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Great reply, and [official] welcome to HN! I have a question, so here's some backstory: I went to a design and development 'placement' agency because they tout

by mnicole 14y ago

Great reply, and [official] welcome to HN! I have a question, so here's some backstory: I went to a design and development 'placement' agency because they touted a technical prowess unlike others in the area, but when I sat down with them, they had absolutely no clue what they were talking about. Because of this, they didn't so much as go to bat for me with the resumé I had because they couldn't parse it (I should also add that this lowly piece of paper is all they used to determine whether or not to represent me). Being as I'm merely front-end, this made me question their ability to do this for anyone with an even deeper development background. They didn't care about anything besides seniority levels, and being that titles can be deceiving/confusing in this industry to begin with, I found it pretty incompetent that they'd base your experience on those keywords alone. I could just as easily avoid them, but knowing all it takes to get into their database is to throw in a fancy title (and knowing how often people round up on resumés), should I say something (to them, or maybe as a Buyer Beware)? It rubs me the wrong way that qualified people are being turned away, and worse that companies are paying for this 'expertise'. Maybe this is just the unfortunate truth of the technical recruiter industry as a whole?

tomisthemovie 14y ago
Hi (thanks for the welcome. Long time listener first time caller and all that!). Tbh, your experience is symptomatic of many places in the industry. The consultants know next to nothing about the tech industry, cant tell their C from their C++ and think Ruby gems are literally precious stones. As for your point about not recognising seniority levels, I can't begin to tell you how many times this has come up in conversation, especially with my manager. It is keyword/buzzword recruitment at its finest. If the words on the job spec don't match the words on your CV, most people will just disregard it. I'm on a literal quest to try and get people in my company to be able to at least recognise code on Github, or recognise the importance of things like Stack Overflow, but they don't want to. The harsh point is that really good technically able people who would suit a role we come across won't be on the job boards, or have their CV registered with us. They'll be on online communities like these, or at tech meetups etc. A lot of the CV's we get through aren't the sort of CV's that our clients want to see. Hell, they don't even want to see a CV. They want to see code samples, HN profiles etc. But it's an uphill battle for me. I think that if consultants DID do this, they'd be a lot more reputable and respected in the market. As it is, more focus is put on speed rather than quality/customer service unfortunately. If I were you, if you don't think they'll represent you properly, I'd cut and run, and make a point of NOT recommending them on further. Anything you say in complaint will most likely be ignored. Just ensure that they're not putting you in front of companies you might actually like to work for, as they obviously won't be doing a very good job.

by mnicole 14y ago

tomisthemovie 14y ago

Hi (thanks for the welcome. Long time listener first time caller and all that!). Tbh, your experience is symptomatic of many places in the industry. The consultants know next to nothing about the tech industry, cant tell their C from their C++ and think Ruby gems are literally precious stones. As for your point about not recognising seniority levels, I can't begin to tell you how many times this has come up in conversation, especially with my manager. It is keyword/buzzword recruitment at its finest. If the words on the job spec don't match the words on your CV, most people will just disregard it. I'm on a literal quest to try and get people in my company to be able to at least recognise code on Github, or recognise the importance of things like Stack Overflow, but they don't want to. The harsh point is that really good technically able people who would suit a role we come across won't be on the job boards, or have their CV registered with us. They'll be on online communities like these, or at tech meetups etc. A lot of the CV's we get through aren't the sort of CV's that our clients want to see. Hell, they don't even want to see a CV. They want to see code samples, HN profiles etc. But it's an uphill battle for me. I think that if consultants DID do this, they'd be a lot more reputable and respected in the market. As it is, more focus is put on speed rather than quality/customer service unfortunately. If I were you, if you don't think they'll represent you properly, I'd cut and run, and make a point of NOT recommending them on further. Anything you say in complaint will most likely be ignored. Just ensure that they're not putting you in front of companies you might actually like to work for, as they obviously won't be doing a very good job.