6 ms·
Years ago, my previous employer had a few listings on Indeed for software engineers (some were very long-running). A recruiter reached out to us with a candidat
by mhzsh 4y ago
Years ago, my previous employer had a few listings on Indeed for software engineers (some were very long-running). A recruiter reached out to us with a candidate they had, who had experience in the areas we were looking for, which was enticing because people like this were not so easy to come by for a small company not based in a major city. By chance, we found out during the interview process with the candidate that the recruiter was playing both parties. This very shady recruiter cloned our job listing (removing the company information) and was able to out-rank us in the search. They presented themselves to the candidate as if they were working for us, and to us they presented themselves as trying to place this candidate, effectively collecting a recruiting fee for hijacking our listing forwarding a resume. They ended up with nothing but a warning from lawyers, but they _almost_ got an easy paycheck out of it.
- a2tech 4y agoI don’t think this is uncommon—in fact I think it’s the way many recruiters work.
- raverbashing 4y agoHence why most companies don't accept placements by recruiters unless it's the one they specifically hired for the job
- apohn 4y agoUnfortunately recruiters lie about "exclusivity" as well. About a year ago I was on the job market and multiple recruiters reached out to me with the exact same job listing, just with the company name removed. All of them claimed to have an exclusive relationship with the company and they were working directly with the hiring manager. With 5 minutes of Googling I found the original position and the company that posted it. Do they get penalized if they present a candidate for the job and the company says "No recruiters" and they remove the candidate from their candidate pool?
- benglish11 4y agopenalized by who? It works enough that tech recruiters and their agencies make a lot of money. If there is no agreement between the company and the recruiter the company is free to contact that applicant themselves. The recruiter will usually hide the contact information of the applicant for this reason. Enough hiring companies only care about getting a seemingly qualified applicant in for an interview and will ignore what ever shady things recruiters do.
- HWR_14 4y agoHe's asking if he, as a candidate, will get blackballed by the company if a recruiter submits his resume. I think you're assuring him he will not.
- gumby 4y agoNowadays you can often use a search with some text from the ad to figure out who the real company is. Though who would bother?
- gorbachev 4y agoI do that every time a recruiter cold calls me about an opportunity without mentioning the company, if the opportunity sounds interesting.
- Kalium 4y agoI do that to find out who the company is. It's usually a better way to find out how much they pay than the recruiter is. Too often recruiters try to avoid telling me either item.
- stevage 4y agoWho would bother to find out who the company they would be working for is? Who wouldn't?
- albedoa 4y ago> Though who would bother? It takes like four seconds.
- yomkippur 4y ago
- thih9 4y agoAnd many real estate agents, and sadly perhaps more occupations.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoHow is that how real estate agents work? The seller signs an agreement outlining compensation with a real estate agent before any work is done.
- jjk2178 4y agoA real estate agent might repost an owner's ad for an apartment, and earn a broker's fee from the renter when the apartment is rented
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI have only dealt with agents for apartment rentals in NYC, and there, the landlord hires the agent and agrees to pay them a fee, just like a house seller would agree to. If neither a renter or the landlord have an agreement to pay an agent, why would the agent be owed any money?
- RHSeeger 4y agoIn Mass, it's the renter that pays the fee.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIn NYC, the renter usually pays the fee too, but that is simply part of the rental agreement from the landlord. The person that agreed to pay agent is still the landlord. In times when supply of apartments exceeds demand from renters, landlords have to pay the agent from their pocket. But the point is that in all cases, someone agreed to pay an agent. The agent did not simply materialize and obtained a right to collect money from someone.
- 4y ago
- m463 4y agorecruiters have all kinds of shady tactics. A friend asked me if he could use me as a reference, and I said sure. A few days later I got a call asking about my friend, and I readily engaged because I took being a reference seriously. As we were winding up, he suddenly asked if I was looking for a position. I then began to realize it was the recruiter - who was recruiting off the reference list of my friend. I was gracious (but pissed off, because I think the whole thing might have not been about my friend but recruiting).
- mcv 4y agoI would love to do business directly with the company, but often they don't reach out to me, while these intermediary recruiters do. I guess the value of recruiters is that they reach out to companies and to developers, and they connect the two. Recruiters who merely repost the same listing that the company posted without adding any value, deserve to go out of business. Mind you, if every listing contained the hourly rate or pay range, they'd have a much harder time inserting themselves where they don't belong.
- ricardobayes 4y agoColor me naive, but why is this a bad thing? If your listing reaches more people, it's ultimately better for you. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
- gnicholas 4y agoIt's the fee, which is a percentage of the employee's salary. That's much more than the listing fee on Indeed, likely by orders of magnitude. There's also the downside that some scummy person is representing themselves as being affiliated with you, when they're not. So if they do scummy things to the candidate (which they likely would, given what they're doing to you), then you are painted in a bad light. Think of situations that HNers complain about here, and then imagine that it's your company being (wrongfully) dragged for having lousy interviewing practices.
- bertil 4y agoThe fee is the most common issue cited by employers. I generally respond (as a candidate) to get a sense of the problem. I can assure you that bad representation is the biggest problem. It’s not uncommon for recruiters to say something really problematic (bluntly racist or sexist) or impose excessive interview steps to filter candidates, without knowledge of the industry. I often know the hiring manager well enough to give feedback and they are generally horrified.
- eek2121 4y agoAs if companies don't do that on their own. I'm actively interviewing for new positions, and the amount of stuff that startups (most out of Silicon Valley) are doing is absolute batshit. From 2-hour tech screens to 19-hour unpaid interviews WORKING ON THEIR OWN CODE BASE, I will not be surprised when the DoL does a crackdown on the interview process. I have been in the software development industry for decades. If you can't tell if a candidate qualifies after 45-90 (tops!) minutes of interviews, you may want to look internally for problems. All they are really doing is rejecting a ton of super smart developers, many who may have disabilities. Oh, and then there was that one company who told me I had no knowledge of a language and framework I am actively contributing to, and have built robust, scalable enterprise apps out of. "We are looking for experts of <language x> and also <framework y> and <framework z>." That was literally the message they sent me. They did NOT know about my contributions because my dumb ass tries not to show off stuff like that when looking for employment as I want to be weighed on my ability to write awesome code and not weighed on a popularity contest.
- ako 4y agoIt is shady, but at the same time it sounds like the recruiter succeeded where your company failed. He was able to find a candidate for your position, where your employer was unable by just posting it to indeed. He did a better job, and maybe that is worth the additional money? Do you think your employer would have found the same candidate by just relying on the job listing on Indeed?
- theamk 4y agoThe recruiter copied listing as-is, with only company name removed. If thir listing wasn't there, candidate would find the company directly. So they provided no positive value; in fact they provided negative value by adding duplicate listing and making them harder to navigate. I don't thin
- ako 4y agoHow do you score higher on indeed with the same text with just a name removed? The original listing would still show up?
- nextstepguy 4y agoI always get contacted by recruiters who rarely work full-time for the company they hire for and hide the company name when they reach out.