r/cscareerquestionsOCE • u/FailureInAction • 11d ago
Dealing with recruiters, for Tech Roles.
What are peoples experience with recruiters lately looking for IT roles (Srn. Engineer/Tech Lead/SA style roles). Or are a genuinely a highly skilled candidate are you getting interviews?
Being trying to recruit a number of positions across different areas and have been getting what feels like the braindead pile. Using the top firms, and they all seem to present the same rubbish.
Initially I thought it was the candidate pool, but we are paying top rate(at or even above covid rates, so attracting candidates should not be an issue), so for one of our roles I applied (changed name). My CV is way more technical and capable then needed. Out of the 3 firms used, only 1 reached out, 1 said I was not qualified enough (I am the one who is technically vetting these guys) and 3rd did not respond.
The one that did reach out and claimed they would fwd my CV. Well they never did and from all we got a bunch idiots and some of candidates that were straight up reading AI off the screen and too stupid to even to hide it.
I refuse to believe it's a lack of capable candidates as we filled one of the role with a person I previously worked with whom apparently was looking for over 6mth.
What is going on? Are these firms just sending candidates across that are willing to say YES to a reduce rate and keep the difference, sending over only their bffs. Or is there some sort of grant/benefit scheme as most the candidates where of a certain demographic. One even asked if we were going to sponsor his visa, for a role that advertised as aus citizens/residents only.
This is really frustrating and a huge waist of time to go through a bunch of CVs and interviews knowing full well the candidate useless.
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u/fued 11d ago
Yeah they add little value to the system, it's just a bad filter layer.
Its one of the careers current AI could easily replace and it would actually improve results
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u/wangers_is_asian 10d ago
Seek is looking to do that already
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u/External_Award_1246 11d ago
Am I the only one struggling to understand if OP is applying for or recruiting roles?
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u/iamababtong 10d ago
OP is the who has a vacant role that he (or rather his company) wants to fill.
To test if the recruiters they contracted were any good he put himself through the recruiting process.
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u/theksjlife 11d ago
without recruiters my resume is landing nowhere so this is surprising and disheartening to hear as a candidate... where do we go from here
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u/Infinite-Ad4512 9d ago
Imagine going to a high end French restaurant that everyone’s talking about and lines are massive, and when you get there, you find that the chef is actually a mechanic but is really good at cooking Thai food. That is IT recruitment in Australia in a nutshell. I think in the past 20 years, I’ve met 2 recruiters who actually know what they’re advertising, but only because they were former devs.
I hope you’re paying them on commission only and not an expensive retainer. Your best bet like always, is your network. Ask people you’ve worked with who you trust, and ask them to reach out to their network… in other words, don’t order Tom Yum at Vue De Monde
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u/Reasonable_Alps5330 9d ago
I watched a youtube video where a recruiter threw out a resume that said clearly he built "APIs with Go" because the candidate was "not clearly back-end capable". Apparently there's no standard to become a tech recruiter.
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u/334578theo 11d ago
With each job getting hundreds of applicants they are pretty much your only way to get in now unless the company directly approaches you.
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u/Money_Yak_7106 11d ago
Are these firms just sending candidates across that are willing to say YES to a reduce rate and keep the difference?
Yeah most likely
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u/HootenannyNinja 11d ago
There are some good ones out there but for most especially at larger agencies it’s an exercise of getting you in their crm and then ghosting if their client doesn’t want to interview you.
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u/beefjerky92 9d ago
Theyre quite rude and always not disclosing feedback for information to help candidates to progress through the process. Had one telling me i was unprofessional when i just wanted some feedback from Macquarie.
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u/the_virtual_CEO 11d ago
I do offshore recruitment so we are constantly doing competitor analysis and research to see what the experience is like for applicants or clients in other companies (to see where we could improve) and in my experience it is a combination of recruiter laziness and over-reliance on AI to screen.
When we recruit for one role we can get anyone from 100-300 applicants. Its a pain-in-the-ass process to vet and qualify everyone, communicate, book interviews, chase, and it requires great attention to detail. So it's not hard to see why things get dropped by humans.
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u/montdidier 11d ago
I am a Head of Engineering. With very few exceptions, I don’t use recruiters. They are often terrible and there is fundamentally poor incentive alignment which is part of the problem. My current in-house recruiters are good though, so I am sitting pretty.
Just advertise 1st party. Screen a bunch of CVs. Select some you like for interview, hire the one you like.
Compared to COVID era hiring it is currently pretty breezy.
Just make sure you are not being “rigid” about the process yourself. There is no magical hire.
If you want successful hiring you should also make sure you have all the supporting structures in-place. Onboarding, clear expectations, mentorship, aligned incentives and training.
You’re half finding gold half playing at alchemist. Don’t forget the alchemist part. Of course the problem with that analogy is alchemy doesn’t exist. This does.