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Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

Why are technical recruiters so clueless?

because technical recruiters, contrary to popular belief, are not hired to get the best candidates.

Technical recruiters (and agencies) are hired to give the middle manager denyability if a hiring mistake is made. I mean, if you hire your brother's friend and he turns out to be some kind of crack fiend who ebays your spare parts bin for more drugs, well, you've got a fairly good chance of getting fired in the fallout. Now, if a recruiter recommends the same guy and the same thing happens, well, now you can push some of the blame off on the recruiter. there's no question about nepotism, etc.. the professional recruiter recommended the guy.

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I can see your point but unfortunately that's absolute rubbish.

There is a ridiculously small number of people who pay silly money to recruiters to cover nepotism but the reality is that employers hand over five figure sums to recruiters because they don't want to trawl through hundreds of CV's in the hope of finding the right candidate over the space of a few weeks.

Sit with me for an hour discussing a senior level role and I will have three incredible CV's sitting on your desk within a week. If the right person for the job is one of those three, great, now pay me ridiculous money, otherwise it hasn't cost you a penny.

It is quite possible that I'm just sour grapeing the industry because I have failed myself several times. my experience:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1761329

In this case, I just don't understand why they'd not take the person when I suggested them (I think they had reason to respect and trust my opinion; I had been working for them for a while, giving good advice. In fact, all this was in preparation for me leaving; after I had been at the new job for a year or so they spent considerable effort and money getting me to come back.)

I was trying to get them to hire someone who worked for me for some time (which is to say someone who's work habits and skills I knew well) to fill the position I was leaving vacant.

The agency in question had a long history of sending us people for mid to senior sysadmin positions who I wouldn't hire for $15/hr.

So yeah, I am missing something about how the industry works, and middle management covering it's ass fits the symptoms perfectly.

Obviously there could be something else going on that I don't understand.

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