[LRUG] What do people want to do with their career?

[Adrian Sevitz]

On 22 Mar 2012, at 21:53, chat-request at lists.lrug.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:45:29 +0000
> From: Paul Robinson <paul at 32moves.com>
> In my experience, recruiters are terrible at finding developers with problem solving skills. 

I agree that many (most) are. I've dealt with a few though who were reasonable 

> I don't like bashing anybody for doing their job, but the reality is that most recruiters offer *very* little value for *very* high margins. What is keeping them from being obsolete? People who are too lazy to go out and find developers, talk to the community, learn about what the culture is like decide to instead just pay some bloke called Gavin who has a 2:2 in English Lit 20% of gross salaries to build their technical teams.

Again I agree. But the good recruiters seem to have gone to the community and done this. 

It's equally tough often to do this recruitment yourself, as finding the right kind of people takes a significant amount of time (I know I did this for 6 months before turning too recruiters  with pretty zero success)


>> I also field 10 calls a week from recruiters who all give exactly the same pitch.
> 
> 
> STOP TAKING THEIR CALLS.
> 
> Seriously, you're encouraging them. You are like the 1 person in a million who buys viagra pitched in an email or engages with a "Nigerian diplomat" that results in the rest of us receiving hundreds of spam a day because their numbers make hassling everybody a worthwhile pursuit.
> 
> You should make it clear - as I do - that if you want a recruiter, you will find one.
> 
> Fielding unsolicited pitches via phone or email slows me down, and as a CTO of a startup, I find it completely and totally socially unacceptable for other CTOs to field and take seriously unsolicited phone calls from recruiters: you are actually harming my workflow by giving them statistical success meaning they think it's acceptable to disturb me. If you take their call and hear their pitch, you've basically just slowed down 50 other CTOs that day...
> 
> Please, please, please stop.

I agree, we opened the floodgates a bit when a flash dev quit after 14 days, and I needed to find someone fast. Also having a big whoping "developers wanted" sign overlooking Vauxhall station gets a lot of calls.

We now have a new policy of not taking unsolicited calls.


>> The advice below is good. If you're looking for a role, find companies you like and look at their jobs page. Even if they're not looking, contact them directly, and ask them to consider you next time they are.
> 
> I have a very short list of 3-4 people I want to talk to next time we hire more developers. I would love to hear from people who want to be added to that list. I think all CTOs do this.

Agreed. I just managed to hire someone I've wanted to bring on board for a year. Always good knowing who you want should they become available.


>> Also remember going directly to a company you come with no fees. If you're head to head with a similar candidate, the fact you don't cost 15-30% more in recruiters fees makes you more attractive and this can translate into higher salary or being offered the job.
> 
> 
> Total cost of employment is a major factor in hire/reject decisions, especially for startups. Can't stress this enough. If as a candidate you go via a recruiter you are about 50% more likely to either receive a lower pay offer than if you didn't, OR you are just going to get rejected as too expensive, not because your salary demands are too high but your total cost of employment including recruiter fees are too high. Some firms can manage to absorb the cost, but it's becoming harder and harder to justify.

+1
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