Tech Companies Face a Fresh Crisis: Hiring (nytimes.com) 105
Recruiters in tech are desperate for workers. But candidates are the ones who hold all the power. From a report: [...] Recruiters working in technology these days do not receive candy, flowers or thank-yous. The recruiter is lucky if she can get someone on the phone -- if she receives so much as an email in response. Technology workers need court no one: Along with microchips, toilet paper and Covid tests, tech workers will be recalled as one of the great, pressing shortages of this pandemic. Estimates of the unemployment rates for tech workers are about 1.7 percent, compared with roughly 4 percent in the general economy; for those with expertise in cybersecurity, it's more like 0.2 percent. Tech employees today tire of the attention from recruiters, the friendly hellos on LinkedIn, the cold calls (which Dyba does not make). "They think we're like used-car salesmen," Dyba said of her quarry. To be a recruiter in tech is to be an in-demand commodity for those companies doing the hiring but to feel like something of a nuisance -- like an essential gear that emits a loud, irritating noise.
Am I the exception? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in tech, getting close to 50. I love my job. I love it. I'm slightly underpaid, and I could easy make 50% or more than what I make elsewhere, and still work from home. I work at a non-profit. It's a career position, and I'm unlikely to lose my job as long as I'm relatively competent. I guess I'm the oddball in all of this?
Re:Am I the exception? (Score:5, Interesting)
No you're not.
Back during the dotcom bubble at the turn of the millennium I had friends lose their jobs en masse. I've followed their careers a bit and realized that in a lower paying public sector job I've actually made as much money over my career as they have because of the time they've spent unemployed. Additionally if they have actually saved for retirement then they're no better off even if they've managed to work consistently because of the nature of the public sector pension.
A couple that I've known didn't have retirement in mind at all, and in this Gen-X age group they're going to get burned pretty badly or else they're just never going to be able to retire. Spent their money on admittedly pretty nice cars, but cars don't typically last.
Re:Am I the exception? (Score:4, Insightful)
in a lower paying public sector job I've actually made as much money over my career as they have because of the time they've spent unemployed
Does that account for different amounts of free time? They may have earned less money, but presumably also worked a smaller amount of time.
Re: Am I the exception? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Am I the exception? (Score:4, Insightful)
This. Given a stable position, (networking + job hunting) approaches zero.
You can go either way with this, but I can't remember the last time I updated my resume.
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It was not. It was time spent without things like medical insurance, and usually without much in the way of savings either.
It well could be that these people were just too young and too ready to spend every last dime whatever they made, but regardless, there was no discipline to particularly save during times of wealth to account for times of being destitute, and it seemed that a lot of what was purchased when money was flowing was superfluous crap that didn't really bring long term benefit.
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Spent their money on admittedly pretty nice cars, but cars don't typically last.
Usually because people fail to maintain them -- maybe more so in states w/o required yearly inspections. Even something simple, like changing the oil and other fluids regularly, can extend the life of a car a lot. My 2001 Civic and 2002 CR-V are still in really good shape, except for some clear coat issues in places (my cars are parked outside year round) and I'll have them re-painted at some point. Some maintenance items, like the timing belt (on the Civic, the CR-V has a permanent timing chain) aren't c
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There is a problem on newer cars. They literally are designed to be unmaintainable. My spouse has picked two SUVs in a row that not only do not have a transmission dipstick, but changing the transmission filter requires removing the engine and transmission assembly from the vehicle. :(
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I don't think that they're specifically designed to be unmaintainable, but in the end it does seem that way.
One of the problems with transmissions is that over the last forty years they've gotten to be much more complex than they were in the seventies and into the eighties. They're incredibly sensitive to the kinds of fluids used. Even in the late eighties and early nineties there were problems when semi-universal fluids that worked on older models caused irreparable damage to newer designs.
And unfortunat
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I don't think transmission fluid compatibility is what killed the dipstick. My gut tells me it was value engineered out of the vehicle. Cutting it eliminates the tube, stick, o-ring, and one or two retaining bolts. Cutting 4 parts for the cost of a small casting change (eliminating the hole) is a bargain.
Once the dipstick was gone and people didn't squawk then making the filters non-replaceable was a logical next step. Again, for the cost of a casting change, they eliminate a gasket, a dozen or more bol
Govt job = gravy train (Score:1)
Re:Am I the exception? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Am I the exception? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the same boat, the same age.
My entire career was mish mash of 2 year stints at startups that would always start and end the same. "It's OK to take lower pay because STOCK OPTIONS" Not a single startup I worked for panned out... Ever.
4 years ago I got a job in the federal government. I am ecstatically happy about where I'm at. My responsibilities are well documented on my PD. My TSP is growing by leaps and bounds. If I wanted to go from IT to something else I could. My talent and drive is recognized enough where I'm being groomed for management (currently in several supervisor programs) Did I mention I'm teleworking full time now? At the start of COVID our group went to 50% telework, and out of 30 of us I was the only one who's closure rate increased.
I recently got an offer from a former employer for about $30k over what I'm making now. It just didn't sit right for me. Bird in the hand as they say. I politely brushed him off.
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Had a coworker who otherwise seemed smart, but he always assumed that when the company was finally purchased he'd be rich. Except he wasn't. He was basing that off him having a very low option price by being one of the early employees. I came later. So I said that if we both have 25K shares, and my price is $4 a share and his is $0 a share, then he could only get $100,000 more than me, and this frustrated him. So when we were purchased, they started splitting the common shares so that actual workers go
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Ya it's funny when I started actually figuring all of that out and asking recruiters for copies of their option excise agreements they stopped dealing with me. I'd usually get, "That's company confidential" to which I'd reply, "Well how do I know these options are worth anything?" Also found that asking for preferred vs common via a stock grant was another way to get rid of them quickly.
A lot of the options I excised turned out to be nothing more than keeping a company afloat with my own salary. Never aga
Re: Am I the exception? (Score:1)
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Look at his comment history, he's a D-List troll. Nowhere near the legendary trolling of GNAA or the turd report. I wouldn't have even bothered replying.
Re:Am I the exception? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I don't think so.
I'm over 50, I work at a large corporate and could probably get 20% more base salary elsewhere.
The thing is, I could WFH for 3 days a week before the pandemic - heck, I once went 2 weeks without going into the office.
My manager called me aside and all he said was "Could you maybe come into the office a bit more?" - that was it.
Now it's officially, WFH whenever you want, but if there's a meeting that is best done physically, then come in - but no pressure.
The work is interesting, my fellow colleagues are awesome and there's zero pressure to work overtime - in fact, it is actively discouraged.
Aside from the base package, my company now matches my pension contribution up to 11%, I get heavily discounted medical insurance (I pay like 20% of the rate as a salary sacrifice), 25 days holiday, 4x annual salary life assurance and 10 "developer days" for study a year.
So, is it worth going out there to get 20% more on the base package?
Two of my former colleagues jumped ship 2 years back for hefty salary increases - and both of them are now miserable as hell.
There's more than money to a job - I'd rather get paid 20% or even 40% less, to not be miserable.
Been there, done that, got the emotional scars.
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I wish I had mod points.
I will be 57 this year, in a good position, I do meaningful work, I am appreciated. The company I work for doesn't pay top scale, but it ain't bad, I get enough RSU's to be interesting (but not a significant fraction of my pay, a'la Amazon) and the benefits are great. Stress is manageable, and when the office reopens next month, I *might* go in once every couple of weeks, but I have been super productive being remote for two years, so me and my boss are not feeling like I have to ret
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No, I don't think so. I'm over 50, I work at a large corporate and could probably get 20% more base salary elsewhere. The thing is, I could WFH for 3 days a week before the pandemic - heck, I once went 2 weeks without going into the office. My manager called me aside and all he said was "Could you maybe come into the office a bit more?" - that was it. Now it's officially, WFH whenever you want, but if there's a meeting that is best done physically, then come in - but no pressure.
You still have to live by the company's [expensive] building that gets used like 25% of the hours in a year.
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Nope. A tad younger but I've been working for a school for 20 years now. It only took me 3 bad jobs to make this change and I'm glad I did. A real pension, good benefits, and I actually feel like what I do is helfpul; rather then just making a bunch of old rich white dudes richer. I could literally double my salary in the private sector... but it just wouldn't be worth it to me. My QoL is so much higher now.
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The people who already had a high-paying Bay Area job and then announced to their company that they had moved and wouldn't be coming back are a much more interesting group. I could be wrong but I suspect they be the first to be let go at the next downturn, and that they will try to assume some sort of "protected class" status, at least in the realm of public opinion. (I
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You're not alone in the sense that there are thousands and thousands of people (of various levels of competency) willing to work a lower-stress job for "not great, not terrible" wages. I'm with you. Where I am (public university IT), I know *very* competent people who haven't even gotten a nominal raise in eight years, so have lost 20% or so inflation-adjusted over that time. Yet they're more-or-less complacent about it. Basically nobody has actually kept up with inflation.
The problem comes when people d
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I'm in tech, getting close to 50. I love my job. I love it. I'm slightly underpaid, and I could easy make 50% or more than what I make elsewhere, and still work from home. I work at a non-profit. It's a career position, and I'm unlikely to lose my job as long as I'm relatively competent. I guess I'm the oddball in all of this?
Not at all! Silicon Valley may get all the attention, but something like 90% of US employees in our field aren't a part of that culture, so it's likely safe to say that the quiet majority of people have goals or experiences that are not too dissimilar from your own.
I remember reading an article several years back (I can't find a link, but if anyone remembers it, feel free to share) about the notion that most companies can either be classified as "miners" or "farmers". Farmers want to ensure that their busin
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Adding to all of the same comments.
1.) The vast number of startups fail and options are worth $0
2.) Most of those that don't fail outright are acquired or merged and again your options are worth less than you hoped
3.) Some firms do IPO...you probably have a lockup period of a year. Some 2021 IPO's
Coinbase IPO $381 now $207
Gitlab IPO $115, now $72
Udemy IPO $27, now $13
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No, there's nothing wrong with loving the job. If the job fits you, then a lot of other considerations might be lower down, like pay.
Some people care about pay, so they'll hop around f
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Nope - it seems there's a lot of experienced guys not chasing the buck and just cruising along doing a good job in an environment that isn't run by dickheads.
We've gone through a handful of techs that either a) couldn't cut it skills wise or b) couldn't handle the workload and they left when offered better paying positions where they could hide in the crowd of tech departments at larger companies.
I would hate to get into IT now - the learning curve is purely stupid, and you can never really become a proper
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You are not alone. I'm in the same age group. Being happy at work is immensely important. I stayed at a job I was underpaid at for over a decade because I was happy there. I liked everything about it, the coworkers, the owners, the tech, the location. It was a high stress environment but I was rarely personally stressed because I was happy. I only left when those factors started changing: company was sold and relocated increasing my commute, then they started having high turnover.
My priorities have chang
Dont spam with shit jobs (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe if there wasn't so much goddamn recruiter spam for shit jobs? I'm tired of waking up and seeing my inbox flooded with "offers" for a job in a tech stack I know nothing in, that is for a 6 month only contract, that requires me to move clear across the country, for half my current salary.
The few recruiters that actually had serious offers, I entertained and talked to, and interviewed with a couple. But when its on the order of 100-to-1 in terms of recruiter spam to legit requests, ya, recruiters as a whole look bad.
Tell your peers to stop fucking up and making you look bad.
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Recruiters seem to overinflate their own importance.
My wife has bachelor's in mechanical engineering from MIT and has had a long career in aerospace and defense, and she gets recruiters pestering her for entry-level jobs, for jobs whose titles are only superficially related to her education and work history, etc. These recruiters don't have a clue what the terminology in either the job posts or in the resumes actually mean.
Headhunters are like apartment finders. They're generally unnecessary if parties on
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> Headhunters are like apartment finders. They're generally unnecessary if parties on both sides of the transaction are actually interested and above-board.
Exactly correct.
Also, they often have to brow-beat or nag one side or the other to compromise, so they can get that bonus. They don't really care if its actually a good fit or not - which of course explains why both employers and prospective employees quickly learn to dislike them. The fact that recruiters exist at all is a type market failure.
Persona
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>The fact that recruiters exist at all is a type market failure.
Personally, I think the employee-employer model is far too high friction, and should be replaced with a simple p2p exchange market based on 1099 and independent skill/history ranking services.
The foreign born agents are the worst. They are nothing but annoying, incessantly asking for my visa status... promising to submit me or let me know either way and then never hearing from them again. 30 calls a day or more. After a few years of this I kind of stopped caring how I sounded to them. My gf listened to one phone call and was horrified how I treated them verbally. But seriously, after 10 years of nonsense and wasted time with them, I really stopped caring. Now they only agents I pay any attention
Re: Dont spam with shit jobs (Score:2)
Re: Dont spam with shit jobs (Score:2)
In my line of work, 1099 tends to pay double or even triple what full time work does. Think getting paid $140k for 6 months of work.
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Think getting paid $140k for 6 months of work.
You're mostly likely right, c2c does pay significantly more I think, but there's overhead you have to cover, 1) tax accountant, if you go c2c and not using an accountant you're insane, 2) you can wait up to 6 months to get paid, and 3) YOU get to get your own health insurance, and the insurers have NO INTEREST in dealing with sole proprietors. Its really more nonsense than I care to deal with.
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Yeah, mostly. Last time I was looking, one agent looked at my C.V. and said that my list of achievements (projects delivered etc) was too long and could I cut it down to the edited highlights? Dude, that was just the edited highlights. OTOH another agent said that he didn't have a position available at the moment, but knew a company that needed to hir
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5 years of experience in Windows 11 required.
Says it all, really.
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So it's Windows 3?
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I have had "assembly language" on my resume. Twice I got a cold email offer for circuit board assembly. The thing is, even though my resume doesn't show it, I actually could have done that work, though I wouldn't really have enjoyed it even before the $25/hr pay. Once I got an email for IBM 360 assembly language (because of course, to the mainframe world, that is the only "Assembler" that has ever existed) and if anything I'm surprised it ended up in second place.
I've gotten a lot of weird offers, but defi
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Maybe if you weren't on social networks like xing or linkedin, you wouldn't get recruiter spam. I am not and I don't get any.
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The clueless Recruiters need to go (Score:3)
The clueless Recruiters need to go.
LIke the ones who know little about the job
Like the ones where you have 2-4 differnt ones low balling for the same opening
Ones who edit your resume to make it fit even if they need to lie about it.
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Put up or shut up (Score:2)
Re: Put up or shut up (Score:2)
That, and more.
Some tell me they will help fund a move to the very expensive city, with a relocation bonus that can be negotiable. I reply that to replace my house in THAT city with the same commute I have today would require a $2.5M house. Unless that is the hiring bonus, it gets a hard pass.
Re:Put up or shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
Start out by responding to them with your minimum. Just say, "Hey, thanks for reaching out! I've looked into the company a bit and find it interesting. Before we move farther, you should know that my minimum salary is $200k, but that shouldn't be a problem." Of course, if the job is less desirable, raise your minimum up to whatever would convince you to work there, even if it's $1500k.
You'll get three types of responses:
1) Angry recruiters. These are the ones who you just saved a ton of time.
2) Sad recruiters. Unfortunate, they're just trying to do their job.
3) Actual job offers. This might be awkward if you didn't set your minimum high enough.
The biggest reason is because, even if you don't want to work there, it pressures the company to raise the salary for whoever ends up getting the job. The recruiter will tell the company, "We can't hire because people want $300k for this job."
If the company relents, you might have helped someone eventually get an extra $25k on his salary, and he/she will never know it was you. It's a great feeling.
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If the company relents, you might have helped someone eventually get an extra $25k on his salary, and he/she will never know it was you. It's a great feeling.
Or they settled for someone much less qualified and will basically train them ;)
Re: Put up or shut up (Score:2)
Worked for me (Score:1)
I've been getting quite a lot of offers since last summer. I ultimately jumped jobs. Thanks COVID.
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I changed jobs too, but I was 'recruited' by people already working for the employer on the team I joined. They knew me and my work, and solicited for me to make the change.
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I changed jobs during covid as well. A contact at BigTechCo had worked with me in the past and had a need for a specific skillset. Everything about this job is better than my old job. More pay, better benefits, no more overtime, permanently remote, yes please.
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mailing lists and incredible stupid (Score:5, Informative)
I get emails all the time for jobs where the recruiters spam you on a mailing list, don't know what the technical requirements are for the position, and assume you'll work for 1/4 of what you currently make. They constantly want you to work for some 3rd party brand-x company on W2 with no benefits. Yeah, I'll be more than
happy to come and work under those conditions.
What has to happen is that companies stop outsourcing their recruiting to these 3rd party morons, write concise job descriptions on their own and actually be courteous of the time they expect candidates to invest in the engagement of applying and interviewing!
I'll give you my example, I'm an interim CTO right now, a company approached me for a new FTE role. I interviewed and passed all of the gatekeepers, I was even informed that I had the position locked up. That was 3 months ago they haven't even indicated what their next steps are going to be. They approached me, unsolicited.
Am I waiting on them? hell no, but if you're going to be rude and unprofessional about your hiring practices, don't bitch when you can't seem to find "qualified" candidates.
recruiters are scum (Score:3, Insightful)
One company has an opening, 20 recruiters with no relationship to the company will start sending bulk emails pretending they have some connection to the company for the job, hoping they'll "sell" a successful contact. Then other recruiters see those recruiter's postings, and start making listings with an even more distorted version of the requirements, and bulk email IT people.
This noise needs to be eliminated. Only deal with companies actually listing a job, the recruiters can starve off and die, and companies that use recruiters can find out they're useless.
Re:recruiters are scum (Score:5, Interesting)
Last time I changed jobs, I got MITM'd by some recruiter scum who got ahold of my resume (probably from some job site I uploaded it to) and photoshopped MY resume with their own header and logo, showing that I was a "$recruiterscum Preferred Candidate", and gave the photoshopped version to the company I was interviewing with. They then proceeded to alternately call me and the company and gleaned enough information from both of us to pretend they were a company representative to me, and pretend to be my representative to the company. Eventually, we figured out these jokers had no relation to either one of us and told them to F-off, but not before they insisted they were owed a finder's fee. The company threatened them with legal action, and they went away. But it was pretty stressful to go through when applying for the job and trying to convince the company you are interviewing for that you are legit, and that you don't know the $recruiterscum.
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I have that covered in ever better way, my resume is online and as PDF. People ask for editable copy and that is signal you're dealing with a piece of crap who is going to alter it. They get told NO. I've even had recruiter call me (i.e. stalkers who somehow found out my number) and complain they can't represent me if I have my resume online. Yes, that's good thing.
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It's the spam (Score:2)
I get way too much recruiter spam for low-balled or ill-fitting positions to be anything but abrupt with them. Guys, I'm on LinkedIn. First step, make sure the opening you've got is a reasonable fit for my skills. Second step, check my status. If I'm marked as not looking at this time, don't even bother me with anything that doesn't start at the high end of the range. Even if I'm actively looking, don't bother with low-ball offers in this kind of environment.
I see pies in shop window but can't partake (Score:3, Informative)
My current job treats us like shit, but I'd lose a lot of pension if I quit. It has kind of a "balloon clause" that smacks your pension if you leave early. Such shouldn't be legal in my opinion, because it makes one an indentured servant toward the end.
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I didn't find any law that directly, explicitly prohibits such, meaning any lawsuit probably would bounce around in the courts and wouldn't be settled until after my retirement date.
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Due to the pandemic creating a new stack of work-place problems, work-place lawyers are filled to the brim such that they don't want to take complicated cases; there's too much low hanging fruit right now.
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Re: I see pies in shop window but can't partake (Score:1)
What developing country did that happen in ?? Sounds awful...
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I work in the public sector. No contract. I could walk, but I WFH full time and as a reclusive hermit who can't drive anyway, it's great.
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This is why nobody wants pension jobs anymore. Put it in a 401k and it's my money, not theirs. Smarter companies also realize that having unmotivated workers who's just there to get a pension is a net negative for the business even if they're cheap.
Headline should read... (Score:5, Insightful)
Crisis for hiring crap jobs at shit wages. I'm consulting. I'm busy, but I could do more. I get calls continually for, as others have mentioned, a 6 month contract for half my usual rate all the way across the country. They don't want quality workers - they want wage slaves who will work 60 hours a week minimum for no extra pay, who will go sit in an office for no other reason than to inflate the ego of some middle manager who wants to look out across his fiefdom at all his serfs. I'm kind of near the end of my career, but I hope all of this leads to some rude awakenings in corporate America. You want employee loyalty? That's a two way street, meaning, sure I'll go the extra mile for you, but you better not give me a minimum COLA and tell me it's great while you shovel wads of bonus cash into your pockets, sign me up to untenable schedules because "reasons," or toy with your workers like you're running the Hunger Games.
Guess why (Score:1)
Maybe because Tech is trying to redefine roles? (Score:2)
Before long we'll be seeing Uber-menschs, Power Lyfters, Twits, Nooglers and Googlers (whoops, that's already real!), Alphabesties, SnapCracklePoppers, Tesla Coils, Flame Tanks and Count Choculas.
How about just call them software engineers and make a good culture that people want to work at?
A crisis in hiring? I think not! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wish I had mod points to give you today!
"How they hire", "what they want to pay", "what other things are they willing to offer" (i.e. good hours, insurance, flexibility) are absolutely problems tech companies are causing themselves. If the companies are willing to make the right offer, they'll get candidates to accept the position.
Recruiters being less than useless in many cases is more what the article (or at least the summary) is about, and I fully agree that in many, if not most, cases, they are a hind
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A crisis in "how they hire" and what they "want to pay"? Yea maybe!
There is no hiring crisis for companies that want to pay decent wages and treat their employees like people.
Companies aren't having a hiring crisis nor a talent shortage... it's a serf shortage.
Let me know when they have a FIRING Crisis. (Score:2)
They seem to have cured themselves of any difficulties with firing.
Hiring Crisis Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, it sure doesn't seem that way to me. When I keep bumping into employers that:
- expect you to sign a "one-sided, forever" NDA before ever interviewing.
- expect you to slave away on some coding assignment on some weekend. When the work should be properly scoped as billable work
- ding you on not knowing skill X (or enough), but that you're a "great guy".
- insisting that Hackerrank is a good metric to measure coding competency (I thought that's what a CS degree was meant to do?)
Save it, employer. This is a hell of your own making!
Recruiters are useless (Score:2)
And a large part of why IT hiring has been broken for decades. No one involved in the process knows what a job's actual required skillset and duties are, the listed requirements are often impossible (more experience than a thing has existed), bloated to cover any/all similarities, or otherwise stuffed with irrelevant nonsense.
If recruiting firms want to be taken seriously, they might consider not hiring H1B visas themselves, then provide some value for both parties.
"They think we're like used-car salesmen" (Score:2)
(Un)Fair Labor Standards Act (Score:2)
The Fair Labor Standards Act mandates that all professional computer positions are salaried exempt, for differently abled individuals this law is a nightmare as case law sets the minimum threshold to satisfy this requirement at 35 hours per week and makes it an essential function of the job. An because the ability to work full-time is an essential function of the job, this then in-turn means the person isn't considered disabled (i.e. they can work a regular 40 hour job), so the employer isn't required to ma
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FLSA doesn't work like that. There's absolutely no mandate that your employer has to make anyone hourly-pay exempt. Now, do most employers make most exempt-eligible positions exempt, thinking they'll get 50+ hour weeks without any overtime or on-call required pay? Yes. But they don't have to just because they can.
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It does work like that, you literally stated so in your reply.
Now, do most employers make most exempt-eligible positions exempt, thinking they'll get 50+ hour weeks without any overtime or on-call required pay? Yes.
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The word 'mandate' has a definition in the dictionary, and "it's commonplace" isn't it.
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I must be in some kind of bizarro world because I can't recall a multi-national for-profit corporation acting in the best interests of the group as a whole. What you call "commonplace" I call peer pressure, forced assimilation, redlining, and exploitation. Just because the statute doesn't express the silent parts out loud, in part by exploiting organizational psychology, doesn't mean they are not there. In theory and in practice are two totally different things.
Self-inflicted wound (Score:1)
The crisis is really a self-inflicted wound. Two reasons: lots of hyper-specialized job descriptions, and ageism.
1. Hyper-specialization: As an example, there are lots of web developer positions, but you need:
a. Know the specific tech stack. If you know AngularJS but they are looking for ReactJS, you may wind up at the bottom of the stack.
b. The tech stack can be specific on multiple technologies. So they might need ReachJS + nodeJs + MySQL, and o
Try not using illegally obtained data? (Score:3)
As with many here, I get a decent bit of unsolicited recruitment spam. What amuses and frustrates me, however, is that much of it can be directly tied back to illegal activity.
To cut to the chase, I use unique email addresses for each and every site, and the one that gets the most recruitment spam, by far, is the one that LinkedIn had on file before the highly publicized hack from a few years ago. My current LinkedIn email address remains pristine (I'll get messages forwarded by LinkedIn from recruiters, but nothing directly from recruiters), but that pre-hack address that was only ever given to LinkedIn? It gets recruitment spam directly from recruiters on the regular and—wouldn't you know it?—it only started after the hack and after I updated the address LinkedIn has to something else. It's both comical and galling to read these people suggest that they saw me on LinkedIn and then are contacting me via it while using an address other than the one that LinkedIn has for me. Maybe it's actually some sort of phishing or other spam effort, but it's patently obvious they're bypassing LinkedIn altogether and that the only way they got that address was because they bought it from someplace that sources its data from criminals.
To say the least, contacting me using illegally obtained data is a great way to waste your time, but it provides me with some entertainment.
Opinion (Score:3)
They receive between "15% to 25% of the candidate's total first annual salary."*
Please console your anguish by wiping your tears with that fresh stack of $100 bills.
* Source: https://www.resumetoreferral.c... [resumetoreferral.com]
Well, now the foot is on the other boot! (Score:2)
> The recruiter is lucky if she can get someone on the phone -- if she receives so much as an email in response
Yeah. Tell us all, how does that feel for you?
Actually, no need. Anyone who'd had to deal with your kind of people already know what that's like.
>"They think we're like used-car salesmen,"
Yeah, don't go giving yourself airs, honey, we respect you way much less than that.
For a change (Score:1)