Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

"And stop depending on recruiters."

Bravo!

I'd like to apologize in advance to the 7 respectable recruiters left in the United States before I say:

Most headhunters are slime.

They are low level bottom feeders who are rarely capable of producing value for anyone else and can only produce income for themselves by engineering a scarcity situation where none would otherwise exist. They don't give a flying fuck about you or the companies except to "not bite the hand that feeds them". Now that times are tougher, they will resort to anything to make a buck, because they think they have to. Ethics and value mean nothing to those who have no ethics and produce no value.

Just a few of the "tricks" they are pulling these days:

They will list a job on the internet that doesn't exist just to collect your resume. They will lie about it until they are caught.

They will change critical details about a job to make it difficult to identify the company so that no one "goes around them" (when they don't have an exclusive).

They will edit your resume to suit their needs, not yours.

They will use you to show an example of an overpriced person so that they can easily place someone else.

They will make up total bullshit in order to protect "their turf", hoping that you're an idiot and will buy in to it. (I recently had a headhunter tell me I MUST go through them with a vendor referral to one of their clients. Huh?)

If you're lucky enough to find a good recruiter that can actually make something happen for you, hang on to them for dear life (that is until they switch careers). Otherwise, stay clear. Don't waste your time with job board entries placed by recruiters (I know, most of them are).

You're much better off getting up off your butt and going out and meeting people on your own. Do this without restriction. You never know when the person you met at a party, breakfast, or BBQ may be the one to send you your next job or contract. YOU are always your best recruiter.

You're much better off getting up off your butt and going out and meeting people on your own.

Since I've been in the recent job market (about a year now), I've found similar numbers of (apparently) helpful recruiters and sleazy ones. Even if the ratio were 1-in-20, it would still be better for me and people like me to use recruiters. To be clear, "people like me" here refers to those of us who strongly dislike networking, gladhanding, and basically pretending to be interested in people we know nothing about except that they might be able to help us get a job at some point. While it's not nearly so strong as my dislike of meeting new people, my aversion even to interacting with people I already know is strong enough that I regularly fail to keep in touch with family and close friends for months or years at a time. Fortunately, I have very understanding friends. :)

"basically pretending to be interested in people we know nothing about except that they might be able to help us get a job"

No! No! No!

This is not what I meant and I apologize if I inferred it.

Pretending's got nothing to do with it. On this or any other subject.

You do not "network" (or whatever you want to call it) to "get a job" or to "get" anything for that matter. You network because you are a human being.

If you are extremely introverted or dislike being among others, fine. Many of us here are either like that or once were. I understand. I suggest you give it a try. You may be the best assembly programmer in the western hemisphere, but you are still a human being. You are already hard wired to interact with the rest of us. It's not really that big a deal.

Getting business referals is a natural byproduct, not the purpose, of normal human interaction. The more you interact, the better your chances. The better for everyone.

(As an aside, if you "pretend" at anything, prepared to get clocked, sooner or later. Pretending is an investment in nothing.)

Oh, I don't dislike being among others, all the time. I dislike meeting new people a bit, and since "networking" involves meeting as many new people as possible, it's basically a shorthand for the part of social interaction I dislike. :) I'm not "extremely" introverted or anything; it's just that going through recruiters has seemed to be a more pleasant avenue than meeting dozens or hundreds of new people over the same period.

We disagree about pretending, too. Pretending is the quickest way to changing your personality, distasteful as it is in the short term. Want to be more optimistic, happier, more outgoing? Start acting as though you are right now, and you'll move in that direction. Pretending is 80% of social interaction, too, as far as I can see. "Hey, how are you, today?" is, in the vast majority of cases, a pretense of being actually interested in my day. If you want to find out how many people are pretending, answer in detail rather than just saying "Great!" or some such answer. I sometimes answer in detail, anyway, because I forget that virtually everyone else is pretending (or because I'm not paying enough attention to consciously respond correctly), rather than interested, and this almost always ends awkwardly. :)

Do you also do this :

You: "Hello! How are you?"

Someone: "Good! How about you?"

You: "Good! How about you?"

Someone: "...?"

You: "..."

Of course. It's another awkward failure mode, since it becomes unavoidably clear that we're just saying stock phrases. :)

Indeed. I think I only learned how to small-talk and "network" as a parlour trick (like Fry).

Fortunately I am able to form deep and meaningful friendships; anything above an acquaintance level is possible, but requires hard work. Yay introverts. =P

If "networking" means talking to headhunters then I feel better about not doing it. I've never understood the concept of "networking" as just talking to somebody socially and giving an elevator talk or whatever. It reduces the entire process to schmooze, and lots of people talk a good line of bullshit. (Yeah, I'm shocked and disillusioned by the fact that people are shocked and disillusioned by the fact that some of their favorite bloggers are crap programmers.) Schmooze is a valuable talent, but it has very little to do with programming, so it would seem foolish to let your hiring practices be influenced by it. I assume that anyone considering hiring me won't care whether I'm referred by a headhunter or submit my resume directly, since it tells them nothing about how good a developer or coworker I am.

The only network I value is the network of people I've actually worked with, plus their friends. How would anybody know whether I'm a good developer and a good coworker without working with me, or talking to somebody they trust who did work with me, or (much less accurate, but better than "networking") actually interviewing me and asking me hard questions?

I have dealt with exactly one good headhunter. They are rare and to be treasured. They understand that if they help you out today, you may bring them big business in the future. The one I worked with explicitly pointed out that they were my pimp at the time, but could be my client in the future :)

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