9 ms·

Depending on sector, you may find you only get traction through recruiters. I work in finance, almost everything is through third party recruiters and there are

Depending on sector, you may find you only get traction through recruiters. I work in finance, almost everything is through third party recruiters and there are two reasons for this. 1. We are only allowed to hire through either an approved recruiter or the company job portal. The company job portal gets so many applications for each job it's absurd, and we have to sift these ourselves to some degree (HR are meant to confirm we only see qualified candidates, but they're idiots) so rather than sifting the portal applications we mostly use 2-5 known recruiters who only give us candidates who can do the job. They do the first screenings, if they give us shit candidates we never use them again, so we rarely get a bad candidate through them. 2. Perks. We often meet directly with recruiters in person, and they have expense accounts and take us for lunch/drinks we don't have to pay for. This makes us want to keep using them over direct applications (yes recruiters, this 100% works, we won't use you if you're shit regardless but we'll 100% entertain looking at your candidates if you take us for lunch or drinks - check compliance limits before suggesting a venue though).

heavenlyblue 3y ago
> Perks. We often meet directly with recruiters in person, and they have expense accounts and take us for lunch/drinks we don't have to pay for. This makes us want to keep using them over direct applications (yes recruiters, this 100% works, we won't use you if you're shit regardless but we'll 100% entertain looking at your candidates if you take us for lunch or drinks - check compliance limits before suggesting a venue though). How badly are you paid?
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Don't really get it myself, I think typically such people are drastically undervaluing their time.
  - bt4u 3y ago
    [dead]
  - Ntrails 3y ago
    > Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Me: I'm not doing DIY, I'd rather pay someone competent than waste my time and energy. Also Me: I'm getting 100% of the value from this perk goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff.
    - b112 3y ago
      goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff. Your opinion is wide spread, but it erks me. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is an adage millennia old, and true. The rule is, nothing is free. Nothing. There are exceptions the rule, but that is exceedingly rare, and if you think you're onto one, it's probably a scam. "strings attached" is another adage, and often you get "free", by having the strings attached to you.
      - sebzim4500 3y ago
        There isn't a free lunch, but there certainly is a lunch you've already paid for. E.g. I was at an 'all-inclusive' resort for work and some of my colleages seemed to think it was their duty to get as much value out of the meals as possible, even trying to calculate the actual cost of different dishes.
      - Ntrails 3y ago
        In my case I am thinking about work perks. So, say, free biscuits in the kitchen. Of course it isn't "free" in the sense it is a result of work, but it is free in the sense it has no additional cost.
  - solatic 3y ago
    It's an emotional thing. When you spend formative years in a financial condition where food expenses were significant, and free food significantly eased financial pressure on you, that reaction to free food can stick with you long after you have the financial freedom to make your own choices. Source: finally realized that half the reason I went to technical talks that bored me was for free pizza and beer that were bad for me anyway
- mousetree 3y ago
  I'm paid very well but when a recruiter invited me this year to watch the FA Cup Final in their box at Wembley I obviously went.
  - heavenlyblue 3y ago
    This is a pretty expensive present not a free lunch. Please note if you work for a regulated industry you may be liable to report this as well and may even price-wise be well above your allowance
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I was briefly a dev lead responsible for hiring contractors. The company I worked for already had a contract with a certain recruiting agency - the same one I came in through. The brief stint I was at the company, the recruiter gave me tickets to the local professional baseball team that included access to premium suites and tickets to the local professional football team. But yeah I get it, having a free meal wouldn’t mean much to me.
  - xmcqdpt2 3y ago
    I work in finance and we have lots of mandatory training about to do about "gifts". Game tickets are a specific example used to illustrate corporate corruption...
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      The company I worked for already had an exclusive contract with the recruiting agency. We weren’t going to hire contractors outside of that agency. Heck, my manager asked me did I know someone with the same skillset I had, I had a friend who was looking for work and asked for a rate of $80/hour. They wouldn’t hire them directly. I had to negotiate with the recruiter and my manager until we also settled on paying the agency $120/hour to hire my friend so he could get $80. No my manager also wasn’t responsible for choosing the agency. That was chosen on higher levels.
      - heavenlyblue 3y ago
        I think you are completely missing the point where this can be interpreted as they giving you a kickback in order to keep the exclusive contract going
- giaour 3y ago
  I have seen people who make $250K a year be swayed by free muffins. It has nothing to do with money.
  - mdgrech23 3y ago
    I'm always amazed by how cheap it is buy someones vote. Bribery works and it's surprisingly affordable.
    - yCombLinks 3y ago
      It's the thought that counts. I'd rather have a 20 minute chat with a cute recruiter than sort through 50 identical looking pdfs.
      - ralphc 3y ago
        After a layoff I went through a recruiting/contracting firm that converted to full-time at my job. After that I kept an eye out on recruiters, and male or female it was the best looking set of people I'd ever seen in person.
- victords 3y ago
  You don't need to be badly paid to enjoy free lunch.
carlosjobim 3y ago
If you have no qualms to participate in the lowest kind of corruption, then it's not hard to understand why the labor market is dysfunctional.
- kaycey2022 3y ago
  Calm down V for Vendetta
  - underlipton 3y ago
    No, they're right. The only saving grace is that it's not limited to the private sector; our political processes basically run on bribes, too, so they're just following our leaders' example. Just need to get bureaucracy in on the act, and we'll have the "Eastern Europe on the Eve of Collapse" trifecta.
    - kaycey2022 3y ago
      I don’t think the problem is just easy corruptibility. Organisation leadership may have let this fester by not paying any thought towards aligning the incentives of their workers at every level and their own incentives correctly. Corruption is an easy explanation. But it’s probably just human nature to subvert and rebel.
batch12 3y ago
> yes recruiters, this 100% works, we won't use you if you're shit regardless but we'll 100% entertain looking at your candidates Maybe 99%. This doesn't work on me. Any swag I am sent from a recruiter gets handed to someone else. I turn down dinner and drinks because I feel like I'm being manipulated. The harder a vendor or recruiter pushes here, the more uneasy I feel about using them. I don't want to hang out with people who only want to be around me so I can give them something. Edit: Sadly, I think this doesn't help me from the perspective of being recruited, but I can't help not being comfortable playing this game.
tetrep 3y ago
> (HR are meant to confirm we only see qualified candidates, but they're idiots) My last job tried to address this by having a small technical test of skill that could be thrown at anyone as a first pass before getting any technical people involved. We got virtually no senior role "spam", so we didn't have to worry about making a challenging technical test, we just needed to weed out junior applicants who basically didn't know how to do anything other than apply for the job. It worked pretty well for us but we were a relatively small company. I don't remember the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure we hired less than 50 people a year (across a couple offices in the US) for the technical roles we used that test for.
- bqmjjx0kac 3y ago
  I'm glad it seems to be working for you, but it's kind of unnerving to be asked a technical question by someone who doesn't understand the question and cannot actually evaluate your answer.
kaycey2022 3y ago
How do I find these recruiters?

heavenlyblue 3y ago

> Perks. We often meet directly with recruiters in person, and they have expense accounts and take us for lunch/drinks we don't have to pay for. This makes us want to keep using them over direct applications (yes recruiters, this 100% works, we won't use you if you're shit regardless but we'll 100% entertain looking at your candidates if you take us for lunch or drinks - check compliance limits before suggesting a venue though). How badly are you paid?

sebzim4500 3y ago
Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Don't really get it myself, I think typically such people are drastically undervaluing their time.
- bt4u 3y ago
  [dead]
- Ntrails 3y ago
  > Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Me: I'm not doing DIY, I'd rather pay someone competent than waste my time and energy. Also Me: I'm getting 100% of the value from this perk goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff.
  - b112 3y ago
    goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff. Your opinion is wide spread, but it erks me. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is an adage millennia old, and true. The rule is, nothing is free. Nothing. There are exceptions the rule, but that is exceedingly rare, and if you think you're onto one, it's probably a scam. "strings attached" is another adage, and often you get "free", by having the strings attached to you.
    - sebzim4500 3y ago
      There isn't a free lunch, but there certainly is a lunch you've already paid for. E.g. I was at an 'all-inclusive' resort for work and some of my colleages seemed to think it was their duty to get as much value out of the meals as possible, even trying to calculate the actual cost of different dishes.
    - Ntrails 3y ago
      In my case I am thinking about work perks. So, say, free biscuits in the kitchen. Of course it isn't "free" in the sense it is a result of work, but it is free in the sense it has no additional cost.
- solatic 3y ago
  It's an emotional thing. When you spend formative years in a financial condition where food expenses were significant, and free food significantly eased financial pressure on you, that reaction to free food can stick with you long after you have the financial freedom to make your own choices. Source: finally realized that half the reason I went to technical talks that bored me was for free pizza and beer that were bad for me anyway
mousetree 3y ago
I'm paid very well but when a recruiter invited me this year to watch the FA Cup Final in their box at Wembley I obviously went.
- heavenlyblue 3y ago
  This is a pretty expensive present not a free lunch. Please note if you work for a regulated industry you may be liable to report this as well and may even price-wise be well above your allowance
scarface_74 3y ago
I was briefly a dev lead responsible for hiring contractors. The company I worked for already had a contract with a certain recruiting agency - the same one I came in through. The brief stint I was at the company, the recruiter gave me tickets to the local professional baseball team that included access to premium suites and tickets to the local professional football team. But yeah I get it, having a free meal wouldn’t mean much to me.
- xmcqdpt2 3y ago
  I work in finance and we have lots of mandatory training about to do about "gifts". Game tickets are a specific example used to illustrate corporate corruption...
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    The company I worked for already had an exclusive contract with the recruiting agency. We weren’t going to hire contractors outside of that agency. Heck, my manager asked me did I know someone with the same skillset I had, I had a friend who was looking for work and asked for a rate of $80/hour. They wouldn’t hire them directly. I had to negotiate with the recruiter and my manager until we also settled on paying the agency $120/hour to hire my friend so he could get $80. No my manager also wasn’t responsible for choosing the agency. That was chosen on higher levels.
    - heavenlyblue 3y ago
      I think you are completely missing the point where this can be interpreted as they giving you a kickback in order to keep the exclusive contract going
giaour 3y ago
I have seen people who make $250K a year be swayed by free muffins. It has nothing to do with money.
- mdgrech23 3y ago
  I'm always amazed by how cheap it is buy someones vote. Bribery works and it's surprisingly affordable.
  - yCombLinks 3y ago
    It's the thought that counts. I'd rather have a 20 minute chat with a cute recruiter than sort through 50 identical looking pdfs.
    - ralphc 3y ago
      After a layoff I went through a recruiting/contracting firm that converted to full-time at my job. After that I kept an eye out on recruiters, and male or female it was the best looking set of people I'd ever seen in person.
victords 3y ago
You don't need to be badly paid to enjoy free lunch.

carlosjobim 3y ago

If you have no qualms to participate in the lowest kind of corruption, then it's not hard to understand why the labor market is dysfunctional.

kaycey2022 3y ago
Calm down V for Vendetta
- underlipton 3y ago
  No, they're right. The only saving grace is that it's not limited to the private sector; our political processes basically run on bribes, too, so they're just following our leaders' example. Just need to get bureaucracy in on the act, and we'll have the "Eastern Europe on the Eve of Collapse" trifecta.
  - kaycey2022 3y ago
    I don’t think the problem is just easy corruptibility. Organisation leadership may have let this fester by not paying any thought towards aligning the incentives of their workers at every level and their own incentives correctly. Corruption is an easy explanation. But it’s probably just human nature to subvert and rebel.

batch12 3y ago

> yes recruiters, this 100% works, we won't use you if you're shit regardless but we'll 100% entertain looking at your candidates Maybe 99%. This doesn't work on me. Any swag I am sent from a recruiter gets handed to someone else. I turn down dinner and drinks because I feel like I'm being manipulated. The harder a vendor or recruiter pushes here, the more uneasy I feel about using them. I don't want to hang out with people who only want to be around me so I can give them something. Edit: Sadly, I think this doesn't help me from the perspective of being recruited, but I can't help not being comfortable playing this game.

tetrep 3y ago

> (HR are meant to confirm we only see qualified candidates, but they're idiots) My last job tried to address this by having a small technical test of skill that could be thrown at anyone as a first pass before getting any technical people involved. We got virtually no senior role "spam", so we didn't have to worry about making a challenging technical test, we just needed to weed out junior applicants who basically didn't know how to do anything other than apply for the job. It worked pretty well for us but we were a relatively small company. I don't remember the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure we hired less than 50 people a year (across a couple offices in the US) for the technical roles we used that test for.

bqmjjx0kac 3y ago
I'm glad it seems to be working for you, but it's kind of unnerving to be asked a technical question by someone who doesn't understand the question and cannot actually evaluate your answer.

kaycey2022 3y ago

How do I find these recruiters?