Hacker News Reader

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

To be honest, I don’t know. I just assume there must be some doing a good job within all this chaos.

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

I used to be one in Germany, and trust me: there’s stuff going on you don’t want to know. Calls being recorded without your knowledge, zero respect for data privacy, recruiters sending out your CV without your knowledge (if they’re incompetent even to your own employer) - I’ve seen it all.

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

Don’t ever let your employer know. If they know you’re not loyal, but don’t find a better job or decide to stay for some other reason, you’re always going to be the one who gets the least trust, the worst projects (you might be gone soon anyway, right?) or even be the one who gets fired if someone has to go.

Another reason why you shouldn’t give references that early.

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

Often people one hear about a job because it’s advertised by a recruiter and they don’t tell you the company’s name until you agree not to apply there yourself.

A recruiter can control the process better than an applicant can, and they prepare you for every interview, and (try to) influence the process by selling in your advantages after the interview.

They’re also often in contact with the hiring manager instead of the HR person.

Those might be reasons to work with them, but there’s also a good amount of reasons why it’s not a great idea

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

Former recruiter here (not a fan of the industry either), just interested: what happened?

JavaAndChillon Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview

I used to work as a recruiter (not anymore, terrible industry), and one of my colleagues actually sent a candidates CV to their current employer without their knowledge or consent. Things like these happen, because many external recruiters don’t take enough time for you when you’ve only just started working with you and they don’t know whether you’re “loyal” to them or just want to know your market value.

And yes, references are used as leads. We were advised to call the companies and offer our services and to headhunt the people. There are SO many black sheep in this industry (such as my old company), and very few trustworthy ones.