> Have future managers & engineers communicate directly, lightly backed up by HR if you have that function (and you trust them). Keep. It. Moving. Make it clear

> Have future managers & engineers communicate directly, lightly backed up by HR if you have that function (and you trust them). Keep. It. Moving. Make it clear their time is more valuable than yours. Yeah, this. Not that I dislike recruiters or HR folks or don't appreciate the work they do, but with someone with engineering experience I can talk to them on an equal level and don't need to "dumb down" describing my skills or past experiences, and I can usually be a lot more straightforward and/or have an actual conversation instead of reading my CV out loud, which is what a lot of initial screenings are like (it's okay to use the CV as a starting point for the conversation). Talking to an engineer is also a signal I'm being taken serious as a candidate. I get that people use recruiters for an initial screen, but if it's "recruiter → another recruiter → HR person → coding test → finally I talk to a damn engineer (or engineering lead)" then that's a bit of a turn-off. At this point you're expecting me to spend time to "prove" my technical skills and I don't even know if I want to work for you because I have no idea what your engineering is like beyond the buzzwords your HR people dropped (which is very little information). If you've got more candidates than you know what to do with then that's fine, but if not... Using a recruiter for the initial (short) screening is fine to go through some basic preconditions from both sides, but the second person should really be an engineering lead if you're desperate for people IMHO. If you do insist on a code test and you intent on hiring the person if nothing strange comes falling out then say so. A lot of times I have the impression these things are shotgunned to a bunch of candidates.