[ottertown]

There seems to be in this thread (and on HN in general) a lack of empathy for the recruiter.

Here's my perspective on (internal) recruiters as someone who sits next to them at an office:

1. Recruiters tend to be really nice people.

2. All day long they talk about prospects with other recruiters almost as if they were talking about potential romantic partners. Except replace any discussion of your physical characteristics with your intellectual / linkedin characteristics. It would be weird if it weren't their job.

3. If a recruiter sends you an InMail, if you reply back (no matter what the response) it helps them as each unanswered InMail costs them money (they don't get to reuse it).

4. Their job is really hard (especially for finding developers), and they are under a ton of pressure, especially when a company is growing, to build head count. Investors really value head count growth heading into a Series B / Series C round of funding.

So, consequently, I would recommend that devs cut recruiters some slack. Be grateful we live in a time where our greatest annoyance is someone contacting us with a job opportunity.

It wasn't always like this and it probably won't be forever.

[bostik]

> Be grateful we live in a time where our greatest annoyance is someone contacting us with a job opportunity.

I've said this before, and will say it again: there is a world of difference between being approached by a recruiter who has been explicitly commissioned to fill a position, and being hounded by a recruiter who is just trying to fill their quota.

Hell, some time ago I got so annoyed that I disgorged my thoughts to a post: http://bostik.iki.fi/aivoituksia/pages/recruiter-anxiety.htm...

I still try to maintain a reasonable approach to them. I get an insane amount of recruiter spam at my work inbox, which I ignore. Everyone is trying to get their (live)stock hired by anyone, for anything. Some of the more enterprising ones will try to inmail me with their solicitations. Most of them contain a magic phrase "I noticed you are looking for developers". I've started to send these individuals a canned response: "If you found that out, you also read that we don't accept agency resumes." I also include the link to my post above.

Seems quite an effective repellent so far.

[pronoiac]

Isn't the dislike for external recruiters? They can be wildly variable in quality - spamming by keywords, regardless of geographic areas. And the good ones may overprepare, asking questions that the company won't.

Edit: oh yeah. Sudden radio silence. Adding bogus resume tidbits. Posting bogus jobs, just to pump their contact numbers in the database.

I see a lot more bad external recruiters than good.

[Blackthorn]

I've had sudden radio silence so much, even after talking to them on the phone. I don't understand because sure they wasted my time, but now they're wasting their time too!

[ottertown]

The dislike probably is directed mostly at the external recruiters, but a lot of this stuff applies to them as well.

I've only had two bad recruiter experiences, one with an internal and one with an external. The former lured me in with a 'big equity' role that turned out to be junior developer. The latter was a recruiting contractor for Tesla who told me they were building a new frontend team. When I got on the phone with him it turned out the team had existed for two years, was over 10 people, and was simply refocusing their product.

In both cases, the recruiter was dishonest about the position. So what I've learned is not to take next steps until I have much clearer details on the role.

External recruiters tend to be way more vague on details, so I can understand the annoyance of having to reply with "tell me what you're actually trying to sell me on." But I find that sending a direct reply like that tends to be pretty effective at eliciting details.

[jader201]

My problem with recruiters isn't the recruiter. My problems with them are:

- the types of jobs they are trying to fill

- the types of companies they are working with

- knowing that I will get paid less vs. working directly with the company

I would agree, that most recruiters are pleasant, approachable people -- they need to be, they're salespeople. But I don't necessarily get annoyed with them. I feel fortunate that my skills and experience are wanted, and having recruiters contacting me frequently is a good problem to have.

But in the end, I just feel that I have very little to gain in speaking with a recruiter.

[sokoloff]

I'm on the hiring manager side (full time roles, no contracts). I can assure you that you won't make any more coming directly to us for a full-time role than working through a recruiter.

We fill most (90+%) roles using our internal recruiters (so you still get an advantage coming direct through our internal team and by all means I encourage that), but for the subset of roles that we open to external recruiters, I'm going to make you the same offer [or think about the negotiations the same] either way.

The referral fee we pay the external recruiter is a one-time fee and literally comes from another bucket of money. Yes, I also have to budget for and fund that bucket, but since it's non-recurring, it's treated as a recruiting expense, not a compensation expense.

For a contract role, there are probably good reasons to go direct, as the markup is an on-going compensation expense in many case, but for full-time, I suspect most companies work like mine does.

[jghn]

This is how we operate as well. There's no penalty for someone coming in via an external recruiter in terms of their salary.

I don't necessarily believe this but the other argument about making less money is that recruiters are incentivized for you to take the job and not to push the envelope on your behalf knowing that the company might balk and back out.

[jkochis]

This is interesting. I've found that a (good) recruiter will work hard to drive up your salary because it benefits them in the end usually. I believe most make a commission based on your salary in the contract. This only applies to external recruiters--I doubt it works the same for internal recruiters for obvious reasons, but I may be wrong. I dunno.

Although not in tech, my partner was contacted by an external recruiter looking to fill a position at an architecture firm. She was reluctant to leave her current job working with the best (IMHO) living architect today, but the recruiter did the leg work and came back with an offer that was something few of us could negotiate on our own. All she had to do was respond to the recruiter's occasional emails. This is the ideal scenario, and as I mentioned in a previous comment, I don't know the ins and outs of recruiting, so it might be more cutthroat than I realize, and they probably don't have the resources to give you that kind of a la carte service, but I think the OP's approach can open the potential for that.

[pluma]

> I've found that a (good) recruiter will work hard to drive up your salary

That hasn't been my experience at all. I've been contacted by several recruiters and nearly all of them asked me to lower my rate for them.

On one occasion I was asked in depth about what rates I would find acceptable under which conditions and then after they established contact between me and their client I would find out that they had already offered my absolute minimum rate (which I had previously qualified with "if it's a perfect match, a nice environment, and the office is practically next door, I may be willing to go that low") without asking me.

But I guess recruiters for consultants are a different matter from recruiters for permanent employees. There's probably a higher incentive to negotiate a high wage for a permanent employee because in most cases you'll only sign them up once. With consultants you just want them signed as frequently as possible.

[pandaman]

>I've found that a (good) recruiter will work hard to drive up your salary because it benefits them in the end usually. I believe most make a commission based on your salary in the contract.

How did you find this out if you don't mind my asking? From my experience and common sense it would be pretty reckless for a recruiter to try and get few %% more in commission at the risk of loosing the entire deal.

When I discussed salary with a recruiter it was never in the direction "Let's try and get you even more money!" it was more in the direction: "If you don't take the <ridiculously low salary> now you might spend months looking for anything higher and in the meanwhile somebody not as entitled as you will take this job and will be making money hand over fist!".

[markhenderson]

I've had the same experience as jkochis. It happens rarely, but it does happen. The recruiter can (and should) see it as win-win.

Plus, there are ways of negotiating where you can ask for a larger number and not blow the whole deal.

[pandaman]

Sure, you can almost always ask (everywhere you read they will tell you it's completely safe though it depends on industry, I guess, I have seen offers rescinded over mere asking) however if you are not prepared to walk away there is little incentive to offer what you are asking.

An agent who maintains long relationship with you might actually be ready to negotiate on your behalf since it will both strengthen your relationship and bring quite a lot of money in the future as it increases your base price in all the future negotiations. Third party recruiter placing FTEs, on the other hand, has much to lose by walking away and very little to gain.

[sanderjd]

I think what many here have said is right: few lack empathy for the individuals, but many lack empathy for the system. Those very nice people who sit next to you are, in essence, spending their days spamming people, and talking about (inevitably superficial) resume characteristics. It may not be their fault personally, and it does sound like a tough job, but that doesn't mean it's a good system. I don't really understand why I don't have a personal relationship with one or more recruiters who I've described my career goals to and who I trust to send me good leads. It's just a bunch of anonymous people who I'll never meet selling me possible snake-oil.

[brey]

Huh. That is interesting - used to be 180 degree opposite to that, the InMails with replies to used to cost, the ignored ones got refunded. Changed last month.

Does make more sense this way round, spam people and it costs you, make an engaging proposition and it doesn't.

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/75/~/inmai...

[beachstartup]

> There seems to be in this thread (and on HN in general) a lack of empathy for the recruiter.

most of it is just thinly veiled humblebragging.

[markhenderson]

Thank you for this response. I fully admit that I don't see the recruiter side of things. There isn't a lot of discussion about the trade, or craft, or whatever you want to call it and I think there should be.

I will certainly reply to every InMail that I get now.

It is my hope that methods and conversations like this can make the field better for everybody.

[jghn]

I respond to InMails where it is clear the recruiter actually took the time to read my profile and had a valid reason to believe there might be a match.

Knowing now that unanswered InMails cost them money, I'm doubling down on my stance to not answer InMails from recruiters who are spamming and/or clearly didn't bother to take the time to see if I really would be a good match or if they just matched a couple of buzzwords and hit send.

[gaius]

A good recruiter is worth his or her weight in gold, but they are rarer than hen's teeth.