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Ask HN: Do you think tech recruitment is broken?

3 points by alinalex ↗ HN
Hey there,

I'm a self-taught web developer and I believe tech recruitment needs some improvement. Obviously, there are two different points of view here: employer's and employee's. I think companies should have an in house recruitment department and not rely too much on recruiters. On the other hand, I guess employees are trying to also find a group of likeminded people who they would like to share those 8 - 9 daily hours with, not just the coding tasks per se. This is what I feel is missing tech recruitment the most, finding a team you would kill to work with rather than just getting a job mindset. What do you think? I would love to hear your stories.

Thanks!

1 comment

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PaulHoule
I have gotten great jobs from recruiters as well as awful jobs from recruiters. Most recruiters I talk to want me to relocate.

Recruiters can play a positive role in the process; they can often clear out silly faux pas that could cost you the job and them the employees.

I was talking the other day for a recruiter who was working for a bank that has been around for more than 300 years and that wants to make a splash in the world of rewards credit cards.

He's looking for 20 Java developers with a heavy emphasis on testing skills. I tell him the problem is too hard and I can't help him, but then I think about all the people who need to hire two or three people and how hiring them one at a time is a suboptimization.

Thus I have added this to my service offerings:

http://ontology2.com/o/teams.html

which packages recruiting services together with other technical and managerial services. I don't know if it would work for other geographies, but the list of companies that need a good team in NYC is long.