IT recruiters, in their own words

http://cvmountain.com/2011/08/it-recruiters-considered-harmful

by KiwiCoder • 15 years ago

33 15 15 years ago

cvmountain.com

Uchikoma2• 15 years ago

I only know one excellent one, one where I could hire all developers unseen from.

jarofgreen• 15 years ago

Curious what you think makes them excellent - for example, do they do the process differently in any way?

veyron• 15 years ago

I think that IT recruiters who are more technical in nature (ie were former IT employees) attract more competent IT people and know which candidates are relevant to employers. As a result, the experience from the employer is much more pleasant.

Uchikoma2• 15 years ago

No, all the others either a.) send PHP developers for Java positions or vice versa b.) try to sell you mediocre developers as top notch c.) send you profiles that do not match at all. a+b+c often means, recruiters are worse than the developers that just send you a resume.

Excellent are those that only send you resumes that do fit and represent excellent developers.

I think the process is the same, the results are different.

wccrawford2• 15 years ago

Cost: There's more to it than just the filtering and introduction.

Agencies we've worked with have had a guarantee clause. If the person quits within 90 days, the recruiting company pays their salary. If they quit after 90 days, the hiring company pays them.

This gives companies a way to soften the blow of bad recruits, at the cost of higher fees to the recruiter.

It's insurance.

CodeMage• 15 years ago

Just out of curiosity, what happens if the person is fired, instead of quitting?

wccrawford2• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure it's the same deal... But I could see how that could cause an integrity issue.

Generally, a company wastes enough time and money training a person that firing and hiring every 89 days wouldn't be worth it.

MatthewPhillips• 15 years ago

You're paying for the recruiter's database of programmers. I get calls from recruiters who first contacted me 5 years ago, from time to time. That database is invaluable in most cities, where programmers are more sparse than in the west coast. If you have to rely only on people who are applying or putting their resume on Monster, CareerBuilder, etc. it can take a long time to find someone competent (I've seen it first hand). But recruiters have no problem calling up people they've placed as recently as a year ago.

gaius2• 15 years ago

Heh, I spoke to a recruiter recently who was concerned that I had no Unix experience. What it has on my CV is about 15 years of Solaris and Linux...

golgo13• 15 years ago

I got a call from one guy that said I didn't have enough TSQL for a particular role. Never mind the 6 years of SQL Server...

wslh2• 15 years ago

The future is dangerous! looking forward advanced recruiters could begin to use API from sites like StackOverflow to retrieve developers with high reputation. Yesterday I just wrote a small post about it since I needed to recruit people for my company around my location (Buenos Aires, Argentina). If you're interested for a responsible use :-) http://blog.databigbang.com/converting-excel-cells-to-hyperl...

gaius2• 15 years ago

SO already does that, inviting high-rep individuals to Careers 2.0.

wslh2• 15 years ago

The point is that the Armageddon will come with a zillion of recruiters using web mashups. They don't need invitations.

benmac• 15 years ago

That service (reputations from SO, Github, LinkedIn etc) is available: http://strictlydev.com/

tobych• 15 years ago

So when recruiters contact me (Python, Seattle or telecommuting), what might I ask them to find out whether it's worth my time? I guess first I'd want to know all the things recruiters are influenced by or tend to do that I don't like, and see what I can ask them that would suggest they're less likely to do those things than most.

  o Do you get paid a flat-rate?
  o What's the difference between Unix and Linux?
  o ...

IT recruiters, in their own words

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