Ask HN: Where do you go to get recruiters to find you a job?
I'm looking for a new role, but would like to work with recruiters to reduce time consuming job searches and applications. Where can you go to basically announce to recruiters that it's worth their time to find a good job match for you, rather than just spam by keywords?
I'd like to be able to continue to be a good employee at my current job, have time to spend with my family, and develop my side projects. So I'd much prefer a recruiter to go to bat for me so all I'd have to do is show up for the interview.
I'm leaving because I feel that both professional and skill growth at my current company is limited, but otherwise have a good relationship with everyone I work with, so I'm in no rush to do an intensive job search on my own.
Thanks HN!
P.S. I could interview well with a mid-senior electronics role or a junior programmer role.
63 comments
[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadI am currently beta testing it with a handful of people but if interested email me at eibrahim@gmail.com
Generally a tech company won't offer a 17% signing bonus for coming direct.
On the other hand, a company not using recruiters wont pay 17% more just because they are saving money.
PS: I wonder why my GP comment is heavily downvoted? Maybe it sounds to pro-recruiter.
Your assertion that a company wouldn't pay more without a recruiter makes no sense. Particularly if they're sourcing candidates off a trusted source
Ps. I suspect your comments get downvotes because they come across as rash and not very well thought through.
Now if the candidate is strong, a good negotiator, and all their competing candidates went through a recruiter then they may be able to claw back some of that as a pay rise. But I guess in most cases, not.
What if write/cleanup your resume so it stands out? What if I help you setup your online presence (website, github, linked in, etc...)? What if I pitch you to the employer better than you can?
And at the end, you end up getting your job and you make 110k (because I did all the negotiations for you and got you a better starting salary). Sure you will give up 10k for a year but then you have a higher salary.
You save time and you make more money.
Does it sound too expensive now?
I am a developer myself and it's a pain job hunting but I realized over the year that I always did a great job negotiating my benefits and on several occasions I was making more than other more qualified co-workers (I know it sucks). I also found that I am good at placing other people and helping them get jobs - I did it for free most of the time to help out but eventually saw the business opportunity.
I appreciate all the feedback though and I did get several emails of interested people, so I setup this form if anyone is interested: https://goo.gl/forms/tYVvDddqWdJrn2fi2
NOTE: Again, I am not a sleazy recruiter/sales guy. I am a developer like you and understand where you come from - you can learn more about me at about.me/eibrahim
Thanks.
Instead, the best they can do for you as a candidate is negotiate hard on your behalf. This might be a good service for someone who is currently underpaid and is happy to give up 10% to have a negotiator get them up by 30% from their current role.
The help with CV etc. stuff can be got a lot more cheaply and is not an exact science anyway.
It comes down to simple math, why not pay 10% to get 30% - it's that simple. But just like any service, of course you can do it on your own and save the 10% :).
Moreover, 10% from me is quite different than a fee paid by the employer. The employer fee does not necessarily have to come from my pocket, as payscales could be standardized or deduced and negotiated. But the 10% definitely would cost me.
I'm not trying to be rude or decline your help. Just giving feedback on your business model.
Seriously, half the posts on Craigslist are recruiters scouring major metropolitan areas for leads. Reply to enough posts on Craigslist, and recruiters will find you.
Go to any meetups or conferences you can find for tech stuff. You'll probably find plenty of recruiters, or at least people who can introduce you to some. I've got pile of recruiters messaging me on LinkedIn, and they almost all explicitly ask if I can point them at any other candidates who are looking. Bring business cards with your email, phone, and website, even if you have to get them made yourself.
In my experience, doing any of this even half-heatedly is plenty to get you so many recruiters that you'll start wondering how to get them to leave you alone after you take a job.
Even if you barely touch your profile, you'll very likely start to get recruiters within a few weeks contacting you.
If you don't, you need to work on what information you are providing in your past history and description to ensure that you look professional and have all of the keywords/skills listed that matter. I would recommend getting someone you trust that works in the field to review it that won't hold back on opinions. Get other opinions as well. Then look at it as if you were a recruiter, a manager, and a future co-worker and make changes as needed.
Then Google/Bing/DDG search yourself. What info do you see? Anything you wouldn't want others to see? Can you do anything to fix that?
Finally, don't just wait around for recruiters. Actively network. Work on the skills you think you'll need to have. Read. Practice. Have your significant other or friend or anyone interview you. Get interview questions you can find easily on the internet and learn all of the answers and why they are the answers. It takes time to prepare.
Having basically the equivalent of an agent in your corner would be a very valuable service, but crucially this agent would need to have an impeccable reputation, hence any of the usual recruiters only "doing secretarial work" wouldn't work. They would need to be genuinely well connected professionals.
I can see an ongoing relationship with salary increase negotiation support, a bi-yearly in person strategy session ("It might be time to move on") as well as genuinely going to bat for you in terms of your contract ("hey, let'a push for a 7 year exercise window instead of 90 days")
Anyways. I don't know if such a service, but it seems like it should exist.
If this sounds sketchy as fuck... it is. But it works, and you can basically tell the recruiter what you want to do and when that op shows up in their network he or she will advise you and help you get the deal.
In forming a good relationship between their hiring partner and interviewees - they know who is likely to be a "fit" and who will not be. This is no different to HR screening CVs based on fit, the only difference is that recruiters of take a personal vested interest in the success. Every hire nets them commission. Every good hire strengthens their network, every bad hire weakens their network. If they are truly a network-based recruiter, they want every hire to be amazing.
Yes, there will be weaknesses in this system. Yes, it leads a reduced hiring pool (if you opt-in to this style of hiring) and black-box hiring. The upshot is that as an interviewer and interviewee you save yourself time and find yourself a job that makes you happy, you only need find yourself the right recruiter.
If you're an engineer there's a list of requirements that would convince you to switch jobs whether it be for working in a certain industry, with certain proven founders, your comp., certain tech, title a company can offer, remote/flexiblity, benefits, etc. When I meet a candidate and they tell me that list and a few months down the line I come across a job that matches well it's a win-win for both me, the company, and the candidate.
tl;dr recruiting can be a relationship-based game with many moving parts. At a certain point, with a complete and up-to-date dataset, you can provide tons of value for everyone as an information arbitrator.
TL;DR In this market, where there's a shortage of labor, the economic incentive isn't there. You get paid a lot more when you work for companies. It's the opposite of what you see in Hollywood, where there's a surplus of labor and a shortage of jobs.
Most people don't know how to negotiate, recruiters do, mostly because more often than not their fee and reputation is somewhat dependant on it.
A recruiter would usually find you a good fit especially if they aren't just some employment/vacancy agency but actually build their network.
How much of a good fit and how long you stay at your job is tied directly to their reputation, recruiters that fill positions with people that don't stick around or worse don't even pass a probationary period don't get too many second chances.
Overall the recruiter fee isn't even a major part of the onboarding cost, the time spent by everyone from HR to the tech guys on everything from defining the job to handling the interviews cost considerably more especially if you take valley salaries into account.
The position not being filled or worse being filled by a contractor who often charges considerably more than the average daily market rate for a full time employee also costs the company money.
Most jobs don't post salary ranges and for some strange reason it's considered bad form to ask about it at the early stages of the interview process but the recruiter knows what salary the company is willing to offer and it's perfectly acceptable to ask.
Submitting your resume blindly to a company is a black box. A recruiter will know almost immediately if a company is interested in you and what stage in the decision process the company is in. They will also give you hints about what type of interview to expect.
The last time I was looking for a job about two years ago, I was feilding 10 different opportunities - I had passed the phone screen and scheduling an in person interview. I stopped the process for 8 of them after accepting an offer that met my requirements.
Thing is, I'm trying to target a certain type of Old Geek. My theory is if someone is 45 years old with solid ReactJS skills, it signals them being an autodidact with experience--the best type of programmer, all other things equal.
If I could build a reputation for interviewing and evaluating such professionals, I could see a fun and profitable business in that.
What do you mean by "electronics". Electrical engineer? Electrician?
Not sure why you were downvoted, but I tried to make it up.
I'm pretty sure he keeps track if I'm still working there, but no phone/mail like "looking for something else?".
Definitely gonna contact him the next time I'm looking for a job.
The Talent Agent for Techies concept comes up 2-3 times a year on HN. As long as companies (with deep pockets) fight over supply, the business model for individuals won't work.
If you're sufficiently motivated, research the small, boutique recruiters that serve your market/industry. Ask around for who has a good, established rep in the space.
Understand that time is money to these guys, they don't cater to job-seekers. Make a friend. You might approach them by first asking how you might be able to help with a potential referral.
http://blog.alinelerner.com/about/
Another way to do it is go on Indeed at look at relevant job postings from recruiters that are well written. I find I can tell right away when they are useless; it's clearly cut/paste straight from the client and has a total "job shop" feel.
I don't know if you'll get an honest answer, but another good sign is that they have direct contact with the hiring manager.
Feel free to reach out, happy to answer any questions.
I am indeed focused on interviewing.io, but I like to think it's a more efficient, productized way of doing what I was doing as a recruiter. You get free interview practice, and if you do well, you start getting invites to technical interviews with great companies, bypassing all the crap you'd normally have to do to get in the door.
https://www.interviewing.io