Recruiting Agent Headaches!



  • I was in the last 6 months of my Computer Science degree and starting to think about getting a job after university. I wanted to get into the games industry as a programmer, so I put my CV up on a few industry websites as a first step, and was promptly picked up by a couple of different agents.

    The first agent who got back to me appeared initially helpful. They had gone through their books and found a number of apparently suitable positions for me to apply for. Things went ahead and soon I had my first interview. This involved a drive of over 4 hours and an overnight stay and didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. The 2 hour exam had some very nasty specifics on it and the at the interview many of the questions were over my head. I left a little confused, but was enlightened a few days later by a friend who had also interviewed there. He had been told on the day, after an equally long drive, that they were "only looking to hire graphics programmers". My CV clearly showed that I had no experience in this area; I had been told to expect an interview for a junior / graduate programmer role!

    My second interview went much better; friendly people and I didn't disgrace myself in the programming test, but I never heard anything back from the company. My agent assured me that she was trying to contact them, but in light of later events I am not so sure. After a month I got fed up of pestering my agent every few days and wrote it off as a bad experience.

    My third interview nearly never happened at all. I had an initial telephone interview and was then called for a face-to-face, but I was ill in the week before the scheduled date and had to cancel. I contacted my agent and asked her to reschedule and get back to me. About a week later I got a phone call out of the blue from the interviewer, who, sounding rather irritated, asked "where are you?"! It turned out that the agent had been most efficient in rearranging the interview, but had sadly never thought to tell me. I ground my teeth, apologised profusely and rearranged the interview personally.

    The second agent who contacted me was even less helpful than the first. She phoned me initially to get some background information, and it was immediately clear that she had done no more than read the phone number from my CV. The conversation lasted an agonising half an hour as I reiterated every minute detail which was clearly listed on my CV: no I was not a graduate, I would be finishing university in the summer; no, I didn't have any industry experience.

    A few days later she called me again to tell me about the opportunities available. There were three she thought I would be suitable for... every one I had already seen advertised elsewhere, had looked into and had disregarded as well out of my league! Each wanted much more experienced candidates than myself; I told her I was not prepared to waste their precious time, or my own, and left it at that.

    My final interview was a dream. I contacted the company directly, emailing my CV and a friendly enquiry. They got back to me within the hour and arranged an interview for the following week. The interview went well and they offered me the job the following day! I am sure they were just as please as me not to have had to go through an agent! I've just finished my first month at work and am loving it.



  • Glad to hear it worked out for you.  In my experience, recruiters are a dumb lot, basically no more than used car salespeople trying to get you to think that anything they offer up is a great deal, and you should buy it now because it might not be there tomorrow.  And yes, they usually don't even bother to read your resume/CV, just read the name and phone number, and contact you.  It's really annoying, because half of the questions that they ask me are clearly on my resume.



  • Thanks!

    Perhaps I was nieve in assuming that (professional) recruiters for a specific industry might actually know thier buisness? Even thier failure to actually process my details themselves, instead relying on me repeating myself parrot fashion, didn't surprise me greatly. However, I found it almost inconcievable that the most fundamental of thier tasks, that of arranging interviews, should have been cocked up to the extent of not telling the partisipant!


  • :belt_onion:

    I have mixed experiences with recruiters. One time an agent did come up with very good leads and arranged interviews for positions that matched my skills. When he asked what I wanted to earn I gave him a minimum and a maximum and "surprisingly" these companies offered me just the minimum. When I finally chose a company that I had contacted myself he was furious and tried to change my mind over the phone, for more than one hour.



  • @bjolling said:

    ...tried to change my mind over the phone, for more than one hour.

    So they are dedicated when there is comission on the cards then?

    :D


  •  1.  A recruiter is NOT your agent.  His client is the company, not you.  You should not be dealing with the recruiter after you have had an interview.  After an interview if you don't have a business card to contact someone at the company directly then you have failed the interview.

    2.  Never tell a recruiter your minimum price.  Remember, they work for the company, not you.  It is there job to find someone at the minimum price.  It would be beyond stupid for them to not tell them your minimum if you give it to them.

    3.  If a recruiter asks you for a price range you should end the conversation right there.  They probably don't have any positions and are just wanting to put you in a slot to call you when they do get a position.  

    4.  Recruiters are not stupid.  Most of them are extremely good at what they do.  What they don't do is program computers.  (note:  not all recruiters are smart)



  • @xan said:

    @bjolling said:

    ...tried to change my mind over the phone, for more than one hour.

    So they are dedicated when there is comission on the cards then?

    :D
    Naturally they are trying to make money.  Hopefully this doesn't suprise you.


  • It sounds like the first recruiter might have been somewhat decent.  The second one sounds like the typical moron recruiter.

    I'm at the point now where I consider myself recruiter free.  I only deal with companies that hire directly.  I've never understood why companies use recruiters.  How hard is it to post a job description on your own site and to put one up on monster? 

    I'm just tired of the bullshit that comes with recruiters.  Here are few examples of bullshit:

    • Never returning your calls/emails
    • Not giving you enough information about the hiring company
    • Giving you job leads that you are either over or under qualified for
    • Wanting you to quit your current job ASAP to start the new job
    • Modifying your resume or them telling you to change your resume to meet their resume format
    • Their moronic interview advice, "If you don't know a particular topic, tell them you are a fast learner."

  • :belt_onion:

    @tster said:

     1.  A recruiter is NOT your agent.  His client is the company, not you.  You should not be dealing with the recruiter after you have had an interview.  After an interview if you don't have a business card to contact someone at the company directly then you have failed the interview.
     

    The recruiters around here (Brussels) have some kind of exclusivity deals with their client companies. The companies are not allowed to deal directly with candidates that are referred by the recruiter.

    I learned your other points the slightly harder way.

     



  • I've found that many recruiters like to control the contact between you and the client so as to give the illusion that they are facilitating something. Unfortunately many of them don't understand the concept of following through.

    It's true that they work for the client (who pays their fee). It's usually true that they just have monster send them lists of resumes that met certain search criteria, and they don't do anything more than look at your name and phone number. Once in a while I'll get annoyed at having to repeat what's already written on the resume, and will simply respond that all the details are on the resume.

    Personally, I've found that if they can't bother to read the resume, they are just doing a buzzword match between your resume and the job requisition, and will (at least in my case) more often than not come up with an inappropriate match.

    The job they have is ALWAYS a great job (for them to get a comission).

    I especially love it when they ask what is the minimum you'll work for before even having submitted you for the position. At that point I realize that it ain't gonna happen, and typically respond: if you need to ask, they can't afford me.

     



  • @tster said:

     1.  A recruiter is NOT your agent.  His client is the company, not you.  You should not be dealing with the recruiter after you have had an interview.  After an interview if you don't have a business card to contact someone at the company directly then you have failed the interview.

    2.  Never tell a recruiter your minimum price.  Remember, they work for the company, not you.  It is there job to find someone at the minimum price.  It would be beyond stupid for them to not tell them your minimum if you give it to them.

    3.  If a recruiter asks you for a price range you should end the conversation right there.  They probably don't have any positions and are just wanting to put you in a slot to call you when they do get a position.  

    4.  Recruiters are not stupid.  Most of them are extremely good at what they do.  What they don't do is program computers.  (note:  not all recruiters are smart)

    In the UK, most recruiters try to keep communication flowing exclusively through them, how else do they control their percentages?

    Generally, a recruiter in the UK is looking to get the maximum salary for the position that they can, this is to keep their take as high as possible. What this does mean is that they'll try to put you in a role where your minimum price is the same as the clients maximum price even if it isn't a good fit for either party.

    Ending communication with a recruiter for asking your price range isn't a sensible move, you may have contacted them for one role when they have a more suitable role that you could subsequently apply for.

    True, any recruiters are efficient at they're job, more of them are uneducated in the fields they are recruiting for and simply looking for the highest commissions they can.

     



  • @tster said:

    2.  Never tell a recruiter your minimum price.  Remember, they work for the company, not you.  It is there job to find someone at the minimum price.  It would be beyond stupid for them to not tell them your minimum if you give it to them.
    Furthermore, don't tell them what you make now.  It just gives them an "in" to give you a 2% raise off that.



  • @xan said:

    A few days later she called me again to tell me about the opportunities available. There were three she thought I would be suitable for... every one I had already seen advertised elsewhere, had looked into and had disregarded as well out of my league! Each wanted much more experienced candidates than myself; I told her I was not prepared to waste their precious time, or my own, and left it at that.

    While I emphathize with your frustrating recruiter experiences, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss a position that sounds like you might not be quite as experienced as the job posting (unless it's something very clear, like a new grad applying for a senior engineering position).  I imagine sometimes those are best-case scenarios (the perfect applicant) and the hiring manager knows that.

    At the company I'm at now, I submitted my application into their system and applied for all of the junior/new grad positions I felt I was qualified for, but unfortunately none of them called me back.  I did get a call from their HR recruiter asking me to come in for an interview with a group that was looking for an intermediate-to-senior person.  The job posting said minimum 5 years experience (I had 1.5), must know the following set of tools (I knew only one of them).  I would never have thought to apply based on my own qualifications.  But, the interview went well and I was hired. 

     



  • @ObiWayneKenobi said:

    Glad to hear it worked out for you.  In my experience, recruiters are a dumb lot, basically no more than used car salespeople trying to get you to think that anything they offer up is a great deal, and you should buy it now because it might not be there tomorrow.  And yes, they usually don't even bother to read your resume/CV, just read the name and phone number, and contact you.  It's really annoying, because half of the questions that they ask me are clearly on my resume.

     

    It REALLY depends on the agency. The ones I went though got me 3-4 interviews per day for a week straight. By the 4th day my brain was so exhausted from nonestop interviewing that I actually started to fuck up on em (hey 8-12 hrs of interviews a day can get to ya) and after the week I had two offers higher than I expected to get. Also the day after I first called em the interviews began. They generally got back to me within an hr or two regarding feedback from the interview.



  • @WhiskeyJack said:

    While I emphathize with your frustrating recruiter experiences, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss a position that sounds like you might not be quite as experienced as the job posting (unless it's something very clear, like a new grad applying for a senior engineering position).

    Which was almost exactly the case as it happened (something I didn't make explicit in my original post). One of the companies requirements (for a tool programmer) was something along the lines of: "at least 3 years industry experiance and several demonstratable examples of visual applications designed to the highest standard.... I hadn't even graduated from uni at that point and had never developed tools with GUI's, to any standard, beyond "here is a button on a form"!



  • @xan said:

    A few days later she called me again to tell me about the opportunities available. There were three she thought I would be suitable for... every one I had already seen advertised elsewhere, had looked into and had disregarded as well out of my league! Each wanted much more experienced candidates than myself; I told her I was not prepared to waste their precious time, or my own, and left it at that.

    This isn't always a good idea. In job hunting is that the experience levels in the job postings are frequently totally independent of the experience levels the company is willing to accept. Often times the experience level being asked for is set by some god-awful policy that the actual person trying to fill a position has no control over. I know several people in charge of hiring who would complain about the fact that they were forced to ask for X years of experience for a job, despite the fact they were actually looking for less. This was generally due to goverment regulations, but in atleast one case it was due to a one-size-fits-all corporate policy that worked fine for most of the company, but not for all of it. The one that really sticks to my mind was someone who worked for the State of New York, who was required to ask for two years of experience, even when he was trying to hire someone straight out of college.

    The guy at the company who reads your resume can make the call about deciding if you have enough experience or not. If they're really need X years of experince, they'll see you don't have it and throw your resume in the trash. Total time wasted, probably less then half an hour. I'd also say that the recruiter, who is actually talking to the company, probably has a heck of a lot better idea then you about what is going on at the company.



  • @TSTER I claim you don't have a clue what your talking about. Either that, or you are intentionally misleading them, and trolling in your post.

    Recruiter's only get paid when they get a hire at a client company. So they should care deeply (if they like to get paid) about getting you hired. If that means helping schedule the interview or contacting the hiring manager to reschedule it is in their best interest to do everything they can to get you hired (if your qualified).

    Recruiters are paid by a percentage of your salary. That said they would prefer to get the largest possible commission, but some money is still better than NO money so if they think your asking too much they should tell you.

    it isn't in the recruiters best interest to waste yours or their time. Asking a price range is a good way to match up there jobs and the ones you might be interested in. Noone wants to waste time interviewing a candidate, or a for a job where the salary expectation are way out of synch. Recruiters who screw this up too many times don't get repeat business.

    Recruiters are sales people, pure and simple. What they do is sell people to companies, they don't need to have technical experience at all, and most don't. What they need is to have enough charisma to close the deal.

    If your experiences are different I suggest you stop using that recruiter, and if your a recruiter I hope to god you find a different career.

    @ZAN My advice is too decide what you want early, ask alot of questions before you set up the initial interview, and learn how to say NO.



  • @xan said:

    Which was almost exactly the case as it happened (something I didn't make explicit in my original post). One of the companies requirements (for a tool programmer) was something along the lines of: "at least 3 years industry experiance and several demonstratable examples of visual applications designed to the highest standard.... I hadn't even graduated from uni at that point and had never developed tools with GUI's, to any standard, beyond "here is a button on a form"!

    I would say 3 years is nothing. If you're the right person for the job the company isn't going to care (and a company that does care is probably one you don't want to work for).

    In my experience:
    Not mentioning experience means they're looking for someone with a pulse.
    Saying 2-5 years means they'll accept none.
    Saying 5-8 means 2-8 and saying 10+ actually means 10+ (usually some sort of leadership position).



  • @xan said:

    My third interview nearly never happened at all. I had an initial telephone interview and was then called for a face-to-face, but I was ill in the week before the scheduled date and had to cancel. I contacted my agent and asked her to reschedule and get back to me. About a week later I got a phone call out of the blue from the interviewer, who, sounding rather irritated, asked "where are you?"! It turned out that the agent had been most efficient in rearranging the interview, but had sadly never thought to tell me. I ground my teeth, apologised profusely and rearranged the interview personally.

    Unless you had pneumonia, canceling an interview because you were ill days before the interview is pretty weak.  And when it comes to things like scheduling it is your responsibility to check back and see if there is a new appointment time.  It's lame your recruiter didn't tell you about it, but it shows a real lack of initiative and maturity on your part to just let it go and then blame the recruiter for it. 



  • @timias said:

    I claim you don't have a clue what your talking about. Either that, or you are intentionally misleading them, and trolling in your post.
    I don't troll.@timias said:
      Recruiter's only get paid when they get a hire at a client company. So they should care deeply (if they like to get paid) about getting you hired. If that means helping schedule the interview or contacting the hiring manager to reschedule it is in their best interest to do everything they can to get you hired (if your qualified).
    I really have no idea why you wrote all this.  I certainly never said that recruiters don't want you to get hired.  I just said that you shouldn't do all your communication though them (unless they have  a contract with the company that states they must work like that).  While a recruiter might be interested in me getting hired, he probably isn't as interested as I am; he probably doesn't know me as well as I am; and he definitially doesn't know my schedule as well as I do.  Overall, I make a much better advocate for myself than a recruiter.  Furthermore, when I communicate with a company I want them thinking of me, and interacting with me.  I want them to start to develop a relationship with me.@timias said:
    Recruiters are paid by a percentage of your salary. That said they would prefer to get the largest possible commission, but some money is still better than NO money so if they think your asking too much they should tell you.
    While a recruiter might make more off you if they get you your max price, companies don't really like recruiters that are known to cost them more money.  Much better to be known as the recruiter who brings in the best candidates at the lowest price than the best candidates at the highest price.@timias said:
    it isn't in the recruiters best interest to waste yours or their time. Asking a price range is a good way to match up there jobs and the ones you might be interested in. Noone wants to waste time interviewing a candidate, or a for a job where the salary expectation are way out of synch. Recruiters who screw this up too many times don't get repeat business.
    If a recruiter needs me to tell them what a competitive range is for a person with a given resume then they probably suck.  I want a recruiter to send me to the most competitive places and then I can talk money directly with the company.  If a rectruiter sends me someplace that gives me an offer 20% below what I should be making I'll probably not use them any more.  That said, if a recruiter has a specific job and they tell me the company's price range, or they ask for what I'd like to make, I might tell them.   However, I would never (not ever) tell them my minimum price.@timias said:
    Recruiters are sales people, pure and simple. What they do is sell people to companies, they don't need to have technical experience at all, and most don't. What they need is to have enough charisma to close the deal.
    Yes, I see that you agree with me on this point.@timias said:
    If your experiences are different I suggest you stop using that recruiter, and if your a recruiter I hope to god you find a different career.
    If my experiences are different from what?  From a recruiter that doesn't waste my time and who doesn't send me to shitholes paying 50K/year and who isn't charismatic enough to make me think he's an alright guy?  In that case, I guess I'm doing fine.

    Also,  just as a general note:  in the future try and format your posts better.  I know this is your first post and the forum software sucks, but your post was hard for me to read and follow because of a couple things:

    a) You didn't use two spaces between your sentences.  This might sound like a small thing, but it makes text MUCH easier to read.

    2) You made 1 huge paragraph that had lots of different ideas.  Break your thoughts in to paragraphs

    D) you started what was otherwise a well reasoned and thoughtful post by flaming me and then claiming that I was trolling.  In the future, when you are about to make your first post, and you are responding to someone that has been in the community a long time, and you are about to open your post in this manner, I suggest you hold your fucking tongue keyboard.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @xan said:

    My third interview nearly never happened at all. I had an initial telephone interview and was then called for a face-to-face, but I was ill in the week before the scheduled date and had to cancel. I contacted my agent and asked her to reschedule and get back to me. About a week later I got a phone call out of the blue from the interviewer, who, sounding rather irritated, asked "where are you?"! It turned out that the agent had been most efficient in rearranging the interview, but had sadly never thought to tell me. I ground my teeth, apologised profusely and rearranged the interview personally.

    Unless you had pneumonia, canceling an interview because you were ill days before the interview is pretty weak.  And when it comes to things like scheduling it is your responsibility to check back and see if there is a new appointment time.  It's lame your recruiter didn't tell you about it, but it shows a real lack of initiative and maturity on your part to just let it go and then blame the recruiter for it. 

    I absolutely take your point and I certainly would not have cancelled unless it was pretty desperate. Suffice it to say that I was still actually in bed on the day my interview should have been, in between frequent visits to the bathroom. As far as the communication side of it goes, I guess I could, and perhaps should, have persued the agent more. However I was in contact with them in the meantime and for all other interviews they had arranged, they had required a reply to the "notification of interview" email before finalising the details. In this case I had not even said that I was available on the day that the interview got scheduled on, although, most irritatingly I could easily have been there with even a couple of hours notice!

    I guess the moral of the story, as you have pointed out, and the point I was trying to make, is that you really can't rely on intermediaries to arrange this kind of thing. In theory they are professional, experienced and helpful. In practice, while many I am sure are, you still need to personally oversee the whole process and take a good deal of responsibility for it. In the end I did much better arranging things entirely at a personal level and cutting out the middle man. I feel sure that having applied directly to the company scored a point in my favour too, both in terms of showing initiative and costing them less money. When eventually I did get to my 3rd interview, my interviewer advised me to ditch any agents I was using and to strike out totally on my own. The impression I got was that this was not the first time that an agent had messed them around.



  • @xan said:

    I absolutely take your point and I certainly would not have cancelled unless it was pretty desperate. Suffice it to say that I was still actually in bed on the day my interview should have been, in between frequent visits to the bathroom.

    That's completely understandable, then.  From your initial post I got the impression your illness was a lot less severe.

     

    @xan said:

    As far as the communication side of it goes, I guess I could, and perhaps should, have persued the agent more. However I was in contact with them in the meantime and for all other interviews they had arranged, they had required a reply to the "notification of interview" email before finalising the details. In this case I had not even said that I was available on the day that the interview got scheduled on, although, most irritatingly I could easily have been there with even a couple of hours notice!

    I guess the moral of the story, as you have pointed out, and the point I was trying to make, is that you really can't rely on intermediaries to arrange this kind of thing. In theory they are professional, experienced and helpful. In practice, while many I am sure are, you still need to personally oversee the whole process and take a good deal of responsibility for it. In the end I did much better arranging things entirely at a personal level and cutting out the middle man. I feel sure that having applied directly to the company scored a point in my favour too, both in terms of showing initiative and costing them less money. When eventually I did get to my 3rd interview, my interviewer advised me to ditch any agents I was using and to strike out totally on my own. The impression I got was that this was not the first time that an agent had messed them around.

    It sounds like there wasn't much more you could do, then.  I apologize if I came off sounding harsh, I just got the feeling you sort of expected the agent to hand you a good job but clearly there was more to it.  It seems you have learned from the experience, though, and now know you can't always count on someone else (even if you should be able to).  Congrats on finally getting a good job.



  • Personally I've had good experiences with recruiters. I am currently working a job that I arranged for myself, but I have had a lot of good interviews and good followup from recruiters. The ones I've been in contact with conducted themselves with quite a high degree of professionality, and made quite a lot of effort on my behalf.

    The only real explanation I have for the difference of my experience from most of these, it appears... is that I work in a non-US country, and being employed brings you quite a lot more rights and privileges than what it does in the US... having a wee bit of experience with both my country and US employment law and regulations, I am fairly confident in this statement. Not to be Ameri-bashing (my thoughts on that great country in other respects than this are not really relevant here), but given the choice between otherwise similar jobs, one in the US and under their rules, and one here at home... there is no doubt in my mind that I'd be here every time.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Congrats on finally getting a good job.

    Thanks! I was very lucky in the end to find something so easily, I was only looking for about 2-3 months while finishing my degree.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I apologize if I came off sounding harsh...

    No worries! Having re-read my post I realised that I had not been very specific and you could get the impression that I was expecting things to be handed over on a silver platter!

    @WitherVoice: I neglected to mention that this all took place in the UK. I don't have anything to compare with elsewhere in the world, where abouts are you based?



  • In Ireland and probably most of the rest of the EU, most recruiters work off a commission basis with a base salary. The base salary is usually less than €30k, and commission varies, often it's between 5% and 10% of the candidate's yearly salary, with the recruitment company obviously taking a sizeable cut. Commission is often split in two - 50% when the candidate is hired and 50% after six months (assuming the candidate has stayed on). Sometime the commission isn't paid at all until after six months.

    So in this regard, you would think that the recruiter has a lot of interest in both matching the right person to the right job (to ensure they stay), and also maximising the salary they get. Experience tells me this isn't so.

    Most recruitment companies have a contract with their client which prevents the client from dealing directly with a candidate. This means that neither the company or the candidate are allowed to contact eachother before, during or after the process, and many contracts prevent either party from dealing directly with eachother for up to a year afterwards (so if the company liked you, but want to offer you a different position in a few months, they're obliged to go through the recruitment agency).

    Many companies also sign exclusivity agreements with agencies for particular positions - temps and the like. So even if the CEO's daughter is brought in to give a hand on reception for two weeks, the company will still have to pay their recruitment agency a % of her hourly wage.

    I've found that good recruiters are few and far between. There are people who got into it because they heard the bonusses are great, and as someone else said, they're nothing more than glorified salespeople. I've lost count of the number of voicemails I've received which mention, "Some great opportunities", completely outside of my interest/skillset. On the other hand, you find a few gems who've spent a few years in the industry, understand the basics (and the differences between a Sys Admin and an "IT Guy"), and don't bother putting you up for Senior Oracle DBA jobs when you've just left college. I've found that the best recruiters are the ones who put you forward for less, but relevant positions, rather than the ones who go for the scattergun approach.



  • @tster said:

    [quote user="timias"]I claim you don't have a clue what your talking about. Either that, or you are intentionally misleading them, and trolling in your post.

    I don't troll.[quote user="timias"] 
    Recruiter's only get paid when they get a hire at a client company. So they should care deeply (if they like to get paid) about getting you hired. If that means helping schedule the interview or contacting the hiring manager to reschedule it is in their best interest to do everything they can to get you hired (if your qualified).
    [/quote]I really have no idea why you wrote all this.  I certainly never said that recruiters don't want you to get hired.  I just said that you shouldn't do all your communication though them (unless they have  a contract with the company that states they must work like that).  While a recruiter might be interested in me getting hired, he probably isn't as interested as I am; he probably doesn't know me as well as I am; and he definitially doesn't know my schedule as well as I do.  Overall, I make a much better advocate for myself than a recruiter.  Furthermore, when I communicate with a company I want them thinking of me, and interacting with me.  I want them to start to develop a relationship with me.[quote user="timias"]
    Recruiters are paid by a percentage of your salary. That said they would prefer to get the largest possible commission, but some money is still better than NO money so if they think your asking too much they should tell you.[/quote]While a recruiter might make more off you if they get you your max price, companies don't really like recruiters that are known to cost them more money.  Much better to be known as the recruiter who brings in the best candidates at the lowest price than the best candidates at the highest price.[quote user="timias"]

    it isn't in the recruiters best interest to waste yours or their time. Asking a price range is a good way to match up there jobs and the ones you might be interested in. Noone wants to waste time interviewing a candidate, or a for a job where the salary expectation are way out of synch. Recruiters who screw this up too many times don't get repeat business. [/quote]If a recruiter needs me to tell them what a competitive range is for a person with a given resume then they probably suck.  I want a recruiter to send me to the most competitive places and then I can talk money directly with the company.  If a rectruiter sends me someplace that gives me an offer 20% below what I should be making I'll probably not use them any more.  That said, if a recruiter has a specific job and they tell me the company's price range, or they ask for what I'd like to make, I might tell them.   However, I would never (not ever) tell them my minimum price.[quote user="timias"]

    Recruiters are sales people, pure and simple. What they do is sell people to companies, they don't need to have technical experience at all, and most don't. What they need is to have enough charisma to close the deal.
    [/quote]Yes, I see that you agree with me on this point.[quote user="timias"]
    If your experiences are different I suggest you stop using that recruiter, and if your a recruiter I hope to god you find a different career.

    [/quote]If my experiences are different from what?  From a recruiter that doesn't waste my time and who doesn't send me to shitholes paying 50K/year and who isn't charismatic enough to make me think he's an alright guy?  In that case, I guess I'm doing fine.

    Also,  just as a general note:  in the future try and format your posts better.  I know this is your first post and the forum software sucks, but your post was hard for me to read and follow because of a couple things:

    a) You didn't use two spaces between your sentences.  This might sound like a small thing, but it makes text MUCH easier to read.

    2) You made 1 huge paragraph that had lots of different ideas.  Break your thoughts in to paragraphs

    D) you started what was otherwise a well reasoned and thoughtful post by flaming me and then claiming that I was trolling.  In the future, when you are about to make your first post, and you are responding to someone that has been in the community a long time, and you are about to open your post in this manner, I suggest you hold your fucking tongue keyboard.

    [/quote]

    Hang on, so you not only do you not understand recruitment yet talk about it as if you're an authority on the subject, but you can't take someone pointing that fact out?

    Congratulations on you longevity in the community and formatting skills, but it doesn't mean you have a clue what you're talking about.



  • I will try this one last time. First of all, don't blame me for my formatting, it is hardly my fault that this forum doesn't allow us to preview our post. I assure you it was formatted when I typed it.

    Secondly although I did start out flaming you, for which I apologize. My experiences with recruiters are pretty much the complete opposite of every point in your post. I assumed, again I apologize , that you were simply fucking with him.

    Third as far your status goes as long standing member of this community, I didn't know, I don't care, nor should I.

    I do apologize for apparently trolling, I don't apologize for the formatting. I stand by my original post, and hope that you have a nice day. And if this post looks like shit I give up.


  • @timias said:

    I will try this one last time.
    First of all, don't blame me for my formatting, it is hardly my fault that this forum doesn't allow us to preview our post. I assure you it was formatted when I typed it.
    There's a preview tab right there above the message you're replying to. It takes a while sometimes, but it works.



  • HAHAHA you are right my friend, I didn't realize NOSCRIPT plugin blocked your GUI screen with preview.


  • I take it back, I do apologize for my formatting. NoScript changes the forum post screen I see, and the controls I have access to. Good Day


  • @WitherVoice said:

    The only real explanation I have for the difference of my experience from most of these, it appears... is that I work in a non-US country, and being employed brings you quite a lot more rights and privileges than what it does in the US... having a wee bit of experience with both my country and US employment law and regulations, I am fairly confident in this statement. Not to be Ameri-bashing (my thoughts on that great country in other respects than this are not really relevant here), but given the choice between otherwise similar jobs, one in the US and under their rules, and one here at home... there is no doubt in my mind that I'd be here every time.

    Jobs in the US have fewer government-enforced rights or privileges, but tend to have better overall pay and benefits.  The socialist system ensures a lower bound that you will never fall below, but it also quite effectively caps the upper bound as well, and the upper bound is far more subject to fluctuation and obviously benefits the employee more.  In the long run, both systems are essentially market based and despite the promises made by the socilaist system, you can't get blood from a turnip.  In other words, the socialist system can't really alter the reality of what is valuable, it can only shift value around which interferes with the market mechanism and results in less efficient production of wealth.



  • @spor79 said:

    Hang on, so you not only do you not understand recruitment yet talk about it as if you're an authority on the subject, but you can't take someone pointing that fact out?

    Congratulations on you longevity in the community and formatting skills, but it doesn't mean you have a clue what you're talking about.

     

    I talk as a person giving advice to another person.  I don't claim to have any great knowledge of recruiters.  I also didn't say "I format better than you and have been around longer, therefore I am right."  If you bothered to read I said that you shouldn't come make your first post in any community with an outright flame/attack on a longstanding member and acuse him of trolling.  

    If you think I'm wrong then feel free to post your advice, or simply that you disagree with everything I said.  If you're only here to attack me, as there seems to be a number of people recently with 1-5 posts total attacking me and other long-time members, then I suggest getting some kind of mental help.



  • @timias said:

     

    I will try this one last time. First of all, don't blame me for my formatting, it is hardly my fault that this forum doesn't allow us to preview our post. I assure you it was formatted when I typed it.

     

    Secondly although I did start out flaming you, for which I apologize. My experiences with recruiters are pretty much the complete opposite of every point in your post. I assumed, again I apologize , that you were simply fucking with him.

     

    Third as far your status goes as long standing member of this community, I didn't know, I don't care, nor should I.

     

    I do apologize for apparently trolling, I don't apologize for the formatting. I stand by my original post, and hope that you have a nice day. And if this post looks like shit I give up.

     

    Yes the forum software is a disaster sometimes and the preview tab is not obvious.  I don't blame you for formatting, but I do want to let new people know that this community has high expectations on grammar, formatting, and readability.  Appology accepted, and I think it's fine that you disagree with me. Perhaps my experience and ideas about recruiters are way off, I certainly wouldn't be the best judge of that.  

    Regarding my longevity, the same point I made in my last post applied.  I only refer to it in that when you are new and acusing people of trolling or lying or making shit up, you might want to see if that person has any credibility built up in the community.  Basically what I'm saying is that when a person with 2 posts acuses me of trolling, I think most people here will probably think that that person is more likely to be a troll or flaming.  Credibility counts.

    Other than that, perhaps I'm wrong about recruiters.  My experience with them is limited, but for what it's worth, I think most of my advice was pretty good.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Jobs in the US have fewer government-enforced rights or privileges, but tend to have better overall pay and benefits.  The socialist system ensures a lower bound that you will never fall below, but it also quite effectively caps the upper bound as well, and the upper bound is far more subject to fluctuation and obviously benefits the employee more.  In the long run, both systems are essentially market based and despite the promises made by the socilaist system, you can't get blood from a turnip.  In other words, the socialist system can't really alter the reality of what is valuable, it can only shift value around which interferes with the market mechanism and results in less efficient production of wealth

    While that summary is pretty much accurate, it doesn't really address the point I was trying to make... which was that since the recruiters are less able to "fire and forget" you, they may actually have to work that little bit harder to make sure the employment contract they try to set up, actually works. As for the socialist system, certain health related stuff makes socialized distribution of wealth the only system that could ever work out in my favour, so I'll take it and like it, thanks.

    I also disagree on the finality of certain of your conclusions regarding socialism, but that'd send us schreaming into off-topic-ville, so 'nother time, I'd say.



  •  After a month I got fed up of pestering my agent every few days and wrote it off as a bad experience.

    It is not your agent. The agent only gets paid if the company hires you. The agents job is to scam as many companies as possible into hiring as many suckers as possible as quickly as possible. If you show yourself to either be hard to hire, or too picky about where you want to work, they won't waste time on you. Similarly, if a company shows itself to be too picky (say, actually wanting C++ experience for a C++ position where they send you "perfectly good" j2ee candidates), they will stop sending candidates to that company, too.

    The only way to get good recruiting is to pull it in-house, and/or work with someone you trust, on a retainer basis. Recruiters who claim to "pre-screen" candidates for "a great fit" usually just match keywords between the job and the resume. Like "Programmer <-> Programmer ? Great match!"

     



  • @WitherVoice said:

    As for the socialist system, certain health related stuff makes socialized distribution of wealth the only system that could ever work out in my favour, so I'll take it and like it, thanks.
    Well at least you admit that you like socialism because you like having other people work and pay for your health care while you don't contribute back as much as you take.  



  • @tster said:

    Well at least you admit that you like socialism because you like having other people work and pay for your health care while you don't contribute back as much as you take.

    I like socialism because treatment for the emphysema I got from two decades of smoking crack-cocaine is expensive and I like having money left over for the ocassional pint!


  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @tster said:

    Well at least you admit that you like socialism because you like having other people work and pay for your health care while you don't contribute back as much as you take.

    I like socialism because treatment for the emphysema I got from two decades of smoking crack-cocaine is expensive and I like having money left over for the ocassional pint!

     

    IMO, the health care system in the US is socialized in the form of insurance.  A group a people come together and put it in managed pool of which most people never draw what they contribute.  The only difference between that and state sponsored socialized medicine is I  have the option not to partake in it.  That's a freedom I like to have.

     



  • @tster said:

    @WitherVoice said:

    As for the socialist system, certain health related stuff makes socialized distribution of wealth the only system that could ever work out in my favour, so I'll take it and like it, thanks.
    Well at least you admit that you like socialism because you like having other people work and pay for your health care while you don't contribute back as much as you take.  

    I'd like to see even a middle-class guy trying to get his HMO to cover cancer. Or even better, to try covering himself the costs for this.

    There are some kind of illness that nobody but the filthy rich would be able to treat, and thats where the "socialist system" benefits really kick in. Letting someone die because he doesn't have enough money for health care doesn't seem the least fair to me; never mind that the US is also the only country I know of that has chemotherapy treatment for dogs.

    The system's based on the idea that not everyone is going to be sick, much like insurance; you're really paying to have a guarantee that they'll be there when you really need it, except they won't shrug off some medical conditions, like HMO's.



  • @danixdefcon5 said:

    I'd like to see even a middle-class guy trying to get his HMO to cover cancer. Or even better, to try covering himself the costs for this.

    There are some kind of illness that nobody but the filthy rich would be able to treat, and thats where the "socialist system" benefits really kick in. Letting someone die because he doesn't have enough money for health care doesn't seem the least fair to me; never mind that the US is also the only country I know of that has chemotherapy treatment for dogs.

    The system's based on the idea that not everyone is going to be sick, much like insurance; you're really paying to have a guarantee that they'll be there when you really need it, except they won't shrug off some medical conditions, like HMO's.

    What in the fuck are you talking about?  Do you even know what an HMO is?  HMOs cover cancer, HIV and all other types of very expensive illnesses, even in cases where a person put themselves at a higher risk for the disease because of lifestyle choices such as drug abuse, smoking, obesity and unprotected sex.  HMOs usually put caps on benefits (like all health insurance) to prevent a single patient from sucking the system dry.  Still, it's usually a quite high cap and even people with bad illness will never get near it. 



  • @lpope187 said:

    IMO, the health care system in the US is socialized in the form of insurance.  A group a people come together and put it in managed pool of which most people never draw what they contribute.  The only difference between that and state sponsored socialized medicine is I  have the option not to partake in it.  That's a freedom I like to have.

    You have it all backwards.  Nations with socialized healthcare have socialized insurance, whereas the US has private insurance.  The differences are vast.  For one, you can opt out of insurance altogether in a private system.  There are many different types of coverage, allowing an individual to make their own choices in regard to how much risk they are willing to accept.  There is competition between healthcare providers and insurance companies which provides incentive to reduce the costs and improve quality (like with anything else in a market economy).  This also allows insurance companies to try different strategies to more efficiently manage costs, such as the various types of MCOs that were invented with the US private insurance industry.  The MCOs led to a significant reduction in healthcare inflation costs and the concept was eventually copied by countries with socialized healthcare because it was so successful.  If the US had not had private insurance, these improvements would likely never have been made in the US and spread to the rest of the world.  Like any centrally-planned and managed economic activity, socialized healthcare tends to become stagnant in terms of innovation and efficiency.  This has been mitigated somewhat for countries with socialized healthcare by borrowing ideas from the US healthcare system, and taking advantage of medical advancements created in the US healthcare system and shared internationally.



  •  Yeah, I didn't make myself very clear.  What you wrote states what I attempted to convey but failed.



  • @lpope187 said:

    Yeah, I didn't make myself very clear.  What you wrote states what I attempted to convey but failed.

    It's okay, I'm used to filling the void where other men have failed. 



  • How foolish... to attempt to avoid derailing the topic seems an exercise in futility.

    Well then...

    I have high cholestrol values, at a very young age for such a problem. Without ridiculously expensive medication this will always be the case, because of a genetic condition that my loving parents saw fit to bless me with. I try to stay in shape and stay healthy, but I am more or less doomed to take this medication for the rest of my life.

    Without the socialized medicine, this would be absolutely backbreaking. If preferring a system where this cost is mitigated on the taxpayer's dime is egoistical, then I have no problems with that label. My tax dime also funds daycare centers for other people's kids, roads I never drive on, schools for other people's kids (they even used to be very good schools... ah, those were the days), and a whole host of other shit that I'm very happy that I have free access to, should the need arise... knowing that in all likelyhood, even I probably pay more tax than I cost the system total.

    In the US my previously diagnosed condition ensured that there was no way I could get any health coverage at all, and hate to break it to ya... the pay wasn't better either, not for me, and not for the borderline geniuses I worked with.

    The value of socialism for me is, ironically when you compare it to your argument, that it gives me freedom, and it's the same for pretty much all of us who live under it. We have the freedom to plan our lives, and the security that while things may go horribly, horribly wrong for any number of reasons, self-induced or arbitrary, we will not be left high and dry. What doesn't kill us will, in general, not break our backs completely. Some people get a lot more out of the system than they put in, sure. The discrepancies are small for the most part, and it doesn't bother me. I could be the one to get cancer of the human organism next, requiring absolutely stupendously expensive treatments. OR it may happen to one of my friends, or some complete stranger, or noone at all. Doesn't matter. I'm reasonably safe, financially, I make a good living, and I'm safe in the knowledge that 85% of the money I put into the hands of the healthcare "industry" here will go towards actual treatment... against the estimated 20% that does not end up in the hands of insurance companies in the US system ;-)



  • @WhiskeyJack said:

    While I emphathize with your frustrating recruiter experiences, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss a position that sounds like you might not be quite as experienced as the job posting (unless it's something very clear, like a new grad applying for a senior engineering position).  I imagine sometimes those are best-case scenarios (the perfect applicant) and the hiring manager knows that.

    At the company I'm at now, I submitted my application into their system and applied for all of the junior/new grad positions I felt I was qualified for, but unfortunately none of them called me back.  I did get a call from their HR recruiter asking me to come in for an interview with a group that was looking for an intermediate-to-senior person.  The job posting said minimum 5 years experience (I had 1.5), must know the following set of tools (I knew only one of them).  I would never have thought to apply based on my own qualifications.  But, the interview went well and I was hired. 

     

    You were very lucky.  I once got a job for fresh graduates (I was a fresh PhD then): a 1-year fixed-term contract that was supposed to be renewed if the year went well.  Surprise surprise, although I did the maximum during the year, my contract wasn't renewed.  It became then clear that they needed a professional with 10+ years of experience, but had money allocated for the "fresh graduate programme" only.  



  • @WitherVoice said:

    How foolish... to attempt to avoid derailing the topic seems an exercise in futility.
     

    Indeed; however, the trolls have been fed ... let's get back on track.  Since I see there is still interest in the original topic, any more off-topic stuff that derails the thread further will be deleted.*




  • @Jeff S said:

    @WitherVoice said:

    How foolish... to attempt to avoid derailing the topic seems an exercise in futility.
     

    Indeed; however, the trolls have been fed ... let's get back on track.  Since I see there is still interest in the original topic, any more off-topic stuff that derails the thread further will be deleted.*


     

     

    Jeff, stop being a censor nazi...

     

    Getting back on topic: I met with 3 different recruiters from this one company, Robert Half Tech, and ALL 3 of those bastards were retards.  Each one like my resume, I scored 70-90% on all of their stupid tech tests. 

     

    Two of them wanted to submit me for jobs that they had and said I was the best candidate.... none of them ever did. 

     

    The third guy told me to go get an internship because I didn't have 5 years experience...  I nearly slapped him.



  • @WitherVoice said:

    In the US my previously diagnosed condition ensured that there was no way I could get any health coverage at all

    You just had horrible insurance.  My PPO doesn't cover preexisting conditions only if they were diagnosed less than six months prior to enrollment.  Even then, the moratorium on that preexisting condition is one year, not forever.

    @WitherVoice said:

    The value of socialism for me is, ironically when you compare it to your argument, that it gives me freedom, and it's the same for pretty much all of us who live under it. We have the freedom to plan our lives, and the security that while things may go horribly, horribly wrong for any number of reasons, self-induced or arbitrary, we will not be left high and dry.

     

    Do you have the freedom to stop paying your taxes?  You have a funny idea of freedom.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.



  • @operagost said:

    Do you have the freedom to stop paying your taxes?  You have a funny idea of freedom.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.

    Sure, I can do that. Either I can stop making money, or I can move. If I want to live here and parttake of what the tax pays for, it'd be pretty friggin' RUDE of me to stop paying my taxes, though... and I still pay less of my income for the services I require, than a US citizen on average does.

    I would like to underline that I'm not trolling when I ask: what's this strange, American (primarily) facination with having the freedom to make life difficult for oneself? Realistically, I don't have the option to not pay taxes and thus not recieve what it pays for, certainly. But I've done some maths on it, and it doesn't cost me more than it would to have health insurance... in fact, significantly less, and it buys me better treatment than I would get in the US for any comparable amount. I can't opt out of paying other "parts" of the taxes either, but quite frankly, why'd I want to? I can send my kids through school, up to and including university, at no cost beyond what it costs them to LIVE those years. Some may say they won't ever have kids so why bother, but if they are citizens of adult age they have either taken advantage of that offer already, OR they have CHOSEN not to... so in all honesty, I don't feel sorry for them either. Same for most of what my taxes pay for... very, VERY few of the things that are provided by my tax dime are things I WOULD opt out of. The one thing I might not want to support is the part of the tax that goes to religious organizations... but then again, through the tax-exempt status of religious organizations in the United States, the citizens of said states already DO pay that tax, same way as I do, so I don't care overmuch about that either.

    So... what is it that is so great about the "freedom to choose"? I've so far not been able to see any real reason why I'd want to change the system under which I toil, with the one under which American IT personnel toil. Not ONE. Once more, this is not a troll, I'm ACTUALLY curious, and this is the first place I've seen people do anything but try to lynch me for being a communist or somesuch when I ask the question...



  • @WitherVoice said:

    I would like to underline that I'm not trolling when I ask: what's this strange, American (primarily) facination with having the freedom to make life difficult for oneself?

    What makes you think it makes things more difficult?  Your government is not giving you anything, you realize, it is just interfering in what would happen anyway.  Why do you think you wouldn't have healthcare without your government?  What propaganda techniques did they use on you as a child, because obviously they worked and I would like to get my hands on them.

     

    @WitherVoice said:

    But I've done some maths on it, and it doesn't cost me more than it would to have health insurance... in fact, significantly less, and it buys me better treatment than I would get in the US for any comparable amount.

    Where are you getting your numbers from?  My private health insurance is quite reasonably priced and I doubt the treatments and technologies available to you are anywhere close to being as advanced as those available to me.

     

    @WitherVoice said:

    I can't opt out of paying other "parts" of the taxes either, but quite frankly, why'd I want to? I can send my kids through school, up to and including university, at no cost beyond what it costs them to LIVE those years. Some may say they won't ever have kids so why bother, but if they are citizens of adult age they have either taken advantage of that offer already, OR they have CHOSEN not to... so in all honesty, I don't feel sorry for them either. Same for most of what my taxes pay for... very, VERY few of the things that are provided by my tax dime are things I WOULD opt out of. The one thing I might not want to support is the part of the tax that goes to religious organizations... but then again, through the tax-exempt status of religious organizations in the United States, the citizens of said states already DO pay that tax, same way as I do, so I don't care overmuch about that either.

    You seem to miss the point that you aren't buying these services.  You also miss the point that some people may really want to opt out of them.   At the end of the day, though, if you purchased those services in a market economy you would be getting better quality for less money.  With a single-provider that everyone has to buy from, the quality tends to be shit.  See also: Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba.

     

    @WitherVoice said:

    So... what is it that is so great about the "freedom to choose"? I've so far not been able to see any real reason why I'd want to change the system under which I toil, with the one under which American IT personnel toil.

    Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you consider yourself "toiling" under your system.  Americans don't "toil", most are quite happy and well-off.


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