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Right now there is a firehouse of job offers from recruiters on linkedin, and all a good developer has to do to find work is take a drink from that firehose. W

Right now there is a firehouse of job offers from recruiters on linkedin, and all a good developer has to do to find work is take a drink from that firehose. While I enjoy the current situation, it's unlikely to last. Sometimes we forget that there's plenty of people who have simply built up a clientele and a repuation through plain old networking. These jobs tend to be more lucrative and probably don't require you to learn the flavor-of-the-month js framework. It's no surprise that we don't see many experienced professionals competing for what are essentially entry-level jobs (despite the use of the word senior in the job title and despite the high salaries inexperienced developers command). Obviously not all experienced professionals have built up that network. Those are the people you see applying for jobs. Source: I spent a couple years getting to know a network of CTO's and architects who have been doing ecommerce since it's inception. They are in demand, they don't apply for jobs, and they are paid handsomely, and yes some of them are grandfathers or grandmothers.

vonmoltke 12y ago
> Right now there is a [firehose] of job offers from recruiters on linkedin Interview offers, and they only come to the people who have the right combination of keywords and location. Miss on one or both of those counts, and you are invisible. The second seems to be much more important than the first, too.
- shanemhansen 12y ago
  I'd agree with that. I'd add that I live in Salt Lake City, Utah and still get a fair amount of offers. I realize it might be quite different in other countries.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    I know Texas likes to claim is is "a whole other country", but sometimes living in Dallas it feels like that. It seems like nobody comes looking in Dallas from outside the area.
ryandrake 12y ago
If you're an older tech worker, for the most part, LinkedIn is just a firehose of crap. At worst, it's: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do [JOB minus 4] at [COMPANY minus 2]? We have Beer Thursdays and your fellow employees will all be young enough to be your sons (and yes, they're all male). And at best it's: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do the same job, but at a different, but very similar company, with the same lack of a future career path? What you never see is: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. You probably feel like you're in a rut there, and are ready to advance to [JOB + 1] at [COMPANY + 1].
- unoti 12y ago
  It's a firehose, not a high class wine tasting room, you are correct. But one is at least unlikely to go thirsty, which is far better than it has been from time to time over the last couple of decades.
- jrjarrett 12y ago
  THIS. oh a THOUSAND times this.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
"All". All you have to do is sift through that firehose for jobs that match your expertise, at companies you wouldn't hate to work for, at rates and hours you'll accept, and that don't seem like they're just jerking you around. Then after you've expended that effort you can begin the actual process, which may fall through for any one of a billion reasons, not the least of which are that most recruiters are jackasses with little understanding of the actual field of work. For anyone with a slightly complex set of skills just getting to square 1 of having a recruiter or HR person be able to understand your skillset is damned near impossible. And there's no way they'll actually be able to have a proper appreciation of your competency except in the crudest, most oblique manner possible (e.g. years of experience, "big" projects completed, expected wages, etc.) It's hard enough to have a conversation between talented, highly knowledgeable software devs which actually parses the differentiation between various job roles (like, say, systems engineering and web dev), which can span enormous ranges of differences. Trying to get the human resume regex parsers we know as recruiters and HR personnel to understand such things, good fucking luck. And yet today those people often stand between you and a job. I could only imagine the state of the industry without word of mouth referrals.
MrDom 12y ago
Having tried to drink from the firehose in the past, I can say that I have never once had a recruiter lead actually result in a job offer. It's one gigantic catch-22. The companies themselves aren't great at hiring, or they wouldn't need to use recruiters doing semi-random searches on linkedin. If you yourself were any good at interviewing, you wouldn't need to rely on the recruiters either. You're an unqualified lead that can't get a job on his own, which to a hiring manager screams "high risk hire." So you start the interview process in the negative column and have to really shine to get a job offer. But, if you were any good an shining in an interview, you wouldn't need the recruiter in the first place. The whole thing becomes a high stress waste of time.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  > But, if you were any good an shining in an interview, you wouldn't need the recruiter in the first place. If you need the recruiter in order to get the interview in the first place, it doesn't matter how well you shine in the interview.
  - MrDom 12y ago
    Yet more catch-22. Just out of curiosity, have you had success using recruiters to find jobs?
    - MrDom 12y ago
      Why the downvote? It's an honest question. If my assumptions are wrong, I'd like to know.
    - vonmoltke 12y ago
      I have gotten a few potentially good leads from third-party, but the vast majority don't seem to even read my resume. In-house recruiters generally go better, though Google's seem to misread my experience often and approach me for roles I am not really qualified for.
- thetrb 12y ago
  I think you're very wrong here. In-house recruiters also use Linkedin, I don't know why that would put anybody in the "high risk hire" category. I got my recent job through a recruiter contact on Linkedin and I'm pretty happy about it.

vonmoltke 12y ago

> Right now there is a [firehose] of job offers from recruiters on linkedin Interview offers, and they only come to the people who have the right combination of keywords and location. Miss on one or both of those counts, and you are invisible. The second seems to be much more important than the first, too.

shanemhansen 12y ago
I'd agree with that. I'd add that I live in Salt Lake City, Utah and still get a fair amount of offers. I realize it might be quite different in other countries.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  I know Texas likes to claim is is "a whole other country", but sometimes living in Dallas it feels like that. It seems like nobody comes looking in Dallas from outside the area.

ryandrake 12y ago

If you're an older tech worker, for the most part, LinkedIn is just a firehose of crap. At worst, it's: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do [JOB minus 4] at [COMPANY minus 2]? We have Beer Thursdays and your fellow employees will all be young enough to be your sons (and yes, they're all male). And at best it's: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do the same job, but at a different, but very similar company, with the same lack of a future career path? What you never see is: Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. You probably feel like you're in a rut there, and are ready to advance to [JOB + 1] at [COMPANY + 1].

unoti 12y ago
It's a firehose, not a high class wine tasting room, you are correct. But one is at least unlikely to go thirsty, which is far better than it has been from time to time over the last couple of decades.
jrjarrett 12y ago
THIS. oh a THOUSAND times this.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

"All". All you have to do is sift through that firehose for jobs that match your expertise, at companies you wouldn't hate to work for, at rates and hours you'll accept, and that don't seem like they're just jerking you around. Then after you've expended that effort you can begin the actual process, which may fall through for any one of a billion reasons, not the least of which are that most recruiters are jackasses with little understanding of the actual field of work. For anyone with a slightly complex set of skills just getting to square 1 of having a recruiter or HR person be able to understand your skillset is damned near impossible. And there's no way they'll actually be able to have a proper appreciation of your competency except in the crudest, most oblique manner possible (e.g. years of experience, "big" projects completed, expected wages, etc.) It's hard enough to have a conversation between talented, highly knowledgeable software devs which actually parses the differentiation between various job roles (like, say, systems engineering and web dev), which can span enormous ranges of differences. Trying to get the human resume regex parsers we know as recruiters and HR personnel to understand such things, good fucking luck. And yet today those people often stand between you and a job. I could only imagine the state of the industry without word of mouth referrals.

MrDom 12y ago

Having tried to drink from the firehose in the past, I can say that I have never once had a recruiter lead actually result in a job offer. It's one gigantic catch-22. The companies themselves aren't great at hiring, or they wouldn't need to use recruiters doing semi-random searches on linkedin. If you yourself were any good at interviewing, you wouldn't need to rely on the recruiters either. You're an unqualified lead that can't get a job on his own, which to a hiring manager screams "high risk hire." So you start the interview process in the negative column and have to really shine to get a job offer. But, if you were any good an shining in an interview, you wouldn't need the recruiter in the first place. The whole thing becomes a high stress waste of time.

vonmoltke 12y ago
> But, if you were any good an shining in an interview, you wouldn't need the recruiter in the first place. If you need the recruiter in order to get the interview in the first place, it doesn't matter how well you shine in the interview.
- MrDom 12y ago
  Yet more catch-22. Just out of curiosity, have you had success using recruiters to find jobs?
  - MrDom 12y ago
    Why the downvote? It's an honest question. If my assumptions are wrong, I'd like to know.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    I have gotten a few potentially good leads from third-party, but the vast majority don't seem to even read my resume. In-house recruiters generally go better, though Google's seem to misread my experience often and approach me for roles I am not really qualified for.
thetrb 12y ago
I think you're very wrong here. In-house recruiters also use Linkedin, I don't know why that would put anybody in the "high risk hire" category. I got my recent job through a recruiter contact on Linkedin and I'm pretty happy about it.