
• DebtDeflation 5y ago
  Bad career advice I received early in my career: Don't talk compensation until late in the interviewing process after you've already convinced them to hire you. Compensation is the first thing I bring up now. "I currently make X salary, Y annual bonus, and Z equity. This position will need to exceed all 3 by at least 20% before I even consider it. Does that sound doable? If not, let's not waste any more of each other's time." Way too many lowballers out there.
  • l33t2328 5y ago
    I have to imagine that it is good advice for early in your career. When you’re applicant number x out of 1500 who all got good grades at a good school, have some good github projects, and do well at the leetcode, grating the interviewer by prematurely mentioning comp may not be your best move.
    • mywittyname 5y ago
      Fresh out of school, you're worth just about as much as someone you graduated with. 20 years into your careers, you may be worth 10x or 1/10 of that same person. Why waste people's time? It's a waste of time interviewing for a place if you know they aren't offering anything close to what you'll be asking. And if you're making 2-3x the median salary for that job title, you should probably get a comp range up front. I've been burned by this a lot. Don't talk comp, go through hours of interviews, taking afternoons off for in person interviews (in the before times), all to find out that their maximum for for the position is a 25% pay cut.
      • l33t2328 5y ago
        Right; I’m saying it’s value as advice tapers off as your career progresses
  • d23 5y ago
    Unless you're already extremely out of band and are pretty sure your range will be higher than 95% of your incoming offers, I do not recommend doing this. Never give first numbers, and if you're in software and haven't gotten past the middling, typical startup salary numbers and onto the mind-blowingly high numbers, you will not feel confident enough to handle a negotiation where you've already given away too much information.
• blizkreeg 5y ago
  Q for engineers on this thread: would you be more open to a "recruiter reach-out" if that person _is_ an engineer themselves but independently also helps startups build teams as a recruiter?
  • ebiester 5y ago
    The more you differentiate yourself, the more likely I am to listen. My priority is: 1. Internal recruiters. They have real pull. 2. External recruiters that give me real information and give me quality information before I get on a call and why I might be interested. 3. External recruiters that are working with a company that I have prior interest in. Below this, I usually don't respond. 4. Recruiters that ask if I can "get on a call" to get me details. 5. Recruiters from big name firms. (Robert Half et. al) 6. Low quality recruiters that have no connection to what I do.
  • deathanatos 5y ago
    I'd rather talk to another eng, but the problem with recruiters isn't that they're recruiters, it's that their email wastes people's time; cf. the article, and the canned response the article recommends writing: what if… what if the recruiter just told us those things up front? Then I'd instantly know this is worth responding to! Instead, we have to waste a mostly-automated round trip asking for what ought to have been done up front. Of course — the offer would need to be actually palatable.
• stakkur 5y ago
  I have to say--none of this advice would be actionable in all my previous experiences with recruiters. The truest statement is the one the author makes up front: >Recruiters are just cold calling More accurately, they're contacting a lot of people who's profile contains their search keywords. No recruiter is contacting only you for a req they're trying to fill.
• Tehchops 5y ago
  I don't know if it needs to be this elaborate. I like the idea though. However... > Can you send along the company name, a job description and, total compensation details for the role you’re reaching out in reference to? Should be table stakes. I've started having to walk away from any recruiter that insists on a 15 minute call without providing these details up front. I wish there was some collective awareness around the fact that if someone took a 15 min call with every recruiter ping they got, they'd be on the phone 5-8 hours a day.
• mmastrac 5y ago
  As others on this thread have pointed out - avoid unaffiliated recruiters, talk to affiliated/salaried recruiters from a company.
• dbg31415 5y ago
  I Dissent. I've seen so many shady tricks pulled by recruiters. I'm sure it goes both ways, but never forget the recruiter isn't in the business of helping you, they're in the business of helping the people who pay them. Seen recruiters low-ball staff, or tell the person that they weren't as good as other candidates... "but if you lower your day rate to be more aligned with your junior-level skills..." So when the person shows up, they feel deflated since they think we thought they were junior... but in fact, we loved them and just didn't have enough budget to hire them at the right rate -- and the recruiter helped us get their rates down because at the end of the day the recruiter only cared about putting seats in chairs for us. Seen recruiters spam over candidates without so much as doing a basic screening interview. "Oh yeah, he's great... he knows JavaScript and English..." and they're literally just looking at the poor guy's LinkedIn and they haven't ever spoken with him past a few copy-paste emails. It's a numbers game to them. They don't want you, as the person paying them, to ever feel like their shelves are empty. Seen recruiters promise people visas along with the offer letter... then for whatever reason, if the job shifts, the recruiters just cancel the contract and the person would get deported. Saw this in Sydney A LOT. The recruiters and staffing agencies don't care at all what happens to the person, as long as they get a commission. They lie and over-promise, and sell-sell-sell... and even if they only have a 3-month contract they'll promise someone a year, then just switch it last minute or have a cancellation clause. As someone who worked for a Digital Agency where we hired a lot of people through recruiters... the number of times some poor bloke would come up to me and be like, "So... 3 months probation then I'm full time? That's what the recruiter said... now you can get me a visa and I'll be able to bring my wife over here too?" and I'd have to be like, "Yeah sorry, Johnny... this was just a 3-month gig." Had one guy, "But I gave up my family's visa for this... the recruiter promised me higher pay and that you'd take over my visa..." Felt awful. And the poor guy almost certainly had to leave Sydney when the job was done. Worse... my GM wouldn't let me fire that recruiter. "They give us the best rates..." Was all so shady. Left me with the solid impression that these people were all just bottom feeders. Willing to do anything to make a buck that day.
• ricardobayes 5y ago
  Honestly that autoresponder reply reads a bit condescending and borderline rude, but it could be just me. 'This means I don't have the time to hop on a call' is not how my mother taught me to talk to people.
  • lbriner 5y ago
    Your mother probably didn't teach the recruiters to call you up without invitation to interrupt your day either.
• sebastianconcpt 5y ago
  Here is my version: Thanks for reaching out. I'm okay to travel to spend a week to work together every now and then but I'm working remote only and permanently from X1-Country and I'd only be interested in opportunities with compensations around X2 plus benefits and if I like their tech stack. Let me know when you have something that sounds like a match for that. Thanks again.
• karboosx 5y ago
  My idea for recruiters was special website with referral link where they could fill out all information I was interested in (the fields was required in order to submit the form) and big red information that stated: "If your offer will be interesting I will contact back on linkedin". In addition I made small control question, for example: "Whats the first letter on my LinkedIn description?". That way I know I don't talk with a bot and they really read my profile.
• klaudioz 5y ago
  I have a dirty trick to ignore "bots" recruiters in Linkedin: I just put a greek character on my name or add an emoticon, so I got a lot of messages starting with: "Dear name .. So, it's safe to ignore the message. Even when probably I'm not interested I used to reply with a template message, but I won't waste 30 seconds with a bot.
• koonsolo 5y ago
  Worst jobs I got through recruiters. Best jobs I got when I picked the company and applied.
• tomrod 5y ago
  Depends on recruiter quality. There are some 3rd party groups that are solid. Most are a waste of time.
• kstrauser 5y ago
  I’m not replying to the guy who wants me to move to Tampa for “up to $60K” as a PHP developer. (Nothing against Tampa or PHP. I’m just not moving there for that.) But occasionally I’ll get an email like: “Hi! I saw from your LinkedIn that you used to do X, but now you’re doing Y. That’s an interesting progression! I’m working with a company who needs people with experience in X who’d rather be doing Y, because they’d like to be on Y. I also see that you’re interested in Z, and you’d be reporting to our CTO who wrote a book about Z. Want to hear more?” I’m not looking, but I send them a nice reply and remember their names. If I were looking, that’s the kind of recruiter I’d want to talk to.
• Ekaros 5y ago
  To me it's pretty clear that I really shouldn't bother with ones that have position I'm not clearly interested in or isn't line with my own career. These are pretty clearly not desirable positions. So why even follow up with that spam.
• mywittyname 5y ago
  Sounds like this was written by someone who has very atypical experience with recruiters. Perhaps they haven't had their resumes copied into the database that gets bought and sold by every recruiting firm in existence. I could make a full time job out of replying to recruiters, because I get probably 100 "opportunities" a day. Most of them have never actually read my resume, or they are working off of a 10 year old copy that was bought from a data broker. And probably 10k other people get that same exact email, so even if I did respond, the odds are bad. If a founder of a company reaches out with a thoughtful message, there's a 100% chance I'll respond, even to decline. If an in-house recruiter for a copy reaches out, and shows that they understand why I'd be a good fit, there's a 100% chance I'll look, and a 50% chance I'll respond. I did get my current role by doing roughly what the article states. A recruiter for a startup reached out to me, explaining what the role was and why I might be a good fit. I interviewed with an intent to only leave for a 50%+ salary bump, and they offered 80%+ and equity, so I left. That being said, I ignored 99.9% of the other recruiters who reached out.
• MattPalmer1086 5y ago
  I pretty much always respond to recruiters that seem to have understood what I do, even if I'm not looking. They are gold. I usually ignore the others. The ones that spam me with positions that are clearly absolutely nothing to do with my career, I sometimes respond to asking why they think I'm suitable. And that's just for the childish pleasure of wasting a bit of their time.
• hatware 5y ago
  Strange article, if I didn't ignore 99% of recruiters that reach out to me, I wouldn't make any progress.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lxe 5y ago
  I only reply to recruiters from companies that I'm actually really interested in (but not currently looking to move), or places where my former colleagues work.
• mabbo 5y ago
  A simpler approach: just be nice to recruiters. Even the cold-calling, working-for-an-agency, just-wants-10%-of-your-salary recruiters. Most of them are simply nice people who are trying to make a living in a difficult and incredibly competitive business. Some are assholes, no doubt, but just being polite until they prove that they are cost you very little. I had a recruiter reach out this morning to tell me about great opportunities in <city> with <company>. I don't want to work for that company, ever, for serious ethical reasons. I don't want to move to that city (though it's not a terrible place). I simply said "Hi <name>, thanks so much for reaching out. I'm not really interested in any new opportunities right now. I'm also planning a fully remote career from now on, so moving to <city> doesn't really work for me. Thanks for reaching out though". It took 30 seconds. It burned no bridges. It made no presumptions about them and didn't try to harm them back for wasting my time. If they persist, I'll ask them to please take me off their list and not contact me again- as politely as I can manage. So far this strategy has proven 100% effective at handling recruiters, but it also makes me feel better because there's no negative emotions involved.
  • matsemann 5y ago
    > It took 30 seconds. I don't want to deal with that multiple times a day, though. They're not "nice people" when they disregard the only thing written in my Linkedin profile: "please no unsolicited calls". If they didn't even bother to read that single sentence, they probably know nothing about me and have nothing to offer. It's arrogant of them to waste my time.
  • c7DJTLrn 5y ago
    Exactly. I don't get the hate. We are so privileged in the software industry to have people on our backs all the time offering us work that it makes me kind of sick when people take it for granted. Sure, some recruiters will waste your time, but a lot of them are quite good at their job. It's literally their job to matchmake workers and employers. You don't have to be an asshole to them for reaching out.
• jyu 5y ago
  You know how everyone hates real estate agents? Imagine if a real estate agent did not need to take courses, become licensed, and face repercussions for unethical and illegal conduct. That's what a recruiter is.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  What is sad, is what has happened to the industry, over time. When I was younger, recruiters would woo you, and would act as your advocate. They would sing your praises (sometimes, with a bit of “embellishment”) to the prospective employer. They also made quite a bit of money. I suspect that outfits like monster.com devastated the “concierge” type of recruiter. Also, there were contractor specialists. They acted almost exactly like talent agents, getting a commission, whenever they successfully found a contract for their clients. I dealt with a number of them (as an employer) over the years. I think the “agents” are a thing of the past. Not exactly sure what killed them. These days, everybody, in every profession, is obsessed with scale. Lots of small numbers, as opposed to a few big ones. I assume that “self-service” sites have accelerated that transition. If anyone ever saw the movie Jerry Maguire, it sort of laments the same kind of metamorphosis, in the sports agent field. I have been rather shocked at the uncouth behavior that has been directed my way, by recruiters. I’ve been told that it’s because I’m older. They haven’t done or said anything to dissuade me from that point of view. Dealing with today’s recruiters was one of a number of reasons that I threw in the towel on looking for work, and just accepted that I’m in early retirement. In any case, I am sad to see the change, but folks seem OK with the state of the industry, so I guess that it’s really just sour grapes, on my part.
• xutopia 5y ago
  I reply gently saying that I have no interest unless it is my absolute dream job and describe exactly what that is. They are happy to receive a reply even if my demands seem bonkers.
• FpUser 5y ago
  In my whole life I've never been able to find any job / contract using recruiter. Obviously had to take matters into my onw hands ;)
• gitfan86 5y ago
  Funny Story: A recruiter sent me a detail post about a job. I wrote back and said I was interested. He never responded so I applied to the job online and got it. 4 months later he messages me and says sorry but it looks like the position has been removed. I didn't write back.
  • operatingthetan 5y ago
    I had that happen with a house once. I sent a house to my agent (that I had an existing relationship with), and they never responded. So I found a new agent and bought the house. Old agent reappears two weeks later and I informed them of what happened.
    • jackling 5y ago
      Curious to know what their response was.
      • operatingthetan 5y ago
        They had their assistant respond and they were cordial. The last time I saw him he was pretty condescending saying things like "this is the first step in a long process of finding a house." To the point that the assistant pulled him aside during the showing and asked him to tone it down and apologize to me. So him blowing me off seemed like more of the same attitude and I'm sure they realized they lost $25k on an easy sale. This was in Seattle so I didn't feel bad about finding someone who took me seriously in a fast market.
• rietta 5y ago
  Completely disagree. I have found recruiters to be nearly useless. However, my experience is through the lens of someone who created a consulting practice bit by bit and have gained a good reputation in my niche. Recruiters don't help people like me. Those on LinkedIn who don't even read your profile are the worst.
• jedberg 5y ago
  A great tip I heard was to put something at the top of your LinkedIn profile like "If you're messaging me about a job opening, please tell me your favorite song at the top of your message". That way you can throw away any message that doesn't start with the answer because you know it was a bulk mail and they didn't actually read your profile.
• yupper32 5y ago
  I ignore all recruiters for a few reasons: 1. It's not like they give up. I've been receiving the same emails from the same firms for years and years. 2. You can't just respond. The few times I've responded years ago meant that they follow up at an even more frequent pace, even when I made it clear I wasn't interested. Sometimes calling me after I said no! 3. It's clear very few of them actually read my profile. 4. Very few are upfront with compensation.
• ghostoftiber 5y ago
  I like forcing recruiters to voicemail. It's the same for email. This doesn't mean I am ignoring them but it does give me a way to filter who I even reply to. If they send me a badly written, very generic email for something like Helpdesk Level 1, something I'm not even doing or isn't on my resume, or CEO of Company X for $10/hr, I don't even reply. The voicemail works the same way - if they can't seem to render a sentence, be topical, or sound conversant in the local language, I just delete it. If it sounds remotely interesting, I might send them an email back. The exception is AWS/Azure/Google which is heavily recruiting for TAMs and they're having a heck of a time filling the seats and keeping them filled. If they're $MAJOR_CLOUD_PROVIDER I always ask them if its for a TAM or similar role up front. I have a small blacklist of companies too - folks I know who are going to go through the entire interview process and it doesn't matter whats said because they're going to lowball the crap out of people. I don't want to work for bottom-feeders. The "good offers" I get typically come from someone who has seen an open source contribution from me, or someone I know from consulting. If you find yourself jammed up in your career and you can't find that next lillypad, try consulting to build up your connections. It's a good way to get the inside story at companies, and also if you find a company you really like, it's very possible to arrange something so that they hire you on some split between your consulting rate and your pay rate so you and them win. Check your employment contract first, local laws, etc. Check my profile for an email to send your resume to if you want to chat.
  • CRConrad 5y ago
    > heavily recruiting for TAMs > ask them if its for a TAM I could of course easily search the Internet for the meaning of that acronym, but where's the fun in that? I'll stick with the first thing that popped into my head: Tits & Ass Manager.
• eez0 5y ago
  There is no one better than yourself to get what you're looking for, so instead of relying in a third party to give you the edge, make sure you're already on the top of the wave. I never work with external recruiters (staffing agencies)I have made the exception three times, and all of them ended with a poor experience, basically repeating the same information over and over again between them and the people from the actual company.
• throckmortra 5y ago
  * no 3rd party recruiters * won't respond if compensation isn't posted up front My simple rules of engagement
• bdamm 5y ago
  The only value a recruiter brings to me these days is someone to practice light interview skills with when I'm feeling like I need a reminder that I can still do it.
• mkl95 5y ago
  When you are a junior engineer, recruiters ignore you or use you to boost their career. When you are a senior engineer, you ignore recruiters or use them to boost your career.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• whateveracct 5y ago
  Always worth talking to ones with opportunities that seem interesting. Those are rare. But if you do and follow up every 6mo/year..you can just ping them whenever you're ready to move on and you'll have an interview.
• 908B64B197 5y ago
  I think we have this post every few months on this site, so let me explain how recruiting works. There's 3 types/market for recruiters and they almost never overlap. The first are "body shop style" recruiters. It's basically a numbers game where they try to cold-call as much people with githubs/linkedin or blogs that reference programming. They don't know programming (not even what's the difference between languages or front-end/back-end) and are looking for a list of buzzwords. They'll send copy-pasted messages (you can tell because it references tech you never used or never even claimed to have used). If you respond (and really you shouldn't) you won't be able to get any relevant information about the position because... they don't have it. These recruiters are often contracted by external firms in "best value countries" and are given canned response to message you. That's probably what the author encountered. Second type are professional recruiters. Their salary is by commissions will often be a percentage of your salary. They are knowledgeable about programming and tech (often former engineers who wanted a break from coding!). They typically are looking to match specific profiles to specific jobs at client companies. This goes all the way to recruiters specialized in C-Suite executives (and you can picture the commission finding a CEO will bring in). Their messages will be personalized and you shouldn't hesitate to reply back even if you aren't looking for a job. They know that most great software engineers are almost never openly looking for a job so their goal is to be on good terms with a large number of talented developers so that the minute they start looking for a job they can match them with positions. You'll know when you encounter one. Third type is basically referrals. A players attract A players, smart companies know it. Make sure your referral bonus is a percentage of total comp. It's probably the most effective way of recruiting (it has an insane signal to noise ratio). But you only get access to that type of network by... bringing value and being part of it in the first place!
• lizknope 5y ago
  A lot of recruiters won't list the company that they are recruiting for. I assume this is because you could just apply to the company directly and they wouldn't get their fee. One time I asked the company who they were recruiting for. They told me the company name and I replied with "I already work there." This was on LinkedIn where my current employer is on my page and anyone can see it.
• justinlloyd 5y ago
  Like most things in life, 90% of everything is crap. That goes double for recruiters. I've worked with only two competent recruiters in my very long career, who have, at most, gotten me a low double-digit raise at best. I've had one recruiter royally screw up an offer to the point the company rescinded, and I've had another recruiter use coercion on me to not work at SONY for 20% more than the other company was offering. But as only a single data point, I can quite emphatically say no recruiter has ever doubled my money for me. I will also say that most recruiter outreach, even in this hot market, is absolutely lousy, and the compensation on offer is below what I am currently earning at a company I am exceptionally happy with doing work I love, and I don't consider myself to be overly compensated. Most recruiters that do any outreach immediately ghost me when I ask about compensation range, and if compensation range is mentioned, it has yet to be more than what I currently make. Once or twice in the past three months I've had an "upto $X for the right candidate" where $X is only 10% more than what I am currently making, so it is highly unlikely I will get that upper bound. If I responded to every recruiter that reached out to me via email and LinkedIn I'd spend many more hours per day wasting my time than I would care to think about. And most recruiters that reach out to me these days are of the exceptionally low quality churn'n'burn variety. I currently have three recruiter messages open on LinkedIn, one for an animator with 2+ years of experience, another for someone wanting a mid-level front-end web developer for an AR application, and another for a "senior" Java programmer. I don't do any of those things, didn't even look at my profile or C.V. Just a scattershot approach, which you would think on LinkedIn, with its targetted InMails, it wouldn't be the case. But here we are. Of the one recruiter out of the three who didn't immediately ghost when asked about compensation (always my first question), the upper bound is $80K below what I currently make, and again, I don't consider myself well compensated. My recommendation is never waste your time with any recruiter, but if you must, expend it on those that actually work for the company they are hiring for.
• stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I don't ignore them, I give their email or voice mail a quick perusal. Maybe 1 in 4 pass that I'll reach back out to them. Things I look for 1. did they name someone/some company that I know 2. Does it look like a form letter 3. Do they have a "give me all these details" section of the email on the 1st email. Instant trash can on that one. 4. Does it fall under the regime of things I do. 5. What email address alias/phone number did they have access to.
• not2b 5y ago
  In my view (your experience may differ): almost always ignore a recruiter, unless getting out of your current job situation is so urgent that you're willing to waste a ton of time, or the recruiter presents a very specific proposal that makes clear that they've done their homework meaning that you are a great fit for a unique opportunity. In some cases going through a recruiter is a guarantee that you won't get a position, because a third-party recruiter tries to sell you to a company that has its own recruiters and is unwilling to pay the third-party recruiter's fee.
• michelb 5y ago
  Obviously this is geared towards software development, and my personal experience with recruiters for software jobs is similar to most here. However, I sometimes help out my client's HR departments and the recruitment experience for other jobs is vastly different. Like searching for expert welders or other specific skillsets, not unlike the ones that exists in software development (+10 years java, +15 years embedded C, etc.). They almost always use external recruiters for the first filtering, and they deliver quality candidates. Expensive fees, but worth it. Why is this such a problem with recruitment for software development? Are there recruitment shops that DO understand the differences in software development?
  • mulmen 5y ago
    The uncomfortable truth is that quality doesn't matter in software. When you need something welded you need an expert. Most companies don't need or even want a candidate with 10 years of Java experience. They want someone with barely enough skills to ship the minimum portion of the feature the business will accept. It's an evolutionary process. If companies wanted high quality candidates the market would deliver a solution. In software it just doesn't matter for most cases.
    • valdiorn 5y ago
      I'd argue that it does matter, however it's incredibly difficult to measure "quality" of a software project, so there's no real way to distinguish crappy software engineers from good ones. Even people with 15+ years of experience have often just been delivering dogshit for 15+ years.
• kaydub 5y ago
  No, I definitely ignore recruiters. Internal recruiters I may respond, but if you're some consultancy firm or recruiting firm I'll never work with you. My skills are in demand. When I want a new job I'll reach out for it. It'll be there.
• db1234 5y ago
  I just want to say I feel blessed to work in a field where companies bombard you with opportunities. I may not reply to recruiter emails but don't consider them spam.
• omgmajk 5y ago
  I reply to InMail so that they get their LinkedIn credit back. They are usually thankful for that. Other offers there's a 50/50 chance I have the energy to reply.
  • acjohnson55 5y ago
    I simply turned my InMail off. I've never gotten a useful message in however many years I've been on LinkedIn.
• dokka 5y ago
  I also strongly disagree. All the jobs I've taken at the advice of a recruiter were the worst jobs I've ever had. Even if the job matched everything on my checklist and I was able to visit the company and talk to the employees before signing on, it was still a terrible place to work. Why? Because it was in everyone's best interest to hide how miserable the job actually was. And yes, the salary was higer, but the jobs didn't last. The longest I was able to tolerate these jobs was about 2 years each. Which didn't look very good on my resume. Switching jobs every 2 years is probably ok for some, but I wouldn't hire anyone that has a consistent record of that. My advice is to find places that you would want to work and apply there on your own.
• mv4 5y ago
  Horrible email response: long-winded, cringe-inducing, poorly structured. Just state clearly what kind of information you need in order to continue the conversation (or not). Even a simple "what's the pay like" would be more effective.
• jen20 5y ago
  Every time I read something about recruiters, I am reminded of this fantastic post [1] (sadly the original has been taken down, and this is the only copy I know of). Anyone who has ever experienced third party recruiters in the UK will be nodding their head along after just the first few paragraphs... [1]: https://gist.github.com/CumpsD/696599d1bd4cd472a0565869672933da https://gist.github.com/CumpsD/696599d1bd4cd472a056586967293...
  • LAC-Tech 5y ago
    LOL that's pretty funny. I find it kind of messed up how British people like to shit on big segments of their population for having certain accents (ie "Shithead"). But still really well written. I saw this posted by a recruiter about devs once: https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C5622AQEZ5ZZUs6mSlw/feedshare-shrink_800/0/1628202168353?e=1646870400&v=beta&t=Sbzo9I0FqxoYgk0CkjcQniFs0ksm4Iqc5f41XJv7CpA https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C5622AQEZ5ZZUs6mSlw/f... Not quite as blistering as that article, but not super professional to plaster all over your linkedin.
• junon 5y ago
  No thanks. Most cold callers these days don't even work for the company. They always seem to say "I'm recruiting for an esteemed/up and coming/potential unicorn (lol)/hot/aggressively funded/blah blah blah company". I've bitten a few times and asked for details about said company and they say they want a call first. No thanks. Tell me about the position first. Then I'll tell you if I'm interested.
• douglee650 5y ago
  TLDR - everything is signal, even/especially noise in aggregate - engineers are particularly subject to blind spots - know yourself - ymmv
• stretchwithme 5y ago
  I'm very impressed with your ycombinator skills.
• tudorconstantin 5y ago
  I loved the article. I worked in sales for ~2 years before starting my career as a software engineer +15 years ago, so knowing how downputting rejections are, I try to treat all the salespeople as human beings, so I try to respond to all of them. My strategy is to make them refusing me, by requiring "only" a +30% i increase.
• lnxg33k1 5y ago
  >> If you respond, does that mean you’re being disloyal to your current employer? Is it a thing? Am I Sir Worker of Devs I?
• jugg1es 5y ago
  My problem with responding to recruiters - especially FAANG - is that once you start a conversation it's hard to stop. I find it very hard to leave if I'm in the middle of a big project.
• rendall 5y ago
  I dunno. I've been a SWE for almost 20 years now, and I just got a recruitment email for "Senior Manager of Partner Relations". I'm honestly not sure what that even is, but it's definitely not code monkey. Email included all kindsa reassurances, which, even if I were in the field of "Partner Relations", would make me pretty nervous: We do not conduct fake interviews We will not ask you for references unless you are being considered for a job We will give you feedback the moment we get it from our customer etc. Do I really have to "not ignore" this recruiter?
• JuanitaYoung 5y ago
  [dead]
• tgtweak 5y ago
  Taking this post to publicly shame a recruiting technique I was victim to: I entertained a reference check call by a recruiting firm (not standard but he was a good coworker and it was a serious position with a serious company). The interview was normal and standard fare except the last question which I found off-putting and dishonest: "Are you looking to fill any positions?" Although I was, it's not the kind of professionalism I expect from any company representing mine so I politely declined and ended it there. My friend got the job and all's well that ends well. Fast forward 3 months and I get cold called by the same company asking me if I would consider a position at XYZ inc (new company, unrelated to the first). I was blown away that a company would think this is acceptable, and that information given for reference checks by employees are somehow automatically made into leads owned by the recruiting company. I escalated to legal at serious company and explained in no unclear manner how serious of a matter this was, to which they terminated the hiring agreement over. So just a reminder please vet your recruiting companies before you mandate them to represent your company.
  • dougmwne 5y ago
    This is standard operating procedure to mine references for sales leads at several large national recruiting agencies. I am also pissed that this is a thing.
• honkycat 5y ago
  Two years ago I quit my job, then covid kicked off and I was out of work for 6 months. During that time I was relying on recruiters to hunt down leads for me. Nothing was coming up! They kept trying to feed me full-stack and front-end roles, and I kept saying no thank you. Then, I just started sending out my own resumes. And I instantly got more callbacks in the MONTHS I spent with recruiters. I have a few suspicions: 1. The recruiters present themselves as having a "relationship" with companies, but they actually don't, they are just bullshitting you. 2. The jobs people actually want end up getting filled, so if you end up with a recruiter, you are going to be ending up with bottom-tier opportunities.
• dave_sid 5y ago
  I’d certainly say don’t be rude to recruiters. Some people seem to get unnecessarily wound up by recruiters and forget that we are all adults just trying to do our job. It doesn’t hurt to be polite and might just work in your favour in the long run.
  • democracy 5y ago
    Being rude is obviously a no-no, but its ok to ignore recruiters if it is an unsolicited call or email. No need to feel guilty about that.
• buttsecks 5y ago
  Lol Wut? You should always respond to recruiters at your OWN discretion. Use 3 digital condoms (throwaway numbers, etc.), and don't continue the Convo if they won't disclose details such as salary. Ain't nobody got time for dat.
• phgn 5y ago
  > No one ever explained to me that recruiters are also one of the best career resources you can find. For increasing your salary, and potentially finding a role you'd take. I'd not categorize this as "career resources" -- there's so much more important stuff like figuring out what you want out of your career and keeping on track with it. Why do people focus on money so much when making career changes? Sure, you'll get more in your next job because the current salary is a piece of leverage to use. But if it's only about money, why did you accept your current job?
• osrec 5y ago
  Recruiters and estate agents seem to be the smarmiest individuals I've ever come across. I'm not sure why that is, but the pattern is obvious. I really don't understand why we're expected to trust the largest transactions in our lives (house/job) to individuals with no real qualifications to execute those transactions. It feels kinda dumb.
• acjohnson55 5y ago
  To be honest, even with a cut and pasted initial reply, this sounds like more effort than it's worth. I don't want to have to respond to the recruiter's response. My mental energy is valuable. I don't need to spend it on job opportunities I'm not interested in.
• yangmeansyoung 5y ago
  120% Disagree. All I can see is responding to a recruiter is helping to improve the recruiter's message, so they can span ppl more efficiently next time? Personally, I rearly had good experience with recruiters, one they had difference goal compare you or the company you want join. Most efficient way to get into a company is by referral, e.g next time when you do some shitty work think twice, as it got long term impact.
• nemo44x 5y ago
  Even if I’m not interested in the role I’ll let them know and often I’ll send them some people in my network that could work out. I think it’s good practice and I’ve had recruiters come back to me with really good opportunities down the road. Yeah the carpet bombing ones I ignore but personal ones I keep on with. Do a good turn daily.
• 988747 5y ago
  My experience is exactly opposite: recruiters are like cockroaches, they come up from every hole. Ignoring them is the only way to stay sane. As for well paying job offers those will always be there.
• themeiguoren 5y ago
  I’ve got a specific LinkedIn hack - my name on it is Firstname “Nickname” Lastname. If I get a message addressed to Firstname or to Nickname, I know someone actually read it before sending and I’ll respond. If it’s to Firstname “Nickname”, then I know it’s an automated shotgun blast and I generally ignore it.
  • wildrhythms 5y ago
    I use the Gmail + plus symbol trick when I have to provide an email address directly to a recruiter/questionable application form: myactualemail+company123@gmail.com When I start getting emails about completely unrelated things to +company123, I know exactly which company shared my email address.
• DevToRecruiter 5y ago
  This advice is too generic to be useful. There are two types of recruiters. Relationship based recruiters and “numbers game” recruiters. As a recruiter that works primarily with programmers I can usually tell within moments of meeting another recruiter which type they are. Relationship based recruiters can be a huge asset to your career. Here are a couple tips 1. A relationship based recruiter is almost never a general recruiter, they specialize in a specific industry. 2. The best type of recruiter is one that has intimate knowledge of your field. So ask probing questions. If they know the jargon and that’s it, pass.
• jdright 5y ago
  I've been doing this and fully agree. On my side my reply is not as nice as this, I'll steal this and improve it. I also agree with the 50% rule. Currently I'm interviewing with 3 nice opportunities in parallel, but now getting to the 6h-8h interview step is hard, I have to basically take 3 days off and this costs a lot of money and energy. I wasn't much smart at first, so this is why I got into this situation, but each time I do it I improve on the next. I may be getting close to 20 first step interviews, 10 second step interviews and finally now 3 last step. And this in about 2 months, excluding all others that failed my requeriments since first contact.
• froggertoaster 5y ago
  Hard agree. I used to respond to recruiters, "here's how much I make - if you can match that then I'd be happy to listen". Most of the time they didn't respond. The one guy who did has found me a lot of business since. (I now own a consultancy.)
• yalogin 5y ago
  I don’t know how I feel, all the recruiters that reach out to me are hilariously out of touch and it’s patently obvious that they are purely reaching out to me as a stat and nothing else. The worst of the bunch is Amazon, I keep getting messages referencing my work experience 15 yrs ago! They probably have a resume of mine from back then. My career has changed significantly since then and they don’t bother checking.
• mrkentutbabi 5y ago
  Nice try recruiter.
• scarface74 5y ago
  As a software engineer, st least in the US, there are two types of jobs. 1. Your bog standard run of the mill corp dev jobs. They all look alike and they all pay around the same. In most major cities that’s around $80K - $150K. This is where most developers work. A local recruiter can usually help you find a job as long as you have some experience and are looking for average wages. Yes I know “average” for software engineers even in this category puts you in the upper middle income. 2. The Big Tech, unicorn, let’s waste VC money tech companies - with compensation levels you see on levels.fyi. External recruiters are useless once you are looking in that range. But again, there are only a few dozen companies that pay in this range, they are always hiring and we all know how to find them if they don’t find us first.
• perfopt 5y ago
  "...let them know you're not currently open to offers less than $current*1.5." Whoa!! Is this for early career folks (less than 6 years)? In the 15-20 years experience range none of my friends and ex-colleagues who moved jobs got a 50% raise on moving.
• anthuswilliams 5y ago
  There are so many comments from people who report being inundated on LinkedIn by recruiters. I don't have a LinkedIn account, and I _never_ hear from recruiters. My name is out there; I'm on other developer-centric social networks and generally have no compunction about giving out my email address and phone number, and I literally don't have this problem. I have over a decade of experience in many different software engineering roles, so I assume I would be a plum prize for unscrupulous recruiters. (I used to receive messages like these, but they dropped off around 2013. I assume this is roughly the point that recruiters realized that they could focus on LinkedIn to maximize their conversion.) So, serious question: why do you have a LinkedIn account? I know there is theoretical benefit in maintaining connections to professional acquaintances, but in sticking to email and a few alumni Slack channels, I have never felt limited in that department. What is the benefit of your LinkedIn account and why do you keep it?
  • mkulinski 5y ago
    Because at some point we had to look for our current job
  • ngngngng 5y ago
    Because it made looking for a job almost effortless. I'm not terrible at whiteboarding but I hate doing it so I just kept letting recruiters contact me and sending back a generic response asking for info until I found one that sounded fun, paid well, and didn't whiteboard.
• tsujamin 5y ago
  was this written by a recruiter
• refurb 5y ago
  Disagree strongly. Recruiters are like real estate agents - the barrier to entry is low and there are a lot of folks who do a crap job. I work with a couple recruiters who: 1) actually respond to emails, 2) actually look at my CV to see if a role is a good match, 3) have some long term commitment to clients. When I get an email about a role that matches well from a job I had a decade ago, straight to spam folder.
• mizzao 5y ago
  Alternate approach: build a relationship with the 99th percentile super-recruiter that basically all the startups that know what they are doing in your area use to hire, and go to him for a job. In NYC, this is that dude: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkeenan/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkeenan/ I send all my friends to him when looking for jobs. He also doesn't lie to you and since he has a technical background, will rarely place anyone in a bad fit. He's literally sent 2nd tier candidates to other recruiters. It's a rich get richer game and the super-connectors have way more candidates and companies to match, effectively creating their own market. I believe John makes mid 7 digits a year from placements, plus companies love him and candidates keep going back to him for their next job. Once you have that reputation, it looks like art next to the other 99% of hustling recruiters that are trying to place poor fit candidates into the 3 roles they are "working on".
  • teakettle42 5y ago
    Reminds me of NYC’s absolutely horrific apartment broker model. No thank you. Why would I want to give a recruiter a large cut of my potential compensation for no real value? If someone is making seven figures doing that, there’s a problem. If I want a job at a company, I can apply for it myself.
    • marapuru 5y ago
      This. Thank you for overthrowing the comment above you.
    • mizzao 5y ago
      I hate apartment brokers as much as you do, I assure you. I don't know what to say other than there is significant value in (1) getting a direct connection to someone who is running hiring from a reputable source and (2) having your recruiter actually understand you well enough to directly recommend you to jobs that are a good fit (some of which aren't even publicly listed anywhere) and saving you a ton of time. You are aware that pretty much no one looks at folks that are "applying on the website", right?
    • maerF0x0 5y ago
• instagraham 5y ago
  You guys are getting solicited for money?
• emodendroket 5y ago
  Yeah sorry I don't think so. I'll respond to recruiters who have something to offer, but it's pretty obvious who that is and who is just wasting your time.
• mvkel 5y ago
  Just on this story alone I would imagine this happened exactly once, given the comp increase expectations. Is it really worth building a system around? Separately, if you're not reading their canned email, what makes you think they're going to read your canned response?
• hunglee2 5y ago
  I like this a lot - it is first example I have seen of a job candidate thinking about the 'recruiter experience', with the idea that if you can create a positive experience for a recruiter at low effort, you may gain high reward at some stage later in your career. it may surprise some of the folks on HN - which as a tech / engineering audience, are usually those candidates - that a lot of recruiters actually care a great deal about 'candidate experience', as they have a similar calculus - low effort to create a positive experience, bank it as possible gain later down the line. Unfortunately those recruiters are let down by significant minority of noisy bad actors who are outside their control. Anyone can 'become' a recruiter - you can do it right away, right now - and therefore there is no QA on who gets to do that job or how that job gets done.
• braramod 5y ago
  I definitely agree, 15 minutes per recruiter is a waste of time. Especially if they're cold emailing you.
• JuanitaYoung 5y ago
  [dead]
• taubek 5y ago
  I'm not a developer and I don't get much of this emails but I always try to keep all doors open and not to burn any bridges. I've learned a lot from just talking with recruiters, I got a lot of good advice on how to improve my CV, etc. I landed my current job thanks to a recruiter that was persistent and didn't forget about me :)
• phendrenad2 5y ago
  This post doesn't go far enough. One of the best things a programmer can do to better their career is to talk to no technical people. Talk to recruiters. Just pick up the phone. Then, learn to politely decline. Then, learn to ask questions. Then, expand your horizons. Maybe you can have a conversation with the QA department people for more than 20 seconds about a non-technical topic. Maybe you can talk to the CTO and ask them questions. Most programmers find talking to nontechnical people like recruiters beneath them. They just want to crush the coding challenge, and be hired on the spot. The idea that there could be more to a job than writing lines of code is hard to fathom. Once you open up that world though, it's very interesting, and pays dividends.
• phendrenad2 5y ago
  I think one of the assertions here is wrong. "One in a hundred can double your salary". It's more like "if you are the 1 in a hundred who is tragically underpaid to the point where a double in salary is at all a possibility, then yes, talk to recruiters".
• sleepingadmin 5y ago
  I feel like throwing it in their face that lots of recruiters reach out to you is unnecessary. I also suspect asking for company name will scare off most recruiters because if you go around them, they dont get paid. They do say keep interviewing to keep the skill sharp. So perhaps there is something to be said here. Here's the one I got today, when I try to reply it just says 'you're replying to a mailing list' so really I'm nobody to this one. >I am reaching out to see if you would be interested in exploring Executive Level opportunities. >I have reviewed your LinkedIn profile and found your skills and experience to be impressive and relevant to the job position. >If you are interested in learning more about our company and the position, we would love to set up a quick phone call. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have and give you all the details about the job. >Please reply to this email with an updated copy of your resume. There's no way he 'reviewed my linkedin' while also just mailing list form. In fact if I look at it. The mailing form only really has $FIRSTNAME and that's about as much effort as they put in. Yet they want me to produce an updated resume and join a quick call? Oh man that's asking.
  • gwbas1c 5y ago
    Just flag it as SPAM.
• joshsyn 5y ago
• Snetry 5y ago
  The few times I have engaged with recruiters in the past I was immediately ghosted afterwards.
• Gannyn 5y ago
  Love reading reviews about recruiters! I'm a recruiter and the CEO of HireScale. Many of the pain points described in this forum are ones I set-out to solve at HireScale. Let me just start with agency vs. in-house recruiter types. In-house isn't always practical for employers so agency has traditionally been the fall back when flexibly is needed. Not anymore! Freelance recruiters are the solution because they have authorization to represent the employers' brand and are being paid for the service they provide. Agency recruiters are not authorized to represent brand (except retained) and only get paid if they make the placement so they don't disclose the brand until they've got their "fish on a hook". My theory is the gig-economy can fix this while providing more value to the employer, recruiter and the candidate (transparency goes a long way). For any hiring managers reading out there, when a flexible option is needed, freelance recruiters offer a much better option. I agree that it's a good practice to build relationships with recruiters. I also think it's important to do business with the companies where you agree with their practices, methods and principles. Why support a bad practice so go ahead and ghost agencies.....Cyber and many others like them were built for hiring practices in the 70's or 80's (think kelly secretaries/ temporaries). Today's talent market is much more sophisticated. Check-out the HireScale Recruiter Marketplace. Follow our community to interact with in-house and freelance recruiters only(branded to the employer 100% of the time) Website: https://www.hirescale.io/ https://www.hirescale.io/ LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hirescaletalent https://www.linkedin.com/company/hirescaletalent Gannyn
• twox2 5y ago
  No one gave you that advice, because it's not really great advice.
• goe1zorbey 5y ago
  when I consider all the dedication, including the summer jobs, all the hours of I have spent for self study to keep the skills up, I was thinking, “why the hell do I let a headhunter, get rewarded a year salary [1] of mine by just discovering my profile on Linkedin and maybe breaking data privacy laws through off shore?” Still didn’t contacted or replied any of them. Sometimes, I am asking myself if I am missing any good opportunities because of not replying. [1] rumor: Munich region