A tip for job candidates:Be Smart, Don't give your extra salary to a recruiter

Something I was thinking about today. This may have been covered in another post, but it bears reinforcing.

Obviously, the 3rd party recruiter emailing you about a "great position with a leading NorthWest media firm" makes their money by making an agreement with the hiring company to receive some dollar amount for the talent they recruit. And they pay you less than that amount that the originating company is willing to pay.

When a 3rd party recruiter emails you with a job requirement.. Have you ever thought about where that job requirement comes from?

In almost all cases, this job requirement is a very lightly sanitized version of the job requirement posted to the originating company's website career opportunities page. But, the company needs to get 3rd party recruiters involved because their Employment Opportunities page only gets so many hits, and posting to Monster is a sure fire way to clog their email servers with mediocre applicants. The company wants to hire directly, because it is cheaper for them, and if they are a large company, they already have the HR infrastructure to support direct hiring.

So... How do you find out who the 3rd party is recruiting for without responding (and legally tying yourself into the contract agreement between the hiring firm and the 3rd party recruiter)? Easy.. Simply copy some "original sounding" portion of the requirement text.. And do a Google search on it. By analyzing the intro text the 3rd party recruiter peaks your interest with, i.e. -

"A leading Northwest media firm is hiring........."

Leads you through your Google search to find out the requirement is posted on NBC Universal's Opportunities page.. You go there and apply, instead of going through the (often very poor English-speaking) third party recruiter....

And...win like a boss.

Assuming you get accepted, you can expect 10-15% more as a direct hire, and the company ends up paying less than they would have through the recruiter..

For the more highly skilled IT positions, companies often have trouble finding talent, often taking an extra 1-2 months to fill a position... If you feel that you are qualified, do whatever you can to find out who the actual hiring company is before you talk to the recruiter...

Hey.. It's just business.. If the recruiting firm is too lazy to properly re-write the requirement because they want to get 10 more requirements into email, then why on earth should you give them a large portion of you paycheck for 6 months to a year??

Go out there and make money, peeps...

Russ

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Comments

Ismaeljrp

Thanx for sharing the wisdom

instant000

I've seen cases whereby companies could hire more easily when they didn't go through a recruiting firm. (Of course, some firms like the insurance of "try before you buy" which they get through a recruitment firm.)

I usually try to find the original posting company for ads that get my interest, also.

For instance, you can sometimes find the exact same jobs, posted by two recruiting firms, and the original company, also. Sometimes, you can even find these ads with dollar figures attached. You'll see one firm offering say 75K, and another firm offering 65K, and it would be the exact same job description, and you could tell it was for the same place, too, due to uniquie items in the posting.

That is, sometimes the recruiters get so lazy with the copy/paste that they wind up inadvertently including the company's name or some other proprietary information that makes it easy to find out who originally posted the job.

DoubleNNs

Great advice. Thanks for sharing.

Moon Child

Very true, however I have had some recruiters in the past find me and help me get interviews that I otherwise would not of landed. I had a few excellent recruiters tailor the resume I gave them so it matched the skillset the company was looking for, I already had the skills just wasn't giving the best resume or reflecting my skills very well on paper. One recruiter made me redo my resume 3 separate times before she finally submitted it, and it worked I got the interview. The female recruiters seem the best, they seem very good at cleaning up English and helping with the resumes. A past girlfriend actually landed my first tech job for me. She had her own resume writing business she did on the side for money and when I couldn't find a job she rewrote my resume and in two weeks I had a programming job. I don't mind taking a little pay cut if the recruiter can help me land a job I would of otherwise never been able to get.

Iristheangel

Thats good advice if the company direct hires but this is not always the case. My previous two companies would not direct hire under any circumstance. Its cheaper for them to actually pay a recruiter than to pay benefits and unemployment insurance if the employee did not work out. After 8-12 months of contracting/consulting, I was eventually offered a FTE position but if I had ignored the call from the recruiters, I would have never gotten those positions because there were no real job postings for me to find from the direct company. I found that many companies like to "try before they buy" which is why we have recruiters in the first place

DPG

This is usually the norm in the IT industry for non-management/executive positions.

Priston

With my position the company does not want to direct hire. The only way to get hired in my position is through a contractor or being a existing employee transferring into my position. They like to cut costs on benefits. I think half the company is contractors.

Master Of Puppets

I've never used the services of a recruiter. I always like to talk to the company directly. However, if there is no other option, I wouldn't mind going to a recruiter. It's just that I've also found it most beneficial to link directly.

instant000

My direct hire job (singular) actually paid me the LEAST. My via-recruiter jobs have paid the MOST and have had the BEST benefits. Truth be told, the comparison is not even close.

At the lower level, companies can probably do it themselves, but for higher level positions, they tend to vet through recruiting firms, simply because HR staffs are not equipped to handle vetting of candidates.

Also, we cannot underestimate the safety net the company has in seeing a candidate in action prior to making the hire.

As I stated earlier:

instant000 wrote: »

(Of course, some firms like the insurance of "try before you buy" which they get through a recruitment firm.)

blargoe

I have used this method before to discover the company doing the hiring.

The last recruiter I worked with was wise to this, apparently. His job posting and the one the hiring company used were not similar at all in tone, wording, or emphasis of the most important requirements. Because it was a company I was already interested in working with, I knew enough about the position to guess, but if I had not been following openings with that company, I would never have known or been able to figure it out without going through the motions with the recruiter.

pitviper

pogue wrote: »

Assuming you get accepted, you can expect 10-15% more as a direct hire, and the company ends up paying less than they would have through the recruiter..

Not necessarily the case – A good recruiter will have much better negotiating skills than your average job candidate.

And others have said, we use an agency almost exclusively when new positions open – its HRs way of screening candidates in advance.

robp12

Technical Recruiter here...

Just throwing this in there, but having a Staffing Firm submit your resume might be the 2nd best thing behind an internal employee referral. With a Staffing Firm, you have someone consistently talking to the hiring manager, getting feedback on your resume and working to set up interviews. A lot of times, if you submit your resume, it might as well go into a black hole.

Also, not all recruiting firms solely do contract or contract-to-hire positions. The majority of my placements are permanent hire candidates! In fact, I enjoy recruiting more on permanent placements because I enjoy setting someone up with a stable career opportunity where they can provide for themselves, family, etc. And with permanent placements, staffing firms (at least mine does) receive a fee based upon a percentage of your salary, typically a 10-20% fee of a salary. So in that case, the higher salary you receive, the higher fee my company receives as well (win-win).

Some recruiters are terrible, although some a great at their jobs. Like everything, it all depends on the individual. Hopefully in your dealings with recruiters, they are the helpful kind.

Kimura410

Ok so I am not too proud to say I am ignorant to a lot of things most people think is common knowledge. I have a resume on monster.com.

I have received an email from who I believed to be a 3rd party guy (now that you mention it, he spoke poor english), but I wasn't interested so it went no further.

How do you distinguish between a 3rd party recruiter, or a direct job offer from someone who works at the company? I guess just check their signature or email address?

Great thread though. This is something simple that I did not even know.

PurpleIT

Kimura410 wrote: »

How do you distinguish between a 3rd party recruiter, or a direct job offer from someone who works at the company? I guess just check their signature or email address?

Great thread though. This is something simple that I did not even know.

In my experience they usually just come out and say it. The signature block, etc should tell you as well, but if you are dealing with someone who is not forthcoming about who they are and who they work for, they aren't someone I would trust my career to.

KeithC

Interesting I saw this thread earlier in the week but I was about to make another thread about the same topic. I was just thinking about contacting a recruiting firm.

My question is can I be picky in what location I would like to work in? I'm outside of Philadelphia (city wage tax, traffic, parking . ..) I would really not go into the city. Would this requirement turn off a recruiter?

kohr-ah

Technically you can be as picky as you want it just gives them less jobs to offer you at a time may be all that comes of it.

Like my case for where I am I had 2 recruiters call me today. I told them I am interested in positions in Downtown Chicago but if preferrable i'd like to be withing a mile to a mile and a half of the trainstation but I have no problem walking. I just cant afford the parking downtown.

crazyITguy

Just thought I would chime in. The position I just posted about I applied for directly a year ago and heard nothing. Recruiter got me in and lets say salary is huge.