dsk139

takeaways i’m expecting:

* pricing

* security/compliance

* differentiator feature vs competition

* partnership structure

* interesting customer use case

Even Financial | NYC / Remote (USA) | https://evenfinancial.com/

Even Financial is building an API for financial product acquisition. We work on the infrastructure that allows companies to connect their users to the right loan, credit card, insurance, etc across the major financial institutions. Think of us like a Kayak/ITA software for financial products.

We're looking for a javascript tech lead who's comfortable working full-stack from react to terraform to lead the team and help us build beautiful, configurable, and performant consumer experiences for our millions of users.

https://jobs.lever.co/evenfinancial/0f55408b-fb1f-4ba4-81d1-...

or email me david.kim at evenfinancial com

I'm a software engineer & a recruiter. I also work on a SaaS software for recruiters. There are a ton of bad recruiters. But a lot of bad acting happens because of 1) incentive misalignment 2) information asymmetry.

Looking at the list of reasons why a recruiter might be "bad" some of the blame is on recruiting company structure, but another major source of blame is on employers.

They sign contracts with recruiting firms, give little to no oversight, and provide a limited set of information about the role/responsibilities/comp/etc. At the same time, a lot of employers are really bad when it comes to retention. This combination leads to recruiters/recruiting companies that get away with bad behavior and still make a lot of money since it's purely a numbers game and they find that subset of engineers willing to tolerate their behavior. And companies pay them large fees for each transaction.

Protip: If you want to get rid of a lot of recruiter contacts, deactivate your LinkedIn. And make sure your public commits on Github don't include your real e-mail.

If you're serious feel free to e-mail me (in profile).

In my first 12 months, part time, I made ~250k. I split up my time by dedicating one full "day" of work of focused reviewing profiles/taking calls then only had sporadic e-mails and calls for 20-30 minutes throughout the day (usually scheduled for lunch). So ~10 hours/wk? It helped that I only had remote/flexible software engineering jobs.

concrete information (tasks, location, level, tech/tools, salary, business sector, team size...).

If location isn't implied the only reason you wouldn't give it is bad recruiting practices in your case. Salary/Tasks/Team Size could be changing pretty rapidly for startups and an external recruiter might not have the up to to date info. Companies do a bad job at investing in their external recruiting process. FWIW, I always provide company name, location, tech/tools, a hook about why I like them, and if I can find it a hook about the candidate.

But that's the point: a phone call is a pretty big effort I think.

Switching jobs is a pretty big effort overall. A lot of engineers who are willing to take the step of taking a call are generally thinking about leaving or actively looking. For strong recruiters the message is just the hook. If you're able to find a few trusted tech recruiters you can use throughout your career it makes the overall search a lot easier every time. It's like finding the all-star real estate agent when you're buying a home. There are a lot of bad recruiters so in your case, it's more likely you haven't found a strong recruiter to work with yet.

Source: I'm an engineer & recruiter that works with over 100 tech companies in NYC. I also work on a SaaS platform for recruiters.

After A/B testing tons of messages (and analyzing messages from a SaaS platform I built for recruiters to send messages) the messages that work are ones that are short. So I try to keep messages brief, reach out about a specific company that might be a match, and hope to get on the phone with you to actually be able to do my actual job. It's very hard to convert someone over an e-mail message. Getting you to respond to my e-mail is the first part of the funnel.

From there if I can get a conversation with you I can move on to the "fun" part of my job. Giving candidates a broad overview of the market based on their interests, expectation setting, and career counseling.

Edit: To answer your question directly the reason you get bad recruiting messages stems from a mix of bad recruiting practices, bad companies/ low investment in HR departments, and bad engineers. Would be happy to give you a recommendation for a solid recruiter in SF or NYC if you're in those areas.

I'm a javascript engineer that does recruiting in NYC/SF (I've wound down a bit to work on a SaaS product for recruiters) and I've been meaning to blog about my experiences. Preface: YMMV greatly based on location. I was able to sign my 1st client and match a candidate within 1 month of starting (albeit I had a small network of engineering managers from working in SV).

Working part-time for the first 6 months I averaged 3 placements/mo, weighted towards the latter period of that time frame as I got better & partnered with a recuriting firm to boost # of clients. I took no salary and took home 45%-100% of the fee based on whether it was a client of my own or not and revenue goals I hit in my partnership. 10% + €3000 seems low for an experienced recruiter.

For client fees, I started with 20% of yearly base salary contract- I now only sign 25% contracts. I only do perm matches, never got into the contracting/freelance game.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have additional questions.

Shoot me an email. Happy to chat.

Harj- thanks for the thoughtful reply. Do you disclose numbers about what % of candidates that get offers choose to take them? I feel like that's pretty important for companies when considering time they save.

Hopefully someone good at matching doesn't need to send you to 10 on-sites to find you a good fit. That sounds exhausting and unproductive.

I'm a recruiter that is technical (js engineer) based in NYC. I don't see what TripleByte is doing that is that different from what a good recruiter can offer. Matching at very selective companies doesn't seem challenging.

I don't work with Apple or Facebook, but in the past four months recruiting part-time I've had 15 placements. Over 65% resume submission to on-site rate. And over an 85% offer close rate (close counts if I get 3 offers for someone and they choose one). I can match relatively well without needing to put candidates through a day of tests and I save candidates time by sending them to selectively chosen companies (safety, fit, reach). And I spend a ton of truly understanding each unique process of the companies I work with.

What makes Triplebyte actually unique? What are they changing about the industry? Are they actually reducing bias or is this a gimmick? Are they that different from a recruiting firm with strong lead generation?

I'm still coding professionally (js eng) and stay on top of trends! But, I don't think coding in the trenches will make me more effective. I've had a few eng. jobs, most of my friends are engineers, and I'm really passionate about job trends, job satisfaction, and employee retention.

With that foundation I'm more effective as I see more career trajectory data points when I talk to candidates that specialize (data, security, devops, ml) or ladder up (vp, manager, cto). Then I can provide even more value to new candidates with the career counseling approach.

Feel free to e-mail (in profile). Started by trying to build tools for recruiters and interviewing recruiters for customer feedback. Found a good fit with a recruiter who placed my whole NY team before our startup got acquired and he offered me a consultant gig. Really enjoying it so far. Great way to monetize a mix of engineering career consulting + staying on top of startup trends.

It's hard to get an accurate pulse of the market if you spend only a month every few years searching through angelist/indeed/etc.

I work with about 70 companies (only in NYC) from pre-launch to almost IPO and a new role opens up to a us every week. It's helpful to find a recruiter who knows you & the market well enough to curate jobs you want and tell you about opportunities that might not even be listed or on your radar.

This is true. I'm an engineer that started recruiting six months ago part-time and was able to bill six figures pretty quickly. I realized that colleagues in recruiting had a really tough time making efficient matches.

The best recruiters can not only make efficient matches, but they also connect the dots to reach out to matches in the pool of passive candidates they talked to when a new role opens up.

Even better than that is when I'm able to actual push back with companies and make an impact on the hiring process to get someone hired.

This is how the best placements get made.

If you're an engineer there's a list of requirements that would convince you to switch jobs whether it be for working in a certain industry, with certain proven founders, your comp., certain tech, title a company can offer, remote/flexiblity, benefits, etc. When I meet a candidate and they tell me that list and a few months down the line I come across a job that matches well it's a win-win for both me, the company, and the candidate.

tl;dr recruiting can be a relationship-based game with many moving parts. At a certain point, with a complete and up-to-date dataset, you can provide tons of value for everyone as an information arbitrator.

I'm a software engineer that does recruiting for ~60 tech companies in NYC (seed stage to mature). If you're in NYC, or want recommendations for good recruiters I know in the SF Bay Area shoot me an email david at inboxhire dot com.

Wow. I was going to build this exact same thing. And I still might. Would love to chat. My emails in my profile-- didn't see yours.

I do. I look at your repos and what you contributed to as well. The recruiters who have built a business on high match rates look at any/all info you provide. For example, a recruiting firm I partner with in NYC boasts a 89% offer to job acceptance rate.

For recruiters who are purely matching using LinkedIn recruiter filters a lot of the matching is done with your skills section and the descriptions under each job.

It's helpful to add industries you want to work with and languages/technologies w/ context. e.g. worked as a javascript developer for X company that did Y, a leader in the Z industry. built end-to-end messaging system using javascript and socket.io that had an engagement with 30k users.

This will help you get more relevant matches. Granted you'll get some spam- but there are some quick tricks like asking for e-mails to include certain information on your LinkedIn description so you can easily filter out.

As a software eng. who's getting to see both sides of the market it's always best to get a referral to a really good agency in your location. A good recruiter is worth a lot of time/money especially for such an important decision like where you're going to be spending 1/4~ of your week at.

Depends on the company.

At smaller companies they might not have dedicated HR gate keepers or the person reading resumes might have a combined business/HR role. And at all companies being able to state your accomplishments in terms of business value helps a gate keeper understand your resume better and shows your ability to communicate effectively.

It's helpful to list skills at the bottom of your resume for HR departments doing basic pattern matching. However to paint a clearer picture I would:

1. Write relevant bullet points that show what value you provided for your previous company and BOLD languages along the way.

E.g.

- Architected a product that does $X revenue with Y languages

- Stabilized systems of X which allowed throughput of Y% more connections with Z language/framework

2. Include a summary/objective in your LinkedIn/Resume. E.g. I'm an all-around developer that isn't afraid of X, Y, Z

Former Webpass employee here. Was one of the first software eng. hires. This is a great example of a bootstrapped business focused on customer experience that built up with no outside funding (that I know of). Congrats Charles & team.

Need a contingency agreement to get paid anything significant. Doesn't make much sense since a good referral is worth a lot no matter what source it comes from.

Right now I find out as much as I can about a company and if I like them I try to get an agreement. If I can't and a candidate seems like a perfect match I'll still refer them just bc I'm trying to build out relationships with the hopes of getting an agreement for the next one.

As I build out my sourcing tools I'm using and automating more of my business I will either sell my tools, get agreements with everyone, experiment with all alternative payment methods (retained agreements, SaaS model, etc), or all of the above.

I like the outlook in the industry though. Lots of players but lots of room for growth esp. b/c looking at eng- lots of future demand for jobs, lots of companies moving between stages (startup to big co), and lots of companies bad at retaining employees.

Yes, good recruiters exist just got to ask around for referrals.

I'm a software engineer that is currently bootstrapping my technical recruiting business. Companies say they like working with me because:

1) my candidates are experienced (I do the vetting and they are all a part of my network which I continue to build every day)

2) I spend a lot time finding what a candidate wants and what companies want (so far 80% rate of engineers getting offers when I match albeit low sample size)

3) I don't spam (candidates or companies- generally only make 1-2 matches per company per month)

The reason so many bad recruiters exist is because the contingency payment model really makes it so that spamming seems beneficial in the short-term and makes the whole recruiting game very transactional (see real estate agents). And contingency agreements are much easier to get (vs retained search).

I'm working on finding more creative ways to align incentives better and building better sourcing tools.

Does your company have more product engineer roles that you can shift to?

As a fellow remote employee with good managers it definitely is tougher for me to risk it and make the jump.

As a former teacher with no CS degree and now on my 3rd developer job that I really enjoy I +1 this sentiment. I have some other tips if you need some, e-mail me I'd be happy to help. david at moja dot io

It's hard to give up flexibility. I'm single so I don't even need flexibility per say but I'm in a 100% remote situation and it's hard to leave for higher compensation.

would you be interested at all in a service that curates all job boards and e-mails you jobs only if a job matches your criteria (in your case it might be comp, flexibility, and a wide use of different technologies)... if so shoot me an e-mail david at moja dot io. would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for sharing it seems like a sentiment shared by a a lot of people