Recruiters Who Are They? And Do They Work?

This is a question I get a lot. “Who are Recruiters? And do they ACTUALLY work?” As with all things there are pros and cons. I have heard horror stories, and I have heard good stories. Let me discuss what has happened with me and these recruiters.

If you are in the tech industry, eventually you will run into a recruiter, or a head hunter as some people call them. What they exactly do is usually work for companies or a company finding people to fill in holes and shoes. These can range from designers, developers to even IT. I mainly meet them through Linkdin, but sometimes through indeed or another job site. Now when it comes to that, you can easily block your information from them or just try to be hidden. If you aren’t interested then you can easily say no. But sometimes, you shouldn’t be so quick to judge there are some good recruiters out there. In some cases I have run into a few they aren’t good at what they do, and others who actually do their job title justice.

What To Look For In A Good Recruiter

Now there are some solid recruiters who are actually trying to do a great job, and they do this in a few ways. They will actually do research on you, to them, you aren’t just a tinder swipe, but a person they want to find for a position that will fit you and the company. I have had recruiters contact me, they have read my blog, looked at my past work and in some cases contact someone I know and asked about me. These are the ones that actually don’t just look for anyone to fill a developer position, they look for the right person for the right job.

They will also interview you in person, I have had recruiters not take the time to interview me in person, they just call and do a quick 5 minute phone call. I have met some who actually take the time to get to know me, they know what kind of companies to stay away from and which ones to go for.

What To Avoid in a Recruiter

I have dealt with a few recruiters who are in it for the numbers. You hear that quality over quantity? yeah they don’t believe in that. To some of the ones I have dealt with, they send me jobs, if it has the words “developer” in the title they send it to me. Oh it can be a position for a drupal developer, or a dot net developer, or a android developer. I just get sent these jobs and the recruiter will just try to send them to me over and over again.

Another bad thing is when a recruiter lies to the company about who I am and what I can do. Such as, I was learning react. I was having fun built a basic site. The recruiter tells the company I am a react master, I know the in’s and outs of this new framework. I had the company ask me things and it blind sided me because the recruiter told me “They want someone who is willing to learn react.” However, the position they sent me didn’t include react and yet the position that I interviewed for was a senior react developer. Now that caught me off guard and I was very upset with the recruiter as they lied to me and the company.

Now you can guess how long that relationship lasted beyond that point.

IN CLOSING

As all things in the tech industry everything can be good or bad depending on who the person is and what kind of company they work for. I hope this helps you if you do decide to use a recruiter if one of them contacts you.

see you space cowboy…

Alejandro Escamilla