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How Do You Want to Be Recruited?
I've noticed a certain (understandable) amount of ire towards recruiters around HN. There's the mass cookie cutter emails/inmails, the lack of understanding about what exactly you DO, and a host of other reasons why this distaste persists. So, how would YOU prefer to be recruited?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jerven 12y agoThe inverse of what you describe;) thoughtful personal customized with understanding both "me" and your client while respecting everyone's time. It is not magic it's time consuming work.
- greenyoda 12y agoIf the recruiter can't tell me a salary range for the job up front, I'm not interested. Why should I waste days of my life interviewing only to find out at the end that they're offering me the wonderful opportunity to take a 50% pay cut?
- xpto123 12y agoIts I believe mostly a sales tactic where they make you do some significant investment on your side, and when you get to end you feel more obliged to take the position because of all the effort that you put into it in the first place.
- Spoom 12y agoAnd that's why developers hate recruiters.
- rubiquity 12y agoFor me it's all about not wasting my time, not because I'm a big deal, because I'm not, but because this happened frequently before I went freelance. There are so many non-starters when it comes to jobs, why do companies insist on leaving these out until the very end? Warning: the content below is slightly dramatic but a pretty fair representation of this game. 1) Tell me the salary range up front. 2) Tell me whether you're down with remote up front. Great, we got past 1 & 2. Let's move on: 3) Let's talk about best practices. These are important to me because it makes my life at work pleasant. 4) Great, show me proof of these best practices you talk about. See, I knew you were a dirty liar. You're not doing <best practice> because Visionary/CEO/Financier/Business person that is guaranteed to make my life a living hell doesn't see the value in it. If we make it past 3 and 4 (rare), we're onto salary negotiation! 5) Your idea is never exciting enough to where I'll want to do it for less than my market value. 6) Why yes, I do love programming. No, I won't work for less just because I love doing it.
- MalcolmDiggs 12y agoI think a lot of recruiters fail to understand that many tech folks (like myself) simply don't want to work for the kind of company that would hire an outside recruiter, period. So...how do I want to be recruited? Only by actual employees of the company I'd be working for. No middle men.
- whichdan 12y agoAs an engineer involved with recruiting: how would I stumble across your profile/resume, and how much time do you expect engineers to spend clicking through LinkedIn profiles? Would it be a positive or negative sign to you if the company that's recruiting you is having engineers filter out candidates instead of writing code?
- MalcolmDiggs 12y agoPersonally I have a resume/profile on Careers.StackOverflow.com, Angellist, CodeEval, Github...etc... I don't expect engineers to spend any time clicking through profiles though. That's exactly the point, if you're recruiting for a startup you can afford to do things that don't scale (like reaching out the authors of your favorite open source repos, meeting people at conferences and meetups etc). If you need soooo many engineers right now that you need to employ tactics like farming LinkedIn...then we're a bad match anyway. The point of my original comment was that some people (like me) prefer to be recruited in ways that don't scale because that lets us know that it's a certain kind of company (namely a small-scale startup that is hand-picking their team very carefully). And that's what appeals to me.
- xpto123 12y agoFor me the main problem is not the recruiting, its a service worth paying for. The problem is when the recruitment company becomes the employer by inserting themselves in the middle via a services contract and asking 25% for the life of the contract. There is basically no added value after the initial contact its purelly taking advantage of the situation in order to insert themselves as a middleman with interests often different than both the contractor and the client.
- zaccus 12y agoI have no interest in working with a recruiter at all. I'm fully capable of applying to a company directly if I am interested. Recruiters are parasites who need to get a real job.
- saddestcatever 12y agoHonestly, I don't want to be contacted by a recruiter. I want a list of companies that are looking to hire. I want a list that I can individually research, then find a way to contact them.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- s3b 12y agoI want a transparent process where I know in advance what I'm getting into. I'd like to know how much they're willing to pay(the range) and what exactly I would be expected to do - the role as well as the product I'd be working on. I'd also like to know about the interview process and how long after an interview I'd be told the result (preferably immediately). Also tell me about the sort of people I'll be working with - team size, roles, backgrounds etc. Once I have that information, it's easier for me to decide on whether to attend the interview or not.