[fecak]

Half the recruiter's battle is getting inside that force field that technologists put up regarding recruiters. In another HN thread, I offered to have a discussion about career to a fairly well-known tech community member, and was immediately accused of trying to recruit the guy (although I do no work in his geography, which I even alluded to in the post). People assume recruiters are always recruiting, so it's impossible to have a conversation. I've run a Java Users Group for 13 years and they are comfortable because they know me, but if I go to meet a client company onsite, they seem to think I'm casing the place to start poaching.

It's a strange business with lots of dynamics, and the issue I mention isn't discussed much in my experience. I've seen BD/sales types at my UG meetings, both male and female, that scared people away due to their look, or even by a harmless "Hi" from them (people at UGs hate sales pitches).