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Comment by snorkel | Hacker News Reader

Please spare us with the royal attitude. Congratulations, you know how computers work, and so do thousands of other people who work harder and cheaper than you. Recruiters don't care if you, candidate number 947392, is annoyed or not. They simply want to know if you're going to the damn interview or not. If not then goodbye, next. If you go to the interview, and you didn't embarrass the recruiter for suggesting you, then good job, thank you candidate number 947whatever, you did your job. If you actually get an offer letter, oh boy, you did a very good job! Recruiter gets 10k after you worked that job for 3 months. Wash, rinse, repeat. You are not special.

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How uppity of me, to let my desire to work in a job I like get in the way of a recruiter's money.

I am thoroughly cowed. I've seen the error of my ways. Thank you.

Not your fault. Recruiters make you feel special because they want you to just go the interview, but in reality you're the commodity being traded, and the real customer is the employer. Frankly recruiters hate me because I know how they operate and call them out on their bullshit.

If you want to stump a recruiter just ask "Why does does company X want to talk to me? What did they find so interesting about me?" Bad recruiters have no answer because they're just tossing candidates at roles and hoping something sticks.

> If you go to the interview, and you didn't embarrass the recruiter for suggesting you [..]

This is exactly why recruiters need to do a little bit of research beforehand. If they're recommending you as a candidate for a job, aren't they putting their own reputation on the line a little?

Unfortunately, I realize it doesn't exactly work like that. But isn't that the over-arching flaw in the whole headhunter ecosystem?

As long as the candidate was reasonably well matched for the job and the employer felt it was at least worth talking to that candidate in person then even if the candidate is not hired then the employer still trusts that recruiter to find other candidates worth talking to. If the candidate is an embarrassment then that employer won't work with that recruiter in the future. Recruiters can tell just by talking to a candidate if they are least reasonable enough to sit through an interview and not be embarrassingly unqualified. If the candidate doesn't get an offer, then oh well, as long as the employer still trusts that recruiter then all is good. If the candidate gets an offer then jackpot. Play again.

The recruiter is only trying to please the hand that feeds them which is the employer. The recruiter only wants to maintain a relationship with each employer. Candidates are the commodity being traded, and therefore candidates are only given enough attention to ascertain their general qualifications for the job and likelihood of getting an offer.

I've been annoyed in my job search how companies insist I fall in love with the company at step 1 of the process, when they know that 90% of the people will be rejected.

But it goes the other way as well. Why should a company spend a lot of effort on me before finding out if I am at least interested in the job?

What's the equivalent of speed-dating for employment? Job fairs?

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