4 ms·

Experience is relative. Compared to a 15+ year veteran sure, this guy's but a baby in the crib. But he's still a baby in the crib with recruiters beating down

Experience is relative. Compared to a 15+ year veteran sure, this guy's but a baby in the crib. But he's still a baby in the crib with recruiters beating down his door left, right, and center, none of whom are expecting him to quit his job for a vague, conditional offer of employment. This isn't about who deserves what, this is about the market conditions. Right now the market conditions are such that even devs with ~3 years of experience are highly sought after, with likely multiple recruiter contacts per day if they are even half decent at advertising their abilities. This isn't about whether or not what Buffer expects is "wrong" (for whatever ephemeral notion of right and wrong), it's about what Buffer can get away with. In the current market they most certainly cannot get away with it.

vonmoltke 13y ago
Define "half decent at advertising their abilities". I am going on 12 years hardware and software experience, and aside from shitty spam recruiters I have never had anyone beatig down my door.
- WWLink 13y ago
  I wonder this too! I don't know anyone complaining about their doors being beat down by recruiters lol.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, get one. Make sure your summary is well written and keyworded with words that recruiters are looking for (and that apply to you) - Rails, C++, graphics, what have you. Flesh out your past jobs section. Keyword these descriptions too as relevant (technologies used, major popular frameworks, libraries, etc). Basically reverse engineer the recruiter's practices - they're using a search tool, searching for keywords relevant to the position they're fielding. This is not very different from SEO. Increase the likelihood of being in a search result and watch the recruiters pile in. While you're at it, make sure your resume is always up to date and available on your own website (if you don't have a website, get one). Make sure you are high up in Google results for your own name. Keyword your resume the same way you'd do your LinkedIn profile - maybe ~5% of the recruiters that show up end up coming directly via my website through some kind of search.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    Well, that goes much further than I would go in defining "half decent". To me, that comes off as a real Type A, game the system type approach. If the market was really as hot as is often claimed, that would not be remotely necessary in order to be noticed. What I think is going on, having observed from outside for many years, is that a certain subset of companies are fighting over the same small subset of engineers (self confident, type A shameless marketeers who happen to already be located in SV, NYC, or Seattle) and complaining that they can't find people because this subset is too small to satisfy them all. I have had a LinkedIn profile for almost as long as LinkedIn has been around. I have had a website with my own domain name since 1999. I do not have personal or professional experience in $FLAVOR_OF_THE_WEEK. Despite all the talk here and elsewhere about how its fundamentals that matter and anyone competent can pick up $LANGUAGE or $FRAMEWORK in the time it takes to become familiar with the codebase, everyone still seems to hire based on the buzzwords. No one ever taught me that I should be treating my resume like an SEO problem. In fact, I have received so much contradictory advice about how to structure my resume over the years that I am almost ready to throw up my hands in disgust. Plus, the idea of keyword-loading my resume and LinkedIn profile makes me feel dirty; hell, SEO in general makes me feel dirty.
    - rezistik 13y ago
      You're not using the technologies that are in demand, you're not writing detailed work histories, and you're not putting key words into your resume, please tell me you do not wonder why you're not being head hunted. You belittle developers who are trying to advance themselves, their knowledge and make a good living with your Type A thing. Everything starts off as a flavor of the week, Ruby on Rails was just a flavor of the week type deal and then it became huge. Same with Node now and with other stacks before that. I've done recruiting, and am just finishing up a round for my company and lazy developers who half ass their resumes are frustrating. Trying to search for someone is a pain in the ass and not everyone is a professional developer, some of us are just developers at small companies trying to expand. If more people had well written LinkedIn profiles it would make our lives easier. If not a LinkedIn than you need to find some way to make yourself visible if you want to be headhunted. That's not to say it's a bad thing, you can be a very well paid very comfortable developer without ever being head hunted, but having a well made portfolio will make your life easier certainly.
wyclif 13y ago
Absolutely true. Especially the bit about recruiters.
nymph 13y ago
Just because (some) recruiters may be "beating down his door" doesn't mean he's qualified for those jobs. Recruiters routinely overfit, just to cram as many resumes and profiles into their hiring funnels as possible. Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks. Being as 90% of them can't tell the wheat from the chaff to save their skins, they have no other choice, really.

vonmoltke 13y ago

Define "half decent at advertising their abilities". I am going on 12 years hardware and software experience, and aside from shitty spam recruiters I have never had anyone beatig down my door.

WWLink 13y ago
I wonder this too! I don't know anyone complaining about their doors being beat down by recruiters lol.
potatolicious 13y ago
If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, get one. Make sure your summary is well written and keyworded with words that recruiters are looking for (and that apply to you) - Rails, C++, graphics, what have you. Flesh out your past jobs section. Keyword these descriptions too as relevant (technologies used, major popular frameworks, libraries, etc). Basically reverse engineer the recruiter's practices - they're using a search tool, searching for keywords relevant to the position they're fielding. This is not very different from SEO. Increase the likelihood of being in a search result and watch the recruiters pile in. While you're at it, make sure your resume is always up to date and available on your own website (if you don't have a website, get one). Make sure you are high up in Google results for your own name. Keyword your resume the same way you'd do your LinkedIn profile - maybe ~5% of the recruiters that show up end up coming directly via my website through some kind of search.
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  Well, that goes much further than I would go in defining "half decent". To me, that comes off as a real Type A, game the system type approach. If the market was really as hot as is often claimed, that would not be remotely necessary in order to be noticed. What I think is going on, having observed from outside for many years, is that a certain subset of companies are fighting over the same small subset of engineers (self confident, type A shameless marketeers who happen to already be located in SV, NYC, or Seattle) and complaining that they can't find people because this subset is too small to satisfy them all. I have had a LinkedIn profile for almost as long as LinkedIn has been around. I have had a website with my own domain name since 1999. I do not have personal or professional experience in $FLAVOR_OF_THE_WEEK. Despite all the talk here and elsewhere about how its fundamentals that matter and anyone competent can pick up $LANGUAGE or $FRAMEWORK in the time it takes to become familiar with the codebase, everyone still seems to hire based on the buzzwords. No one ever taught me that I should be treating my resume like an SEO problem. In fact, I have received so much contradictory advice about how to structure my resume over the years that I am almost ready to throw up my hands in disgust. Plus, the idea of keyword-loading my resume and LinkedIn profile makes me feel dirty; hell, SEO in general makes me feel dirty.
  - rezistik 13y ago
    You're not using the technologies that are in demand, you're not writing detailed work histories, and you're not putting key words into your resume, please tell me you do not wonder why you're not being head hunted. You belittle developers who are trying to advance themselves, their knowledge and make a good living with your Type A thing. Everything starts off as a flavor of the week, Ruby on Rails was just a flavor of the week type deal and then it became huge. Same with Node now and with other stacks before that. I've done recruiting, and am just finishing up a round for my company and lazy developers who half ass their resumes are frustrating. Trying to search for someone is a pain in the ass and not everyone is a professional developer, some of us are just developers at small companies trying to expand. If more people had well written LinkedIn profiles it would make our lives easier. If not a LinkedIn than you need to find some way to make yourself visible if you want to be headhunted. That's not to say it's a bad thing, you can be a very well paid very comfortable developer without ever being head hunted, but having a well made portfolio will make your life easier certainly.

wyclif 13y ago

Absolutely true. Especially the bit about recruiters.

nymph 13y ago

Just because (some) recruiters may be "beating down his door" doesn't mean he's qualified for those jobs. Recruiters routinely overfit, just to cram as many resumes and profiles into their hiring funnels as possible. Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks. Being as 90% of them can't tell the wheat from the chaff to save their skins, they have no other choice, really.