[s3nnyy]

I agree totally with what you said, but you're confusing macro- and micro-economics here. On a macro-level it is true, HR people should be treating programmers like gods at all times, but on a micro-level, the HR person sitting in the cubicle doesn't care about one programmer more or less.

There might be ten other CVs of "okay'ish" engineers in HR's inbox and your interview will end by never hearing back the firm. Or if, despite being cocky, you get an offer there might be a note somewhere next to your CV on the CEO's desk saying "easy-to-work-with level: Only 50% score" which leads to 10k less for you in salary. As an applicant, you want to "manipulate" the employer to give you the best possible offer and why shouldn't you be friendly and a bit submissive to achieve your goal?

[hysan]

There's a distinction to be made here about the level of the position being discussed and the particular skillset. What you're saying makes more sense on the junior to mid-level dev positions or for more common skillsets. However, this is the Hacker News audience and you're clearly replying to someone who has already narrowed it down to senior dev positions. Given that context, I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment. If you're hiring for the best, then it's up to HR to respect their time. Otherwise you are just perpetuating the belief that recruiters add no value to either side of the equation.

[s3nnyy]

You're right. The more senior the role, the more leeway there is for the candidate to tailor the process, but signaling arrogance is just bad.

[mywittyname]

I see that you're receiving a bit of flak (which, given the audience, isn't unsurprising). But I wanted to let you know that I found this comment pretty insightful.

[s3nnyy]

Happy to help. When I was a full-time programmer I also thought writing ten paragraph e-mails with footnotes is smart but turns out it isn't (I learned this the hard way).