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Using a recruiter worth it?
Feedus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I am having trouble finding a job and it was suggested that I try out a recruiter. I was wondering if any of you have used one before and what was your experience with it. Like do recruiter's have access to more job postings then the general public or what? Also did they just find you temporary work, like 3 month contracts?
I'm a junior software/web programmer if that matters. Thanks!
I'm a junior software/web programmer if that matters. Thanks!
Feedus on
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In my experience, having contracted via a recruiter and worked with many people who went through recruiters.. that it really is reserved for use by companies who have trouble attracting talent for a variety of reasons.
Usually less than great working conditions, tough/boring jobs, or short term contracts.
"great" companies don't use them because it costs them a lot of money and they get talent on their own merits.
So, by all means do it, because it doesn't really hurt *you*, but don't expect it to be a dream job, or even a stable job. Usually these things are "contract to hire".
Also, recruiters are basically car salesmen. They will bully you, they will misrepresent you to companies in order to get you interviews, and they will misrepresent the companies to you in order to get you interested.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Plenty of awesome companies use recruiters for temp and temp-hire positions because they don't have the time to recruit on their own or they're dissatisfied with the candidates they are finding on their own. If you need someone for 3 months to cover a maternity or family leave you're not going to want to spend a lot of time recruiting internally for it, it's going to cost more to take your internal recruiter off bigger positions and look for this temp one that it will cost to go through an agency.
I'm pretty certain every major university/college in Boston works with an agency to recruit for temp positions. And as I said, my position was not posted anywhere the public could see it, it went directly to my recruiters agency only.
There are tons of different staffing agencies. Some are professional direct hire only, others do temp only, others do a mix of temp and direct hire. Also, there's nothing wrong with contract assignments, especially if the only other thing you'd be doing instead is nothing. It brings in a paycheck and gets you more experience on your resume. Also, sometimes if a company like you enough they will convert you to perm or when you apply for a different perm position with them you have the benefit already having a foot in the door with them.
As stated, the quality varies, but you should certainly never stick to one recruiter/agency.
Oh - and NEVER pay an agency. The hiring company pays the agent/agency to fulril the recruitment role for them because they dont have the time, networks, skills, resources to do it themselves.
I have only got experience from the UK, but I got all three of my jobs via recruiters. They can be a bit tiresome, so the third job I actually got by looking at recruiter job list, and extrapolating from my knowledge of the industry to apply directly to the company. The company liked this because it saved them the fee.
Anyway. I got very nice jobs from recruiters. Ideal, in fact. I wanted game programmer jobs, they gave me game programmer jobs. Two of them were at little developers with a great family atmostphere. One of them was at a huge, prestigious international company with a depressing atmosphere. They were not by any means short-contract or dead-end.
Things may be different in the USA.
Oh and ... the big international company only hired through that particular recruiter. You literally could not get a low-level job there any other way.
The thing about recruiters though that a lot of companies don't like is that recruiters charge a pretty hefty surcharge to the employer. So if they hire a dude for 50k/year, they are paying the recruiter maybe 10 or 15% for X months.
By virtue of that, recruiters are sometimes a last resort for employers.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
There's quite literally no harm in trying. You don't pay them anything so the only thing you have to lose is time. If they do ask you for money, feel free to anger-swipe everything off their desk and flip them off as you say "FUCK YOU!" on your way out.
I know when I worked with one trying to line up engineering jobs out of college, the guy took a not small chunk of my income for an entire year after placement. And to be honest I didn't feel like he really earned it. Luckily I ended up finding a job on my own.
??? Only con-artists charge the job-seeker. Sounds like you were had.
I think you should not avoid them completely, but yeah, be wary of scams or anything where you have to pay them (!!!) And as VisionOfClarity said, getting a paycheck, even if it's "only for 6 months" is nothing to be ashamed about. More experience=better future job prospects.
It's a good way to get your foot in the door and to get experience, though. Especially if you don't have many contacts yourself.
Just make sure you're clear on what it is you're actually getting into. As Jasconius said, these guys are very frequently basically your stereotypical shady used car salesman. They'll lie to you, they'll lie to the company. If something is not clear, ask the company about it when you interview with them. The most common thing I see is the recruiter being very misleading about contract to hire, pushing it as if you'll probably get hired in 3-6 months whereas the reality of it is that the company has the option to hire you, but frequently has no intention of doing so. The hiring manager at the company you'd be working at will generally be straightforward with you on that if you ask. Just do so professionally.
Well, he ran his own company, and that's how he made money, although years later I do realize that it's much more common for recruiters to work with companies and get paid that way.
I didn't make it clear, but I actually didn't end up taking any of the jobs he had me interview on. I was just completely desperate to find a job at the time, so it was a last resort kind of thing, and the guy did in fact have plenty of decent contacts.
You paid him and he didn't get you a job? :shock::shock:
That is exactly the type of recruiter that Feedus should be avoiding.
To clarify, the usual deal is that the recruiter matches a job-seeker with a company, and if the job-seeker is taken on, the company pays the recruiter a fee. This fee is on top of the job-seekers wages. It is *not* taken out of the job-seeker's wages.
If a recruiter attempts in any way to get money directly from you, that agency is conning you, plain and simple, no ifs, no buts.
Dammit...I'm just not writing clearly at all this morning. The deal was that upon placement (being hired), he took a percentage of your pay for a set period of time. I never paid him anything, in fact he sounded pretty annoyed and pissed when I called him up and said I had found a job on my own, as he had spent a lot of time trying to line up interviews for me.
But yes, he was more than likely not entirely legit. But I was desperate to find work, and he was lining up interviews with firms, so I figured we'd cross the percentage of my pay line when I actually got offered a job from one his placements. So be warned OP, these are the types of people you need to be on the lookout for.
You had a lucky escape, then. Seriously, the job-hunter never pays. The company pays. Every new job-seeker should be told that, to stop new graduates being taken in by these sort of guys.
Normally, here's how it goes for a contract.
1) Recruiter makes deal with Company X to provide a contractor at a rate of $35/hr
2) Recruiter sends you to work with Company X and pays you $20/hr out of that $35/hr they are getting from Company X.
Anyways, my understanding is that recruiters are paid a % of your 1st year salary as a fee. It doesn't come out of your pay, it's just based on it. So if i get a job at 50k/yr, and his fee is 15% of that, i get the 50k, and he gets a lump sum of 7,500. it might not be that way with all recruiting companies, but i thought that was pretty standard. I'm salary though, so it might work differently with an hourly wage contract employee.
Firstly, it is always better to apply directly to a company than through a recruiter. Recruiters usually charge a fee somewhere between 15% and 30% of first year salary, depending on the recruiter (there may be other fee plans for temp work or contract work). That fee is paid by the hiring company, not by you. Consequently, if I'm a company and I have one job and two good candidates - one from a recruiter and one not from a recruiter - I'm hiring the one I don't have to pay extra for.
Now, that's not to say you shouldn't necessarily use a recruiter, just that you should also continue your job search on your own.
If you are looking for a recruiter, here's some things you should look for:
1. You should not have to pay them. Several other people have mentioned this. They are absolutely right. Avoid any recruiter who wants you to pay a fee. A good recruiter will get plenty of money from the hiring company - they don't need to nickel-and-dime their clients.
2. Ask them which companies in your desired area and field they have contracts with. A good recruiting firm should have established relationships with local companies. You want to find out how much of their experience is in your field. For example, some recruiting firms work mostly with office assistants, secretaries, receptionists, and so on. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you are looking for a job as a computer programmer, you should try to find a recruiter who has expertise in that area.
3. Communicate with them by both phone and email, as well as in person. I have seen emails from recruiters that had bad spelling and grammar. That, in turn, makes their candidates look unprofessional. When you read their emails, they should strike you as professional and well-written. Similarly, make sure their phone attitude is not abrasive. If they're annoying you, you can bet they're probably annoying the company HR representatives, too.
Okay, so let's say you've done all that and found a recruiter you want to work with. No problem. Once you sign up to work with them, here's some more tips:
1. Ask them for a copy of the resume that they are sending to companies. Some recruiters will "liberally interpret" your resume, and change it. They might have told you that they will be making changes to format (most do, they're putting their company name and contact info on your resume, you don't need to worry about that) but you need to know what is different between the resume you gave them and the one that they are giving companies.
The reason for the bold on this one: I once was interviewing a young man for a job. I had his resume, sent by the recruiter. Conversation:
Me: Tell me about your experience with <Programming Language>.
Candidate: ...I don't know any <Programming Language>...
Me: Oh... I'm sorry. I have that here on your resume.
Candidate: You do? I never...
We found out that the recruiting firm he was working with had padded his resume, including adding on a programming language our company was requiring (and several others). They had never bothered to tell the candidate this. Unfortunately, we couldn't hire him... and we promptly severed our contract with that recruiting company.
You need to know what experiences your recruiters are telling people you have. Get copies of what they are sending out, and look them over. If they're padding on a bunch of stuff, dump them.
2. Keep up to date on what they are doing for you. Ask them, regularly, how many companies they have sent your resume to, and which ones. Sometimes your resume can just sit there on a desk for a while - if they aren't sending it out, that's not helping you at all. Make sure your recruiter is getting your resume out there, and if they aren't, find out why not and find out if there's a better recruiting company for your needs. This kind of ties in with #2 above - if the company doesn't have much in your field, your resume is going to do a lot of sitting-on-desks.
Mostly, just keep your hand in the pot. Don't sign on with a recruiter and sit back and think they'll do everything for you and magic will happen. Keep looking for a job on your own (and who knows, you might find the same job they're wanting to submit you for on your own - if you get your resume in directly before the recruiter sends it over, the company can list you as a direct candidate - and avoid the recruiter fee). Keep up to date on what the recruiter is doing for you and what companies they're looking at, and make sure you stay in touch with the recruiter.
Good luck.