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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

by 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.
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    no. i think its more. i mean yes this is true. i've had lots of recruiters that really thought their value was to harass me me by phone. even though I've emphasized repeatedly that there isn't anything more that they can do personally to help me...the insist on calling me nearly ever day to 'see where my head is at' i'm pretty sure i've lost out on some decent positions in the past because i got so sick of spending 30 minutes here and there talking to the same idiot that said 'dont _ever_ call me back you asshole'

by cletus 5y ago

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.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  no. i think its more. i mean yes this is true. i've had lots of recruiters that really thought their value was to harass me me by phone. even though I've emphasized repeatedly that there isn't anything more that they can do personally to help me...the insist on calling me nearly ever day to 'see where my head is at' i'm pretty sure i've lost out on some decent positions in the past because i got so sick of spending 30 minutes here and there talking to the same idiot that said 'dont _ever_ call me back you asshole'