| > I understand that working with recruiters is hard (who ever said: I know a recruiter who is a genius? Or even the lesser: I know that recruiter, they are brilliant), but respecting candidates should be a priority of any organization. Generally speaking, the same sort of superlatives used for high IQ aren't used to describe high EQ, but we probably should. I have interacted with a few recruiters (not at Stripe, I've never applied there) who were off-the-charts in their ability to make people feel comfortable and at ease, occasionally even in the face of truly horrendous processes and systems failures. Also, it's an interesting signal when you get ghosted by the hiring manager (bosses boss of the team lead I would have been reporting to) and the recruiter re-initiates communication to apologize and get things back on track. I still never got that job, but that was basically because "Remote OK" really meant "Remote OK in theory because we like the idea of paying a lower salary, but in practice it's only 'OK' for overqualified candidates that we can't convince to relocate, or maybe a relative of ours", and definitely not the recruiter's fault (it turns out that the hiring manager wasn't a good fit for the organization. Go figure.). I did get some really good chocolate chip cookies as a consolation prize, though. |
For example, the most common behavior with these recruiting companies (and I am fully employed and paid very well) is that they take 30 minutes of my time with the usual general questions, then they make me chat with some sort of hiring manager of the target company, then they send an email "I will let you know in a few days", and they never write back. I send an email saying "so?" and I never get an answer. Then, I find out they moved into real estate. Ten, 15 times over a few years (why I continued answering? The hiring companies were quite interesting, one in Vegas, some in the East Coast where I don't have much of a network, they could, with emphasis on the conditional tense, be useful).
We can say that they are just a little piece of a bad process, or that it is the hiring manager/company fault, or "yes, but you did not have to deal with certain rude candidates" (and I have seen plenty of those rude candidates, there I certainly offer my solidarity). And if we go on with the circumnavigation of people, we find a justification for any sort of less-than-good behavior. If telling lies is part and parcel of one's job, they (recruiters/hiring managers/C-level) are still liars, they don't get a pass in my book.
It sounds like you found a decent recruiter and it is quite telling that a recruiter re-initiating a conversation and apologizing, things I happen to do also in my job, is now an "off-the-charts" EQ genius. That's the 101 for anyone with a modicum of professionalism. I am sure there are great recruiters around like there are plenty of needles in haystacks.