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by twelve45 5330 days ago
Nicely captures my issues with tech recruiters. The other big disconnect is that since tech is in so much flux, you want to hire smart generalists who can pick up new technologies in a few days if necessary.

Most recruiters have no clue how to find "smart developers". So instead they do a google search for "Java developer looking for job" and spam you with the top 10 hits with some great insights like "OMG this guy's great... he's only done Java for the last 20 years!!!1!". They don't understand why that's NOT a good thing in tech.
2 comments
shaggyfrog 5330 days ago
As someone who's more of a generalist than not, it's almost impossible to arrange interviews through recruiters -- most of them are only looking to match up acronym/skill/buzzword X with length of time Y. A big part of that comes from missing the technical background to properly appraise the value of those technical skills.
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Homunculiheaded 5330 days ago
I find that's one of the worst things about recruiters, not only do they have a really high number of false positives, they are awful at picking out non-traditional candidates that any engineer would say "wow" to. The only possible function I can think of for recruiters is to shuffle around mediocre, faceless programmers from one large company to another.
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EwanG 5330 days ago
It's worse than that. I started as a DBA, moved into development, spent time as an architect, and now am mainly a Project Manager though I do dip back into architecture occasionally. I do try to describe the types of projects I've run, and that usually leads to a discussion of the technologies we've used. So if you're looking for a PM with enough Python to be dangerous, ok. If you're looking for a heads down Python developer... then I have to question if your read ANYTHING in my resume or just had an automated bot send emails to any address where the resume had that keyword. Most folks send out enough of these that I can just ignore them. But at least a couple times a week I get calls following up and asking why I didn't respond. Um... Hello? I was not aware that I had accepted any responsibility to help you just because I have an email address. Of course those are also the folks who say "well, you must know some people who can do this." Yes, yes I do. But why on earth would I give you their info (or give them yours)?

My more than .02 worth :-)

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