An Open Letter To Recruiters

by paddyforan • 12 years ago

27 66 12 years ago

lugg• 12 years ago

The bad ones will never tell you outright, too worried you'll cut them out or tell your other recruiters. I have a couple of good ones I pretty much deal with exclusively. If I get a spam op from another recruiter I'll tell my real recruiter to go pitch me to company x (if I'm actually interested).

Sure its pretty ruthless but its not really my problem these guys look out for me and only bother me with calls about companies they know I'd fit with. They also leave me alone for years on end until I initiate the "I'm looking again" "protocol"

untog4• 12 years ago

Look, if my LinkedIn profile shows I just started a job three months ago, I am almost certainly not looking to move jobs right now.

I noticed that last time I changed jobs I got a flood of e-mails just after I changed my LinkedIn profiles. It was deliberate, too - they'd start "I noticed you just started at X - if it isn't what you had hoped...", which is actually relatively smart in recruiter terms.

My pet peeve: calling me on my work phone number. I don't even know what my work phone number is, but presumably recruiters call the front desk and asked to be put through to me. It's shockingly unprofessional - as if I'm going to discuss an opportunity while I sit near my co-workers and boss.

timjahn4• 12 years ago

"I don't even know what my work phone number is, but recruiters call the front desk and asked to be put through to me (presumably)"

I've had this happen to me in the past and my jaw almost dropped. Like, REALLY?

Goes to show that these recruiters are all about spray and play, and have no real logical strategies.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

"Yeah, not really enjoying this new job, my coworkers are total douche-canoes. Actually, could you hang on a second? -- Steve, can you keep your typing down? I'm on the phone with a recruiter. Thanks. -- So yeah, hate this job..."

smtddr• 12 years ago

Same here!

Once they called the frontdesk and left a message for me to get back to them(cuz I have no work number).

They also called the frontdesk for a coworker and lied that they were someone that played tennis with him months ago. When the coworker called back, the recruiter admitted he lied because he thought the frontdesk wouldn't relay the message if he said the truth... o_O;

Another thing, is I really wish they'd stop emailing me at work.... or maybe my company should give us the option to stop routing firstname.lastname@companyname.com from external sources. It's terrible to get that "Exciting Job opportunity" email pop-up when other coworkers are looking at my screen. I've disabled that notification-alert in my email client(Thunderbird) because of that. My LinkedIn contact-info says not to contact me with any other medium besides LinkedIn's InMail. It also says the office must be walkable from a BART station and organic food locations must be nearby for lunch(I know, I'm a spoiled bayarea techie).

Nobody reads my LinkedIn conact-info since I always get stuff that misses these requirements. If anyone from LinkedIn is reading this, you should give the option to make the contact-info section very conspicuous. I want mine to be freaking glowing bright red. In fact, just let us have custom CSS like the hatenablog platform.

untog4• 12 years ago

You're aiming way too high with requirements stating organic food locations. My LinkedIn requirements stated "no recruiters", yet lo and behold...

gedrap• 12 years ago

That's nothing compared to recruiters offering me senior jobs although I haven't even graduated. I literally have no idea who would hire those recruiters in the first place.

I feel bad for the decent recruiters because of the image thanks to spammers.

rmc• 12 years ago

My pet peeve: calling me on my work phone number.

I once had a recruiter phone our office number (it's a small ~5 person tech company), ask to speak to me about a "personal matter" and give a false name. Once I got on the phone, I loudly, so everyone in the office could hear me told them to cop on.

timjahn4• 12 years ago

Seems like it's every week or so now that a developer writes a letter like this to recruiters. Trust me, I completely agree - recruiters suck.

But I'm wondering if the recruiters you're actually trying to reach are simply never going to listen and never stop their ways. That's just not who they are.

Somebody needs to fix the recruiting industry, for realz.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

I know, but I remain hopeful. And if I don't tell people how they failed, how will they improve?

Writing this just put it in a convenient place so I can link to it instead of repeating myself every time.

untog4• 12 years ago

I'm not convinced it's that broken, though - at least from the recruiter's perspective. I have no doubt they pick up many candidates - those of us that are more "discerning" as just the collateral damage.

timjahn4• 12 years ago

I'm thinking that recruiter's being able to pick up large amounts of candidates doesn't necessarily equal success. Success would be defined as companies getting the right fit for their job openings.

Simply filling those job openings every time does not mean the right fit is found every time.

tptacek• 12 years ago

I mean this is nice and all, but it's a little like writing an open letter to a real estate agent. It's a transactional business. Your problem isn't with recruiters, it's with the recruiting model.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

Oh, I know. I expect to have to send it to each of them, manually, in response to bad pitches. And I expect 99.99999% will ignore it.

But if, in my entire career, I can help one recruiter suck less, it was all worth it.

I guess I'm just an optimist like that.

Joeboy• 12 years ago

I guess it's worth sending a thousand unwanted emails if you get just one conversion.

nsmnsf• 12 years ago

B) not respond at all, depending on how good the rest of your pitch was.

Why are you doing anything but this, in any situation? Delete/mark as spam, move on.

rubiquity2• 12 years ago

Because then he couldn't write a blog post that is partially a thinly-veiled brag about how much he gets hit up for jobs!

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

And oh, man you should see the amount of junk mail and spam I get too!

Be jealous of how frequently telemarketers call me!

You nailed it, ace.

rondon2• 12 years ago

The recruiters I hear from on linked-in use a shotgun method where they send out 100 e-mails and hope to get a few people to write back. Paddy, do you get personalized e-mails from recruiters?

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

Totally! I've had some great recruiters reach out to me. I've gotten bad pitches that were actually personalized, too. But I've also gotten the shotgun.

Obviously, no hope for the shotgun. I hold out hope for the bad pitches.

jacalata• 12 years ago

Dunno about Paddy, but I do.

codegeek• 12 years ago

I hear from recruiters all the time. I sometimes even get on the phone with them just to get an idea of what they are pitching regardless of my status. I don't mind them contacting me via linkedin etc in general.

The important realization is that it is not the recruiters necessarily but the recruiting ecosystem which is broken. Hiring is broken but not for recruiters. They love the current model of placing someone for a fee. Basically, the bad recruiters exist only because their clients don't give a shit about hiring (well most of them and hence the need for these recruiters). I will say this carefully but again "majority of clients do not give a shit". This translates to "Hey we are too busy with real work and so go find me a fish". Out comes these recruiters and search agents. Thanks to places like linkedin lately, all they have to do is to create an account and start fishing.

What if employers/clients actually invest their own time in recruiting ? What if they ask their team members to recruit actively and even compensate them in some way (may be a boost in performance review ?). But no, we won't do that. We have lot more important shit to worry about.

Recruiting unfortunately is a numbers game (kinda like sales)and recruiters (read: sales people) have no incentive to stop doing what they are doing. The barrier to entry is way too low as well which doesn't help.

There are very good recruiters out there and I do know a few good ones too. Kinda like a needle in a haystack but even they have to compete with the sleazy ones.

doktrin2• 12 years ago

What if employers/clients actually invest their own time in recruiting ? What if they ask their team members to recruit actively and even compensate them in some way (may be a boost in performance review ?). But no, we won't do that. We have lot more important shit to worry about.

Is this how large tech companies operate? I have mostly worked at startups, and am currently employed with a research institution. At no point have I ever gone through a recruiter when switching employers. In my limited experience, team members have always been the ones to directly manage their hiring and recruitment efforts.

mathattack• 12 years ago

From the bio I’m friendly. I don’t bite. Feel free to say hi.

That certainly doesn't match the Open Letter.

Recruiters are there doing a job, and it's not an easy one. I have a lot of sympathy for them. Treat them nice, because at some point in your future, you'll be looking for a job too. The ones that you treated well ("This job isn't for me, but try calling X who is looking") will remember it.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

I'm sorry you don't consider it friendly. Personally, telling them why their pitch didn't work felt friendlier than just assuming they had no interest in improving and ignoring them, which is the other tenable option.

It would be unfriendly for me to send recruiters after friends without knowing if the friend is actually a match for the company or not. At least in my opinion.

avn2109• 12 years ago

+1 for honest feedback. The world could use more of that.

gopher1• 12 years ago

If they tell you the company, what's stopping you from turning them down and going directly to the company? I'm pretty sure that's the main reason they don't tell you the company.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

I'm not sure I see the incentive in me doing that...?

Unless, of course, I hate dealing with them. In which case I'm not going to get hired through them in the first place.

Why would I do that?

darylfritz3• 12 years ago

To me, the recruiter is representing the company. If they're reaching out to me, I'd like to think I already have an "in" with the company. Why would I circumvent that and go in alone?

Bahamut• 12 years ago

Salary?

fredgrott• 12 years ago

if they are exclusive to that client for that job, they will tell you the company name..

HINT, you want the exclusive recruiter..

danielweber2• 12 years ago

Because the recruiter gives names to the company of "here are the people I gave your contact info to" and the company makes sure that those people only go through the recruiter.

I've had recruiters tell me right upfront which company they are dealing with.

nimblegorilla• 12 years ago

Maybe it's just me, but expecting recruiters to research your sexual orientation seems a bit over the top. Why don't you just work with local recruiters.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

It's as easy to figure out I have a boyfriend as it is to figure out what I look for in a company. Or what my preferred stack is. I'm not really subtle about it. But I'll give you that one; it's possible to get a good pitch for a state I wouldn't consider working in, assuming it has some other evidence that they know something about me other than "Matched my search results for 'writes Python sometimes'".

I don't work with local recruiters because _I'm not looking for a job_.

logn2• 12 years ago

I don't like recruiters either but I think writing an open letter is going too far. I don't choose to make it my problem that recruiters suck. When I go to a sports game and get pestered by ticket scalpers, I don't lecture the scalpers on how the could be using more effective methods to sell their tickets and get all angry about how I'm tired of being offered tickets.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

So...

what you're telling me is you're tired of being offered posts on my blog and I could be using more effective methods? O:)

logn2• 12 years ago

Ah, touché.

jrjarrett2• 12 years ago

So the only "recruiters" I ever get contacting me are for body-shop type firms (TekSystems, Robert Half). I've talked to them and I tell them that I'm comfortable where I am, but if you can find me something better, I'm willing to listen.

And I explain where I am being compensated now, and explain "better" would have to beat those things.

They say "oh, yes, we can!" and then of course, the only thing that may be even slightly better is the rate, but all other benefits are essentially zero (vacation time, sick time, health insurance).

I would LOVE to be contacted by a real recruiter.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

I'll start forwarding you all my recruiter emails! :)

jrjarrett2• 12 years ago

Uh, thanks?

suspects this is in the class of Things To Be Careful What You Wish For

snorkel3• 12 years ago

Please spare us with the royal attitude. Congratulations, you know how computers work, and so do thousands of other people who work harder and cheaper than you. Recruiters don't care if you, candidate number 947392, is annoyed or not. They simply want to know if you're going to the damn interview or not. If not then goodbye, next. If you go to the interview, and you didn't embarrass the recruiter for suggesting you, then good job, thank you candidate number 947whatever, you did your job. If you actually get an offer letter, oh boy, you did a very good job! Recruiter gets 10k after you worked that job for 3 months. Wash, rinse, repeat. You are not special.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

How uppity of me, to let my desire to work in a job I like get in the way of a recruiter's money.

I am thoroughly cowed. I've seen the error of my ways. Thank you.

snorkel3• 12 years ago

Not your fault. Recruiters make you feel special because they want you to just go the interview, but in reality you're the commodity being traded, and the real customer is the employer. Frankly recruiters hate me because I know how they operate and call them out on their bullshit.

If you want to stump a recruiter just ask "Why does does company X want to talk to me? What did they find so interesting about me?" Bad recruiters have no answer because they're just tossing candidates at roles and hoping something sticks.

darylfritz3• 12 years ago

If you go to the interview, and you didn't embarrass the recruiter for suggesting you [..]

This is exactly why recruiters need to do a little bit of research beforehand. If they're recommending you as a candidate for a job, aren't they putting their own reputation on the line a little?

Unfortunately, I realize it doesn't exactly work like that. But isn't that the over-arching flaw in the whole headhunter ecosystem?

snorkel3• 12 years ago

As long as the candidate was reasonably well matched for the job and the employer felt it was at least worth talking to that candidate in person then even if the candidate is not hired then the employer still trusts that recruiter to find other candidates worth talking to. If the candidate is an embarrassment then that employer won't work with that recruiter in the future. Recruiters can tell just by talking to a candidate if they are least reasonable enough to sit through an interview and not be embarrassingly unqualified. If the candidate doesn't get an offer, then oh well, as long as the employer still trusts that recruiter then all is good. If the candidate gets an offer then jackpot. Play again.

The recruiter is only trying to please the hand that feeds them which is the employer. The recruiter only wants to maintain a relationship with each employer. Candidates are the commodity being traded, and therefore candidates are only given enough attention to ascertain their general qualifications for the job and likelihood of getting an offer.

danielweber2• 12 years ago

I've been annoyed in my job search how companies insist I fall in love with the company at step 1 of the process, when they know that 90% of the people will be rejected.

But it goes the other way as well. Why should a company spend a lot of effort on me before finding out if I am at least interested in the job?

What's the equivalent of speed-dating for employment? Job fairs?

grey-area• 12 years ago

A better solution to cut the flow of low-quality recruiter spam - delete your linkedin profile. If you have your own website, that's going to be a far better conduit for attracting interesting job offers and professional contact.

mightybrenden• 12 years ago

you won't have to deal with recruiters if you use Mighty Spring (www.mightyspring.com)

hodgesmr• 12 years ago

I'm always perplexed at how annoyed the dev community gets at recruiters. Sure, it's weird when they don't put forth an effort, but come on, you're getting unsolicited job offers multiple times a week! We're EXTREMELY lucky that our industry is flourishing right now. So many people have been unemployed for months (years) and they can't so much as get a phone-call.

Take the recruitment as flattery. If you're not interested, delete it and move on. Better yet, forward it to someone who might be interested.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

This is the truest of all true things that are true.

Totally a first-world problem.

I share feedback with recruiters because I want feedback as an engineer. If they choose to ignore it... well, I'll have to find some way to deal with people trying to give me a job, I guess. Woe.

jaredsohn2• 12 years ago

These are not "job offers". And getting contacted doesn't guarantee an interview either.

(But it is still good to treat people considering you as a job prospect as flattery.)

darylfritz3• 12 years ago

getting contacted doesn't guarantee an interview either

I think this is the part that bothers me most. If a headhunter contacts me, why am I not given the inside-track for the interview?

doktrin2• 12 years ago

I agree. I remember the job market of 07-09, and appreciate being contacted by recruiters. In fact, I typically respond to most them in order to politely decline.

I'm too young to remember the post-dot-com years, but those weren't a walk in the park either (to put it very mildly).

jaredsohn2• 12 years ago

In 2004, craigslist listed only about ten tech jobs per day for the Bay Area.

Also, LinkedIn wasn't all that popular, there was no Hacker News, there was no Twitter, Facebook, etc., meetup didn't have organizers (so often it was just a collection of people showing up at a restaurant and chatting about some subject.)

InstajobMick• 12 years ago

I think in all the time I have been contracting (and full time employed too for that matter) I can only remember one recruiter that was any good: He was knowledgeable about my field (I was an AD/Exchange consultant at the time) and I didn't feel that he was trying to make a pay cheque off me... but I can only remember one.

All the rest are just salesmen: I get emails from them these days and the first line is now "If this isn't your kind of job (paraphrasing here) then please pass it on to someone who you think would want it!" - Great pitch guys!

I don't like them and I don't actually know a single person in the tech game that has had decent dealings with them.

So for the last couple of months, at night, weekends, on the train etc. I have been working on Instajob (https://instajob.biz) to basically skip round the recruitment agents.

Only just went online so it's early days but I think they need a shakeup!

Anyway, my $0.02

Mick

storyhound• 12 years ago

Full disclosure: I'm not a recruiter or a coder. I'm a publicist. Instead of pitching Very Important Programmers all day, I pitch Very Important Editors. But, unsurprisingly, the things that make a great story pitch are the same things that make a great recruiting pitch. You're completely right - research, knowing your audience and his/her skills, history, and interests, are more important than anything else. Candidness and full disclosure are key, as is professionalism. And receiving dozens of emails a day from people who pitch without abiding by those processes is probably a huge pain in the ass.

However.

I think it's also important to realize, from a recruiter's perspective, that not everyone feels the same way you do. How would a recruiter know, before you posted this extremely condescending letter, that you're too important to speak to anyone but your mother on the phone? Some people prefer the phone to email (I certainly think it can be more efficient, especially when dealing with Q&A). How would a recruiter know that you actually WANT to not be considered for amazing jobs in certain areas because of your sexuality? (In my thinking, that's a type of discrimination that should be discouraged.) How is a recruiter to know that what would be too much detail in a job description for another potential hire is not enough detail for you? Or vice-verse?

Everyone is busy. Recruiters are busy, programmers are busy, stay at home moms are busy, CEOs are busy. As soon as you think you're too important and busy to show other people respect, there's a problem.

I certainly think you're right about many things. Publicists who send blanket mass pitches that begin "Dear editor," give the rest of us a bad rap and make our jobs that much harder. But closing your letter with "Most engineers hate recruiter pitches not because we hate being pitched, it’s because we hate dealing with recruiters" tells me even if a recruiter follows all of your guidelines and sends you amazing pitches, you'll still think of him/her as a less important person than you, and treat her/him accordingly - simply because of the career they've happened to choose. As a person who's been on the receiving end of emails like yours before (along the lines of "I don't deal with publicists") I can tell you you're not going to gain a lot of respect by making sure everyone knows how Very Important you are. If I were a top recruiter and happened to read this, you can bet I wouldn't bother approaching you in the future - I'd look for someone who communicates like he remembers what it's like to not be on top.

paddyforan16• 12 years ago

Disclosure: I am not a Very Important Programmer.

Second Disclosure: I am not on top.

Were either of these different, I might feel differently than I do.

Some people do prefer email to the phone. I have no problem with a recruiter offering the option to have a phone call. I have problems with recruiters requiring the phone call before I can even talk to someone who will make a decision. Hell, the last recruiter blatantly told me they would not tell me the name of the company they were hiring for until I was on the phone with them. Perhaps it's my arrogance, but that doesn't to be a matter of "some people like the phone better".

You are right, not every recruiter needs to read my blog or Twitter enough to realise that I have a boyfriend. That is a terrible example. I'll iterate on it with an updated draft that better gets across the point--perhaps a suggesting I work in an enterprise environment would be a better example, as I'm decidedly unsuited to that environment, and that's obvious if you know anything about me at all.

I believe a bare minimum of a job description--the company they're hiring for, something about the culture or problem they're solving, the stack they use, maybe why they think you'd be a good candidate--is probably a good bet. I get too many recruiter emails like my sample that don't tell me, quite literally, anything about the company. At all. No name. No website. No size. Nothing that would allow me to determine if this is an opportunity I should pursue or not.

I believe I pointed out that recruiters are busy and that I am busy. I am well aware I'm not the only busy person out there. :) If you think this is disrespectful, I'd certainly love to find ways to fix this.

I think you may be unfamiliar with the level of interaction recruiters provide. The publicists sending the mass pitches you describe are the bad recruiter pitches I am talking about. It is not a matter of me having very specific guidelines for how I am spoken to before I'll consider a job; it's a matter of an industry whose norm is to type in search terms, then hit all the results with a form letter.

This letter is in case one of those who are trying to do a good job are seeing everyone else use the form letter and assuming that is how it's done. Or who simply don't know how to put themselves into an engineer's shoes to effectively communicate a pitch.

I resent your accusation that I believe recruiters are somehow beneath me. I actually, as I mentioned, believe recruiters have a really cool job. I don't have the aptitude for it, but I do not believe that making lights flash in a pleasing pattern is somehow a worthier job than connecting people to jobs that fulfill them. And yes, there are recruiters I love. They are the ones I send referrals to when a friend asks who is hiring. They are the ones I seek out. Which, for a recruiter, is a powerful card to hold in a limited market. I'm trying to give as many recruiters that card as I can.

I deal with recruiters all the time. I got my current job through a recruiter. He was fantastic. I have nothing against recruiters, or I would just set up a spam filter and call it a day.

I wrote this because I ask for feedback when I'm in the hiring process, so it struck me that recruiters might also like feedback. It seems to me that this is the opposite of what you accuse me of; if I didn't care about the recruiter, considered them lesser, or didn't think they cared about their job, why would I care if they got the feedback they needed to improve? I'd ignore them and move on. It's certainly less effort.

And it results in fewer people assuming I think my ass is the gravitational pull of the universe without bothering to find out anything about me.

joesmo• 12 years ago

"Talking to you on the phone is, 100% of the time, an absolutely useless exercise for me."

Couldn't agree more. I don't understand the desire of recruiters to talk in person. This must be something that they are required to do for a number of hours per day, I assume. I appreciate recruiters who can appreciate my time and not waste it.

DyslexicAtheist• 12 years ago

ahh, recruiting and tech - these 2 worlds will never meet. I worked in both. Here is some insider tricks I learned: http://valbonneconsulting.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/breakingn...

An Open Letter To Recruiters

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