[bitsweet]

There are a few things I dislike about recruiters that we aim to fix:

* They nearly all are technically incompetent, e.g. thinking Java is the cool word for Javascript and such. We know the difference between interfaces and inheritance, being developers ourselves, we are better at understanding the needs of companies and matching that to the desires of developers.

* Recruiters hide information, almost always. We're fully transparent with each pitch and include details about salary, team, etc upfront.

* Recruiters are about quick turn and will place you at any role that matches their keywords. We're more interested in long term relationships. In Pitchbox, this manifests itself in many ways...for example, just because you signed up today, doesn't mean you'll start getting job pitches tomorrow...instead we focus on relevancy and quality over quantity so you hear from us only when we think its particularly suited for you.

* The recruiting experience is horrible for companies too. The recruiter typically spams that hiring manager with resumes forcing the company to sift through it all. We provide simple useful tools for the companies connecting with Pitchbox members.

* If you liked our homepage for its simplicity and design, then you'll be happy to know we have built our entire product with similar focus. Interacting with it should be easy, purposeful, and enjoyable - pretty much the opposite of every interaction I've had with recruiters.

(BTW - Thanks for the kind words about our design)

[Peroni]

Whilst I don't agree with the practice, the reason most recruiters are cagey about disclosing too much info on the company they represent is because they don't want the candidate to go to the company directly and saving the company $25k. How do you deal with that challenge?

Look, I'm incredibly vocal about the need to disrupt the recruitment industry but from what I understand based on the discussion here, the difference between Pitchbox and agencies is that you're developers not recruiters and you charge a flat fee. Am I missing something?

[jim_h]

They may have an exclusive contract with the company for that position, for a certain period of time.

Or maybe the company name (or contact details) is NOT part of what they will expose to the candidate.

[icambron]

Generally they have a contract that says something along the lines of "if your initial contact with a candidate is through me, then you'll have to pay if you hire them". I think the caginess part is just an extra precaution.