And this is why I hate ALL recruiters

I really try to give recruiters the benefit of the doubt every now and then but their soulless beings always disappoint me. A few weeks ago I came across that one job posting that stands out of the noise and make you got "Hmm...".

Recruiter 1 pitches the role through LinkedIn. I am intrigued so I ask for compensation right off the bat. Given the 10-15 hits I receive on a weekly basis this is my gating. He replies with the number. The base was a substantial increase over my compensation, similar benefits, same industry; it's a specialization extremely in line with my expertise. I'm honest and tell him that I have been eternally disappointed by recruiters. He says he's ben in the game for 20+ years, specializes in critical high profile hires, blah blah blah, and give me more details on his relationship with the current client. I like what I hear so I ask him for a time to talk. Then he goes radio silent. It has been 2 weeks now.

Recruiter 2 from another company pitches me the exact same role. Message seems canned so my BS radar goes off. I tell her that the roles does pique my interest, that another recruiter reached out and then ghosted me, but I was willing to hear more from her. She says that "given that another recruiter has already reached out to you on this position, it will be an overlap on my part. Will keep you posted on other suitable positions.” I get triggered and answer back indicating that this is an example on why I hate recruiters. I had to ELI5 that I never agreed to anything with previous recruiter and therefore her comment did not make any sense. She then replies with “send updated resume, your expected compensation, and your current one”. That is all I need to know to move on and add her to the wall of shame.

Recruiter 3 and 4 reach out with same job. Immediately ignore them because of multiple typical red flags.

Recruiter 5 reaches out. I tell him upfront I have received this exact same role from now 5 recruiters all claiming to be preferred vendors for the hiring company. I tell him sorry but coming off strong and that I am interested in the role but refuse to work with non-transparent agencies that give recruiters a bad name. He says he understands and even gives me names of people he has placed in the hiring company. I recognize two so he gets point in his favor. This guy seems like the real deal. I ask him about next steps if interested. He then tells me he got more info from the hiring manager and gives me this "Application security focus. Develops App Sec strategy, contributing to the broader security strategy." There’s a small problem: this role has zero to do with AppSec. I question him on this and he stands by it and says it came directly from the hiring VP. Weird. I then ask about next steps. He says that he “tried submitting someone today into the job portal but it said they weren’t accepting additional candidates, submissions may be resumed later. I’ll let you know what I hear”. I then go to the company’s portal directly and see that there’s no issue applying for that specific role. What the heck!

At this point I’m losing all interest. You may ask, why I didn’t apply directly to the company? Well’ the Infosec leadership at this company came from my current company. I know that in the past they have reached out to my current leadership to inquire about candidates that work/worked for us and were looking to move over there. I’m not ready for that call to happen since I’m only in an exploratory phase to see if the role is a good fit so my hope was that a good recruiter could relay this to the hiring manager before a formal application is submitted.

TLDR: Recruiter suck and always will!

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Comments

wayne_wonder

cyberguypr wrote: »

I did find out the hiring manager and reached out but the guy is not getting back to me. Oh well. I'm not actively looking but thought it was worth pasively exploring. Like I said earlier, I wasn't interested in applying blindly/directly becuase I wanted to avoid the new company calling contacts in my current place.

Wow is that what they do in the USA ? they dont call until after the role has been offered and accepted here

cyberguypr

Some places ask “may we contact your current employer: yes/no”. Having said that, there are many stories around of people who asked not to contact the current employer, yet the contact took place. In my particular case is different because the top IS executive at the new company worked at my current company for a long time and is known for reaching out to my current leaders every tme someone from my current place applies to their IS dept. It’s a back channel conversation but still opens up a can of worms.

DatabaseHead

networker050184 wrote: »

Pretty typical. Don't take it personal. The company is their client not you.

101

I had two recruiters recently reach out even sent me a customized message about how my skills etc looked great. Thought wow they took the time replied to them with resume, crickets.......

In some of your scenarios what happens iMO is they present your resume / profile to the account manager and the account manager thumbs ups or downs. If you are downed, you get no reply. This is sales at the end of the day and why would you disposition someone who isn't eligible for the "sale" The answer is you don't.

if the account manager had said yay you would of been contacting and stalked mercilessly.

UnixGuy

cyberguypr wrote: »

.the top IS executive at the new company worked at my current company for a long time and is known for reaching out to my current leaders every tme someone from my current place applies to their IS dept...

I really hate this practice, very low move.

DatabaseHead

UnixGuy wrote: »

I really hate this practice, very low move.

Those are the type of people in those positions usually..... If they have opportunity to get that information they are going to do it 100/100 times.....

the_Grinch

The past week I have gotten two calls a day from two recruiters from the same company for the same position. I never pick up and they just keep leaving messages. Want me to really not talk to you? Call me twice a day for a week.

PCTechLinc

Man I'm jealous... the recruiters that reach out to me are either looking for A+ certified mobile techs for just over minimum wage, or car insurance sales positions. :-/

LordQarlyn

cyberguypr wrote: »

I did find out the hiring manager and reached out but the guy is not getting back to me. Oh well. I'm not actively looking but thought it was worth pasively exploring. Like I said earlier, I wasn't interested in applying blindly/directly becuase I wanted to avoid the new company calling contacts in my current place.

Yeah sometimes that doesn't work out unfortunately. Still, I've gotten better results, more interviews and more importantly, more offers, when I could reach out directly to the hiring manager than just applying online.

LordQarlyn

DatabaseHead wrote: »

101

I had two recruiters recently reach out even sent me a customized message about how my skills etc looked great. Thought wow they took the time replied to them with resume, crickets.......

In some of your scenarios what happens iMO is they present your resume / profile to the account manager and the account manager thumbs ups or downs. If you are downed, you get no reply. This is sales at the end of the day and why would you disposition someone who isn't eligible for the "sale" The answer is you don't.

if the account manager had said yay you would of been contacting and stalked mercilessly.

At least a brief courtesy notification that the client wasn't interested is always appreciated rather than simply ghosting someone. The funny thing is, I saw an article on LinkedIn the other day by a recruiter lamenting that prospective employees are now ghosting recruiters and how annoying and unfair that is. Well, I wonder from whom those employees learned that from?

DatabaseHead

LordQarlyn wrote: »

At least a brief courtesy notification that the client wasn't interested is always appreciated rather than simply ghosting someone. The funny thing is, I saw an article on LinkedIn the other day by a recruiter lamenting that prospective employees are now ghosting recruiters and how annoying and unfair that is. Well, I wonder from whom those employees learned that from?

Saw that same one. Full circle back to the title of this thread lol.......

roxer

Just had that experience. A recruiter contacted me through LinkedIn and hyped my credentials just to ghost me when the spot was filled before he could get my resume in front of the manager. Fast forward two months later and another recruiter from the same firm contacts me. Same bull story--your resume and creds are excellent and he would like to present me for a position he had. I told him, "funny, thats the same BS your collegue threw at me before he cut me off, so no thanks." Little do these idiots realize that there are other jobs needing qualified candidates that arise. Stupidity at its finest.

DatabaseHead

@Roxer

"Stupidity at its finest" Well said!

kabooter

Let me start with my brief and fresh off the oven story
I posted my resume last month on two job portals, looking for infosec analyst position. I have several years experience in IT and infosec. The floodgates of emails and calls opened up the next day. Got 4-5 calls, emails every day. We have following projects with prestigious companies, are you interested in 3/4/6 months contracts blah blah. Pls sign agreement, send resume etc. I got so many calls that it annoyed the hell out of me in 4/5 days. I could not focus on studying to enhance my skills or improve my resume. |Just dancing to the tunes basically.
And then......nothing. not a word. But got even more calls which I dread to answer now.
It does seem like that these guys are just entering my info in their database. This is just a charade.
So my question is - How do you guys handle such calls and vet the head hunters to weed out the chaff? Please share your tips.

DatabaseHead

kabooter wrote: »

Let me start with my brief and fresh off the oven story
I posted my resume last month on two job portals, looking for infosec analyst position. I have several years experience in IT and infosec. The floodgates of emails and calls opened up the next day. Got 4-5 calls, emails every day. We have following projects with prestigious companies, are you interested in 3/4/6 months contracts blah blah. Pls sign agreement, send resume etc. I got so many calls that it annoyed the hell out of me in 4/5 days. I could not focus on studying to enhance my skills or improve my resume. |Just dancing to the tunes basically.
And then......nothing. not a word. But got even more calls which I dread to answer now.
It does seem like that these guys are just entering my info in their database. This is just a charade.
So my question is - How do you guys handle such calls and vet the head hunters to weed out the chaff? Please share your tips.

Here is my theory..... Just a theory

Talent Acquisition Specialist (AKA Recruiters) are being judge on certain KPI's Key Performance Indicators. We all know security among other roles/skills are heavily sought after. Well..... One of their "KPI's" is how many entries into talent management system.

They get some sort of "approval" from the person. "Yes I would be interesting" and they drop that note into the system with your information and on to the next person.

HR is an operation and these folks are measured some how some way....

How many placements has got to be number 1, but too many factors could disqualify the candidate so there has to be "other" metrics...

paul78

UnixGuy wrote: »

I really hate this practice, very low move.

I'm curious why. Back-channel references are common in some sectors and I never hire anyone without making a back-channel review of a candidate. Personally, back-channel references are a lot more powerful for both the candidate and the prospective employer equally. And since most of my jobs have been based on references, I too also rely on prospective employers doing a back-channel check on me. If a prospective employer can get a reference for me from someone they know or trust - it is more likely to go my way.

IMO - It's really no different than doing a back-channel reach-out to the hiring manager.

BTW - came across this article and thought it was interesting that recruiters run into the same ghosting issues - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-cutter

JoJoCal19

paul78 wrote: »

I'm curious why. Back-channel references are common in some sectors and I never hire anyone without making a back-channel review of a candidate. Personally, back-channel references are a lot more powerful for both the candidate and the prospective employer equally. And since most of my jobs have been based on references, I too also rely on prospective employers doing a back-channel check on me. If a prospective employer can get a reference for me from someone they know or trust - it is more likely to go my way.

IMO - It's really no different than doing a back-channel reach-out to the hiring manager.

BTW - came across this article and thought it was interesting that recruiters run into the same ghosting issues - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-cutter

I think the issue is with doing it when you've been specifically asked to NOT reach out to the current employer just yet. Basically, go through the hiring motions, and if and only if you actually want to make the offer, reach out to those back channel contacts. If you do it on the front end and decide for other reasons you don't want to hire that candidate, well you've just f***ed them over in their current role.

cyberguypr

^ Exactly. If I decided to move my VPs would no doubt provide good feedback so that's not a concern. I do not appreciate current employer communication unless I specifically authorize it, and I would only do so after I have an offer in hand.

UnixGuy

paul78 wrote: »

I'm curious why. Back-channel references are common in some sectors and I never hire anyone without making a back-channel review of a candidate. Personally, back-channel references are a lot more powerful for both the candidate and the prospective employer equally. And since most of my jobs have been based on references, I too also rely on prospective employers doing a back-channel check on me. If a prospective employer can get a reference for me from someone they know or trust - it is more likely to go my way.

IMO - It's really no different than doing a back-channel reach-out to the hiring manager.

BTW - came across this article and thought it was interesting that recruiters run into the same ghosting issues - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-cutter

In Australia providing reference is a formality that EVERYONE does...you do that after you interviewed and accepted the offer, sort of like a last step

what I was talking about is when you interview or even just submit a CV to a new company, and a manager from that company goes and tells your employer that you applied there - this is a dog move. Not that I care if it happens, I'm always prepared to walk away from any job so I'm not too fussed, but I just find it strange

DatabaseHead

Working the back channels is shady and chit. Like others have mention you run the risk of loss of reputation.

thomas_

This is why I put “Undisclosed” for my current position both on LinkedIn and any copies of my resume that I post publicly. I had one recruiter press the issue and I said I didn’t really feel inclined to disclose my current employer and asked them why they needed that information. She said that they just needed to make sure I didn’t currently work for them(for whatever reason.)

paul78

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

I think the issue is with doing it when you've been specifically asked to NOT reach out to the current employer just yet.

Ahh - that's not what I meant. Personally, when I hire someone, I don't particularly find formal feedback from a current employer to be useful or relevant. But that's probably just me. Plus that would be a bit unethical since when someone is seeking a job, there's always an implicit understanding that the candidate may not want their current employer to know unless the candidate has a mutual understanding with their current employer.

I always do back-channel query if there's a connection in my network who may know of the candidate's reputation. As I mentioned, it's a pretty common practice to ask someone about their professional reputation, just as it's pretty common to ask for introductions to hiring managers. There's really nothing shady about it. And it doesn't mean a long drawn out conversation, nor does it mean a conversation with a candidate's former employer, it could be a customer or supplier or just someone that's worked with the candidate.

UnixGuy wrote:

In Australia providing reference is a formality that EVERYONE does...you do that after you interviewed and accepted the offer, sort of like a last step

Interesting. That's a common practice in the US too. But I find it to be a useless practice.

UnixGuy wrote:

what I was talking about is when interview or even just submit a CV to a new company, and a manager from that company goes and tells your employer that you applied there

Do you know what the motivation would be for a hiring manager to ever do that? That just seems kinda strange.

DatabaseHead wrote:

Working the back channels is shady and chit. Like others have mention you run the risk of loss of reputation.

Respectfully, I would disagree. Perhaps, we have different ideas of what back-channel means. I'm very careful about my professional reputation which I've cultivated over the past 30 years.

BTW - many of you may be familiar with companies that provide expert network services - I occasionally get requests for engagements with their clients who are seeking reference checks or opinions on individuals for a fee. (I got 2 such requests this year) I always turn these down because it's just too weird for my taste. But the clients are usually hedge funds or VCs who are looking for references for board members or C-level execs.

The reason why I wanted to raise the idea of back-channel checks is so that folks don't think that it doesn't happen. In some sectors, it's very common. And as seniority goes up - it's practically expected.

paul78

thomas_ wrote: »

She said that they just needed to make sure I didn’t currently work for them(for whatever reason.)

That's because there's always a non-solicit clause in a recruiting agreement.

UnixGuy

paul78 wrote: »

Interesting. That's a common practice in the US too. But I find it to be a useless practice.

Do you know what the motivation would be for a hiring manager to ever do that? That just seems kinda strange.

..

yes it IS a useless practice, and their motivation is unclear. Motivation is unclear, probably they have nothing else to do? boredom? just pure malice? try to make friends? there is no good reason for it really but it happens

UnixGuy

paul78 wrote: »

The reason why I wanted to raise the idea of back-channel checks is so that folks don't think that it doesn't happen. In some sectors, it's very common. And as seniority goes up - it's practically expected.

Good point, thanks for the explanation

LordQarlyn

Way way back when, I was at an interview for a field service rep for auto mail sorting machines. While talking I mentioned that I have a list of references. The interviewer said they don't bother with references because, "of course all your references you give us will say nice things about you, it's not like you are going to give as a reference someone who's going to say you are an axe murderer."

I didn't get the job (which probably was good thing looking back), but I still remember that line.

cyberguypr

Agree on references, useless. I check them because HR makes me. On the flip side of that coin, I’ve worked with people who had absolutely zero work ethics yet put me down as a reference without telling me. You can guess how that went. The number of people who do this is absurdly high in my circles.

MeanDrunkR2D2

I hate recruiters as well. In fact, I'll never do work for TekSystems again since one recruiter with them that I was in contact with and looking to change jobs ended up talking to my current boss asking why I'd be looking to leave and that she had the perfect candidate to replace me with. That ended up being a very weird conversation that I had with the guy I reported to at that job and luckily a couple of weeks later I had an offer for a better FT role and left to end that weird job. I talked to her boss after that conversation and as far as I can tell she still works for them.

DatabaseHead

@ Paul

I was speaking from the vantage point of the employee. If you circumvent the process and go to the hiring manager or someone close to the hiring manager to find out about the employee before they formalize his/her willingness to go forward that can damage the rep on the employee.....

EG You submit a resume to a company hiring manager gets it. Trying to sift down the stack of candidates reached out to the employees manager prior to interview. That's shady and unethical.

EnderWiggin

MeanDrunkR2D2 wrote: »

I hate recruiters as well. In fact, I'll never do work for TekSystems again since one recruiter with them that I was in contact with and looking to change jobs ended up talking to my current boss asking why I'd be looking to leave and that she had the perfect candidate to replace me with. That ended up being a very weird conversation that I had with the guy I reported to at that job and luckily a couple of weeks later I had an offer for a better FT role and left to end that weird job. I talked to her boss after that conversation and as far as I can tell she still works for them.

Well of course she still works there, you called her boss and told them how great of an employee she is.

MeanDrunkR2D2

EnderWiggin wrote: »

Well of course she still works there, you called her boss and told them how great of an employee she is.

Touche. They'll quickly realize that's why she cannot get higher level recruits since she burns them for those low paying contracts.