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Are recruiters actually helpful? I've been having no luck with them. I talked to one who I couldn't understand because he sounded like he was in India, and I've had several who have said they want to setup a phone call yet never respond to me after that. All of my previous jobs I've gotten through networking, and that seems to be the only reliable way of finding work.
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May 13, 2013 22:18
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Krenzo posted:Are recruiters actually helpful? They can be. It depends on how reputable the recruiter is. I've gone through Robert Half for a job before. I quit after 5 months, but that wasn't Robert Half's fault, it was my fault for believing the recruiter's hype about the job. I have a more finely tuned bullshit detector as a result.
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May 14, 2013 00:39
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Recruiters are scum and you shouldn't deal with them unless you absolutely have to (and even then, don't) Also why no one on here mentions SO Careers loving boggles my mind, cause it's easily the best developer job listings site in the world and people just seem to casually ignore it
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May 14, 2013 00:46
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I was only dealing with them because most of the jobs I see on Craigslist and Monster are all via recruiters. I will definitely check out Stack Overflow Careers, thanks. Edit: Are there any other job sites I should be looking at? Krenzo fucked around with this message at 01:24 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 01:07
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gucci void main posted:Also why no one on here mentions SO Careers loving boggles my mind, cause it's easily the best developer job listings site in the world and people just seem to casually ignore it SO careers is great, I've had several good interviews from it. Another good place to look for jobs is by joining up with your local <language of choice> usergroup. My local .NET usergroup gets job ads posted to the mailing list periodically (one every week or two usually), but they're almost always for really good jobs. I have an interview tomorrow for a job that I got off of the UG mailing list -- the lower end of the salary range is more than 50% of what I currently make, and I'm making good money. It's a startup, so it's probably all bullshit, but we'll see.
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May 14, 2013 01:35
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Ithaqua posted:the lower end of the salary range is more than 50% of what I currently make, and I'm making good money. 
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May 14, 2013 02:26
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Cicero posted:I hope you mean that the lower end of the salary range is more than 50% more than what you currently make. Yes, that's what I meant  In my defense, I had to wake up at 4 am to get to a client on Long Island by 7:30.
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May 14, 2013 03:05
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Krenzo posted:Are recruiters actually helpful? I've been having no luck with them. I talked to one who I couldn't understand because he sounded like he was in India, and I've had several who have said they want to setup a phone call yet never respond to me after that. All of my previous jobs I've gotten through networking, and that seems to be the only reliable way of finding work. - Be polite. - Say you're interested in and available for their positions. You can change your mind later. - Don't mention any limits to your interest or preconditions for taking the position except for absolute no-go areas, and those only if they come up. - When asked for a salary range, you can say "I don't have a range" or "any reasonable offer" or "I'd have to know more about the position." Many recruiters will accept that, a few will insist. If they insist, use your judgement based on your interest and your knowledge of the local pay scale. - When asked for skill level or years of experience in various technologies, interpret these questions in your own interest, i.e. bias your skill estimate upward and count as many years as you can possibly justify. Don't worry about misleading the recruiter; he typically doesn't have a clue. - Make yourself available for a followup within a week. It all comes down to this: If you want the position and believe you are qualified, the person you need to deal with is the employer, ASAP. If the employer screens you out, you haven't lost anything. If you can impress the employer and get the job, who cares what you told the recruiter? PS: I happen to be from Tennessee myself and although it might not be apparent there, Indian immigrants are heavily involved in the centers of US computing technology and you should accommodate yourself to dealing with them. Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 08:43 on May 14, 2013 |
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May 14, 2013 04:43
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Krenzo posted:Are recruiters actually helpful? I've been having no luck with them. I talked to one who I couldn't understand because he sounded like he was in India, and I've had several who have said they want to setup a phone call yet never respond to me after that. All of my previous jobs I've gotten through networking, and that seems to be the only reliable way of finding work. I've largely had negative experiences with them, but I recently worked with one dude from Randstad (huge, international staffing company) that was really good. Actually listened when I said, "I can't take personal calls at work, email me please", gave me his cell to call him after-hours etc. Very accommodating. I definitely get a ton that sound FOB from India though, really difficult.
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May 14, 2013 15:21
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The only recruiter that I've worked with was a firm that mostly operates in Portland, OR (Edgelink). They found exactly one job opening for me, with requirements that I fit reasonably well, that were suddenly changed after I talked with the recruiter. The recruiter was also very insistent that I give her a desired salary range. She would not accept "reasonable for the area and job requirements" or "market rates" or "it's important to me that I know what kind of value the company puts on this position" or any variant thereof. She had a very prepared speech about how them knowing my salary range is so that we don't waste any time setting me up for $60k jobs when I'm looking for $100k, and how it helps them target the search and don't worry, it's not so they can exclude candidates by salary before they do any real work examining requirements or actually talking to people, cross my heart. It took several minutes for her to accept that I wasn't going to give her a number. We had this conversation twice, once recently and once a couple years ago. So that's my recruiter experience. Very pushy about getting salary numbers out of me and hasn't resulted in so much as a phone interview in about 2 years now, but otherwise pleasant enough to deal with. Hardly representative of the entire industry, to be sure. Just seems to me that you have to find the right person or agency, one that will try and match skills to requirements rather than salary.
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May 14, 2013 16:57
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Of course if you do end up talking money (and you should always try very, very hard not to talk about it with a recruiter because it's not in your interest) remember the basic rules of negotiation. I had a recruiter a few weeks ago who demanded a number up front, thought the number I finally gave was too high and started begging me to lower it on my own without a counteroffer. I told him that he had my answer and he mumbled something about seeing what he could do. Do not give a recruiter references up front. "References" are something you provide during an interview process with an employer, usually toward the end. What the recruiter wants up front are leads.
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May 14, 2013 17:35
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I say this as someone with no experience in the job search process for this field, but it sounds like recruiters aren't really worth your time. What do they do that you couldn't do on your own?
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May 14, 2013 17:45
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If you deal with them the right way, they connect you with an employer who has a job opening. Like, directly to the manager without going through HR bureaucracy.
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May 14, 2013 17:55
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Some employers don't have the time/experience to conduct candidate searches on their own, so they hire recruiters. There honestly isn't much point in trying to contact recruiters on your own and push them to get you a job; they won't. If they have a position that they're working, they'll find you. Otherwise there isn't anything they can do. It is worth it to at least get your resume in front of a few of them just so if they do start working a position that you'd be suited for, they'll know about you. But they aren't going to beat down anyone's door trying to get you hired. And honestly, with LinkedIn, they're probably going to be able to find you anyway. The other thing recruiters do is try and find people that aren't actively looking for work, because some employers buy into the "if they already have a job they must be qualified" line of thinking and enjoy spending way too much on compensation and recruiting fees just to watch their prized catch jump ship the next time the phone rings.
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May 14, 2013 17:58
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Gazpacho posted:If you deal with them the right way, they connect you with an employer who has a job opening. Like, directly to the manager without going through HR bureaucracy. This is what they did for me. Where I got my job didn't have a posting or anything publically available, it was all through personal contacts and recruiters searching so I would have never found this place on my own. I also never spoke to an HR person for anything until my first day sign up stuff which was really nice. Out of like 100+ recruiter contacts I found two that seemed decent, one was recommended by a friend whom I called and got me my current job and the other was a local guy who had good grammar and seemed to understand my skills and how they'd match the job he had to fill. So don't rule them out off hand but I wouldn't make them a big part of a job hunt.
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May 14, 2013 18:26
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Gazpacho posted:Of course if you do end up talking money (and you should always try very, very hard not to talk about it with a recruiter because it's not in your interest) remember the basic rules of negotiation. I don't see this as true if you already have a job. If in order to justify a move you need to see $120k/yr, you might as well tell them that so you don't waste your own time. If you're already on the high end salary wise, it keeps the recruiters out of your hair.
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May 14, 2013 19:18
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Just got shortlisted for an interview with a company in California (I'm from and living in Scotland) for a summer internship dealing with web based technologies and cloud based computing. Whilst I'm good with web tech for the most part, not sure where to start looking for information regarding cloud computing: any recommendations?
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May 14, 2013 20:14
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This morning I had a conversation with a recruiter in which she casually mentioned "If [client] gets a candidate and doesn't see all 10s on the required skills, they ignore it." So there you go. If you are prepared to use some skill the first day on the job, don't be afraid to tell the recruiter that you're a 10. You do take the risk that an interviewer with a poor understanding of the recruiting process will reject you for calling yourself a "C++ 10" and not literally being Bjarne irrespective of what the company needs, but that's a risk worth taking compared to no interview at all. You can't help it if someone is playing catch-22 on company time.
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May 15, 2013 00:16
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Gazpacho posted:This morning I had a conversation with a recruiter in which she casually mentioned "If [client] gets a candidate and doesn't see all 10s on the required skills, they ignore it." -snip- That sounds like an H1-B scam to me.
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May 15, 2013 00:22
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QuantumCrayons posted:Just got shortlisted for an interview with a company in California (I'm from and living in Scotland) for a summer internship dealing with web based technologies and cloud based computing. Whilst I'm good with web tech for the most part, not sure where to start looking for information regarding cloud computing: any recommendations? Cloud computing is just a buzzword that means "put everything in a datacenter". The only difference to normal computing is everything is networked and massively parallel. It's kind of a very wide field, have you any idea more specifically what bits you'll be dealing with?
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May 15, 2013 00:24
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Gazpacho posted:This morning I had a conversation with a recruiter in which she casually mentioned "If [client] gets a candidate and doesn't see all 10s on the required skills, they ignore it." So there you go. If you are prepared to use some skill the first day on the job, don't be afraid to tell the recruiter that you're a 10. You do take the risk that an interviewer with a poor understanding of the recruiting process will reject you for calling yourself a "C++ 10" and not literally being Bjarne irrespective of what the company needs, but that's a risk worth taking compared to no interview at all. You can't help it if someone is playing catch-22 on company time. I hope the recruiter wasnt pulling this out of their rear end because saying you're a 10 in something is hecka dunning-kreuger for me. Whenever we get somebody who says c++ expert i ask them if they feel they really are at an expert level and why. If they say yes, i ask them about 15 to 20 unambiguous questions and they usually get about a fourth right. I don't care if you're bad at C++ because we can teach you. I care that you can be introspective enough to assess what you're actually good at and know what you don't know.
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May 15, 2013 00:48
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I'm not telling anyone to exaggerate during contacts with an employer. When talking to someone who knows the technology, talk about the technology. When talking with someone non-technical who is putting you through rituals, go through the rituals.
Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 01:12 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 01:10
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Just don't deal with any recruiters (except in-house). It's not worth the time.
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May 15, 2013 02:14
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seiken posted:Cloud computing is just a buzzword that means "put everything in a datacenter". The only difference to normal computing is everything is networked and massively parallel. It's kind of a very wide field, have you any idea more specifically what bits you'll be dealing with? Not really. Cloud computing experience isn't seen as essential for the application, though, and they make a point of saying that you'll easily learn it if you know the web tech. I'm coming from a networking background, which might give me a boost, and I'll take a look into parallel technology.
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May 15, 2013 14:23
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Strong Sauce posted:Just don't deal with any recruiters (except in-house). It's not worth the time. It's tough finding job postings that match your level of experience, in your region, and isn't a recruiter unless you're going to go "door to door" in Google Maps to find all the IT businesses in your area, scope out their site for jobs. While we're on the topic of recruiters, how likely is it that they might bullshit an estimated salary posting on a job description? Sent my resume out over Craigslist last night for an entry level job in Boston. The post said 75k but I don't know if that's just to attract applicants or if that could be legit. Seems high compared to most posts I've seen that give a salary for this region, contrary to what everyone here says. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 15:41 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 15:36
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Sab669 posted:It's tough finding job postings that match your level of experience, in your region, and isn't a recruiter unless you're going to go "door to door" in Google Maps to find all the IT businesses in your area, scope out their site for jobs.
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May 15, 2013 15:53
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No Safe Word posted:Just a tip to not do, seen today from an applicant: As an interviewer and an engineer that goes on recruiting trips, I could not give two shits about a EDIT: My lovely fiance notes that the Objective Statement can be useful for recruiters trying to sort a pile of resumes into Internships, Co-ops, and Full time. She has a point though I prefer that happen by way of the application process (i.e. apply for an internship if you want an internship). rufius fucked around with this message at 17:44 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 16:31
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follow-up of something like "I'm looking to build new experiences with blah blah" but seriously, come on. You can blow smoke if you want, but if you're not looking for a job I'll happily not give you a job. Or anything else.
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rufius posted:As an interviewer and an engineer that goes on recruiting trips, I could not give two shits about a I really loving hate writing cover letters, I wish they weren't a thing. Unless it's a job I seriously want (ie. Google), it's impossible to not just sound copy-pasted and bland. And I definitely agree entirely; if their resume is in your hand, you should already know what position it's for.
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May 15, 2013 18:23
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Sab669 posted:I really loving hate writing cover letters, I wish they weren't a thing. Unless it's a job I seriously want (ie. Google), it's impossible to not just sound copy-pasted and bland. And I definitely agree entirely; if their resume is in your hand, you should already know what position it's for. I can tell you for a fact that Microsoft doesn't give a poo poo about them (I work for them) and Google doesn't (I worked for them). I can't speak for other companies but I'm fairly certain Twitter, Facebook, <pick some big tech company> doesn't either.
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May 15, 2013 21:19
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rufius posted:(I work for them) Got any openings for a junior dev?  The MS career search is loving LOADED. Difficult to skim through it all.
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May 15, 2013 21:34
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Sab669 posted:Got any openings for a junior dev? If junior means < 1 year out of school, try microsoft.com/university
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May 15, 2013 23:40
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rufius posted:I can tell you for a fact that Microsoft doesn't give a poo poo about them (I work for them) and Google doesn't (I worked for them). I can't speak for other companies but I'm fairly certain Twitter, Facebook, <pick some big tech company> doesn't either. Cover letters always seemed kind of strange. I remember back when I was applying for jobs out of college, all of the college career seminars would stress the importance of keeping your resume short and concise (1-2 page max). However, they would then say that a cover letter is absolutely vital. So you'd end up attaching this essay to your resume about what a great fit you would be for their company, basically turning it into what they just told you not to make it. Hearing stories about recruiters having to flip through hundreds of resumes makes it hard to believe they aren't just ripping off the cover sheet and throwing it in the garbage. I'm still kind of paranoid about not sending one in if I applied somewhere though. Are they more important in different fields? Tysn fucked around with this message at 02:46 on May 16, 2013 |
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May 16, 2013 02:43
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Tysn posted:Cover letters always seemed kind of strange. I remember back when I was applying for jobs out of college, all of the college career seminars would stress the importance of keeping your resume short and concise (1-2 page max). However, they would then say that a cover letter is absolutely vital. So you'd end up attaching this essay to your resume about what a great fit you would be for their company, basically turning it into what they just told you not to make it. The "keep it to one-two pages" thing is a relic of when you actually had physical documents. In the age of PDF and Word documents, it doesn't matter if it's 1 page or 10 pages. No one will read past the first two pages, but those are going to be older jobs that are less relevant anyway. Unless you're applying for a job at the ACLU and page 5 of your resume lists the stint you did as a web developer for Stormfront, or something. They probably care about that.
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May 16, 2013 03:33
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Ithaqua posted:The "keep it to one-two pages" thing is a relic of when you actually had physical documents. In the age of PDF and Word documents, it doesn't matter if it's 1 page or 10 pages. No one will read past the first two pages, but those are going to be older jobs that are less relevant anyway. Unless you're applying for a job at the ACLU and page 5 of your resume lists the stint you did as a web developer for Stormfront, or something. They probably care about that. That's not true in my experience. Paper resumes are definitely still a thing and recruiters look at them, annotate them, etc. And they're not going to even give them a second glance if they're more than a single page. That is only my experience (like I said) but I'm talking about the largest university career fair in the country.
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May 16, 2013 03:45
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Sab669 posted:It's tough finding job postings that match your level of experience, in your region, and isn't a recruiter unless you're going to go "door to door" in Google Maps to find all the IT businesses in your area, scope out their site for jobs. Boston is probably up there in terms of tech cities, and I can't imagine living in Boston is cheap. Seems really stupid for them to waste everyone's time with a big number that isn't real, then again I don't bother with recruiters.
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May 16, 2013 07:21
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The only time a cover letter has ever mattered/made a difference to me (as someone hiring), is when it was someone coming out of college with a resume that wasn't really a right fit. But the cover letter was able to frame a story of why their resume was relevant to the job position, and we should give it a further look.
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May 16, 2013 09:26
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Ithaqua posted:The "keep it to one-two pages" thing is a relic of when you actually had physical documents. In the age of PDF and Word documents, it doesn't matter if it's 1 page or 10 pages. No one will read past the first two pages, but those are going to be older jobs that are less relevant anyway. Unless you're applying for a job at the ACLU and page 5 of your resume lists the stint you did as a web developer for Stormfront, or something. They probably care about that. I once received a resume that was so long I went and calculated it. He had one line of text to describe every 3 weeks of professional time spent. Think about that for a moment. 15 years in the industry 260 lines of text. It went on page after page with the formatting applied. At that point it really didn't matter if he was qualified no one was going to risk the craziness. bonds0097 posted:That's not true in my experience. Paper resumes are definitely still a thing and recruiters look at them, annotate them, etc. And they're not going to even give them a second glance if they're more than a single page. That is only my experience (like I said) but I'm talking about the largest university career fair in the country.
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May 16, 2013 14:13
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Tysn posted:
My understanding is cover letters mean more in fields like Business/Marketing/Finance. In engineering though, we're interested in quantifiable results listed on a sheet of paper that allow us to grade you against other applicants. Someone's heart-warming tale about how they fell in love with computers at age three is fairly uninteresting to recruiters and the engineers that recruiters bring with them to screen applicants. It may demonstrate that you care (an important quality) but if you have all the passion in the world and zero skills or zero demonstration that I can teach you the appropriate skills in a reasonably short time, I don't care. There are simply too many candidates for us to go beyond results listed. My advice to every kid I talk to at colleges I go to recruit at with our recruiters is to ditch the cover letter and limit your resume to one page. If you're an undergrad looking for a full time or internship position, it is almost certain that you don't have enough experience to put on more than one page that I will give even the vaguest shits about. That page limit changes when either A) the candidate is a Doctoral/Master's student or B) industry candidate with 5+ years of experience.
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May 16, 2013 14:28
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Krenzo posted:Are recruiters actually helpful? I've been having no luck with them. I talked to one who I couldn't understand because he sounded like he was in India, and I've had several who have said they want to setup a phone call yet never respond to me after that. All of my previous jobs I've gotten through networking, and that seems to be the only reliable way of finding work. There's a fine difference you may not notice as someone on the outside, headhunters versus recruiters. At MSFT, I've worked with great recruiters and terrible recruiters. The headhunters are truly scum though in my experience. They are paid per head (usually contractors) so they always up-sell the position to the candidate and up-sell the candidate to the recruiters. Then, if the candidate still gets to an interview loop, 4-5 engineers waste several hours of their day interviewing a candidate that isn't a good fit for the team (even if they may be smart). TL;DR: Recruiters can be good. Headhunters are nearly universally bad.
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May 16, 2013 14:41
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Speaking of recruiters, I just got thisquote:Hi REDACTED, While it's really flattering to get recruitment spam as a junior, this reads like some kind of parody. It's one step away from this. Is it common practice for these cold-call recruiters to be this ambiguous?
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