Ask HN: Are all recruiter calls this bad?

3 points by victor9000 10y ago ↗ HN

I don't have too much experience in dealing with internal recruiters, but I decided to give one a call after they reached out to me multiple times. My experience was fairly unpleasant and I'm wondering how it compares to what you've encountered.

I'll cover the basics just to add a bit of context. They're an online retailer of women's products, and the project involves an application for facilitating support calls from their customers. The outreach email mentioned that the VP of Engineering was interested in my skill set given that I've been a Lead Engineer at a couple of startups. On my end, I've been doing contract work for over a year now, and figured that I should be open to new opportunities. So we set up a call, and it's all downhill from here.

The recruiter started off by downgrading the position from a Lead Engineer to a Senior Engineer. This is after telling me that they reached out to me because of my experience as a lead, and after informing me that I would still be leading a team, and that I would be responsible for the architecture of the project. I would have pretty much all of the responsibilities of a Lead Engineer, just not the title (aka the pay).

The recruiter then spent 15 minutes negging my experience, telling me how much smarter their employees are than I am, and informing me that the biggest perk to working there is the fact that I would have the opportunity to be surrounded by their brilliance. The conversation finally ended when I asked for salary ranges for this position and he refused to provide them.

In retrospect, it seems like this recruiter is out there just looking for someone to screw over. So, are recruiter calls typically this bad? Do recruiters always balk at providing numbers? Am I taking crazy pills to think that this behavior was out of line? What has your experience been like?

3 comments

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WalterSear 10y ago ↗

Move on. Their loss. Don't think too hard about one person's behaviour.

dpio 10y ago ↗

I'd say most, but not all.

rt2016 10y ago ↗

It depends on the type of company you're talking with. In my experience the recruiters at large, established companies will be very professional and positive - they're looking to make the company attractive to you as much as you want to seem attractive to them. On the other hand my experience with smaller, less-well known, companies (including many startups) is very variable. The recruiters there have significantly less training (if any) and aren't given clear requirements from management on what candidates to look for. More specific to your questions, it's not uncommon for this type of recruiter to pull a bait-and-switch on things like salary, title, etc. To me that's a warning signal that they're trying to get you to commit and then pull a fast one. By the time you get hired you'll be demoted to junior engineer with low salary, given that the recruiter was talking about their team so highly and will say that you're less experienced in comparison. It's happened to me several times, but that doesn't make it right. You're absolutely right in thinking it was crazy and out of line. My personal advice to you would be to walk away, their behavior is not a good sign of things to come.