I was an IT recruiter for many years. Prior to that, I worked in the IT industry (pre and post internet). So, I do see both sides of the argument.

As a recruiter, one thing I would like to stress to candidates is that we are here to help you -- we want you to find the right job.

If we put the wrong candidate with the wrong client (or some combination thereof) -- we risk losing the client. If the candidate who we have placed quits, we have to refund our fee. If we send poor candidates to a client...again, we risk losing the client.

One thing that makes IT professionals good at what they do is their focus and attention to detail. On the other hand, sometimes they lack in their ability to see the big picture.

The reality of today's marketplace is that we (i.e. recruiting firms, clients and candidates) have access to job boards like Monster with over 10 million resumes, Dice has around 6 million. IT consultants are really a dime a dozen and very easy to find -- I can go to Monster and Dice and choose from tens of thousands of programmers, admins, etc.

Plus, many of the more common skills -- e.g. Java programmers -- are also beginning to be outsourced completely offshore for a fraction of the cost....and the trend is not reversing.

So, from my standpoint as a recruiter -- I get frustrated when candidates do not see working with a recruiter as a partnership. Or, they are deluded into thinking that that can command whatever salary or pay rate they want.

And, as far as compensation for recruiters...pre-internet....IT recruiters typically made comfortable six figure salaries. With IT skills becoming much more commodotized and with the advent of resumes becoming available on job boards -- your average IT recruiter makes around $50K a year (that's salary and commission)....much lower than most of the IT candidates they place. On top of that, recruiting in this space is incredibly competitive.....not to mention that recruiters only get paid a tiny fraction (typically 3%) of the fee that the recruiting firm charges (these days 13% to 18% of your first year salary).

It's a competitive market, and it's just getting more competitive.

Anyway, my point in all this...let's be nice......keep in mind that you need us as much as we need you.

Wow, great read and fun too! I was in the staffing business for 10 years and must say that I had a great reputation, both on the client and candidate side because I provided equal focus on both sides needs and wants, and would not waste their time. I left the business in 03 due to the types of comments listed here. Becasue of "a lot" not a "few" of bad apples in the industry, it created a hugh obstacle and stigma to overcome. Brent, based on your comments, I believe you would like a couple of my blogs at www.blog.cachinko.com, and Anil I sent you an email, but based on the solution you mentioned, you may be interested in what we are launching here at Cachinko. I believe everyone in this thread would really appreciate what we have built, both the "hunter" and the "hunted"....

Eric

I have NEVER, NEVER got a job through any recruiter. For the most part the jobs in the job
boards are fake, scams. I have wasted time interviewing for jobs that never existed.
Speaking to recruiters who never bothered to even read my resume, and were oblivious. Some
barely spoke English. Uneducated, incoherent, unable to give any information about the
"job". Harassing or just downright nasty, rude scum. These people are milking people and
ripping them off, with stables of workers who are losing half thier salaries to these con
artists. I have had recruiters Try all sorts of dirty tricks. They have stolen info,
manipulated resumes, sold my info to other con artists and identity thieves. I am
constantly bombarded by spammers and other con artists. Wasting my time with incesant
calls. These people are dishonest, unethical scum. Second-rate car salemen. Since I am
usually in a position to hire, and train. the first thing I do is get rid of these people.
They should be legislated out of existence. I have heard much the same from other principals and HR people too. We all share the same feelings. The company gets ripped off
and the worker gets ripped off. When you don't fit into their sick view of the world they
turn nasty on you. Vindictive. These people are pond scum and give the good ones a bad
name. Worse they keep qualified people from getting through.

Brent sounds like the kind of guy that likes to waste people's time - including his own. Hope your 'power trip' helps you. My guess is it will only help you ruin connections you WILL need and/or want over time. Tech guys, like anyone, hate to be lied to, over sold, not called back, etc. Treat them with the respect they deserve and you will be a successful recruiter in many ways - large network, placements, and money will follow.

I am so glad to finally get a run down from the tech crowd. I always assumed that there were things in the recruiting landscape that needed to be changed and changed for the good. I have been recruiting for the last 9 years in the DC corridor and unlike most recruiters do have a technical background. Not to say I can sit a crunch a million lines of code today but most certainly understand the suttle albiet core nuances that make or brake an SOA Architect from a high end Programmer. I request you review my post on the same topic at http://webcruiter.typepad.com/webcruiting, and also at http://www.ere.net/blogs/Webcruiting_Techniques/1354612FA9174041A963DC3EF3F09444.asp.
BTW we are in the process of launching an on demand objective technical validation tool for the recruiting community at large by end of q1 08. So stay tuned. It will address the inherent gaps in the candidate validation, and help candidates better target the right jobs, and help the recruiters better understand the technical prowess/depth of expertise that a given candidate brings to the table.

the problem is: there are many recruiters that are clueless.. I am a recruiter for technology sales people.. and I have been on the corporate side as well.. it is amazing how many recruiters have absolutly no idea what they are doing.. they push paper and expect to make a ton of money. There are good recruiters out there..ones that care about the client AND the candidate.I recently placed a guy at a company that was bought shortly thereafter and called the candidate to make sure he was OK.. he knew about the buy before I did and was very cool with it..the unfortunate thing for amanager of a recruit side company is.. recruiters have 2 lists, a client and a recruiting source..peole are bombarded with recruiter calls which makes fleshing out the good ones from the bad ones difficult.. we get lumped together as YOU GUYS.. I am NOT one of YOU GUYS..and I knwo a few recruiters that are ethical and quality like myself..it is all the used car saleemena that get into the recruiting business that makes comments like these a reality

Everyone’s comments are accurate if they are based on experience. You’ll see my view on the subject in the note below to the .NET User Group President.

I feel I have made some progress shifting the paradigm of how tech recruiters are viewed, but not nearly enough. What has helped my personal image is volunteering at tech events and supporting our tech community growth efforts of the leadership. What I found is the change will be a journey and not a sprint. It starts by building your personal brand and duplicating your efforts. Bad apples will continue to rot, but you must make efforts to keep them out of your own basket.

My latest humble efforts to cross the bridge on behalf of my recruiting brethren:

Scott, your email spurned a thought today and I’d love to hear your feedback. This subject goes back to our conversation of agencies having their place in the circle of technology employment and event sponsorship. I’d like to up the ante in hopes of building a stronger community where we ALL live.

There has long been a great divide between technologist and recruiters; mainly because recruiters fail to invest time to learn what makes certain technology sexy. Secondly, they typically don’t know or know to ask what type of impact a project will have on their client’s business and the role visibility a technologist will play. (My opinion only). Therefore, most are disinterested in what WE typically have to say beyond the dollar. If you both feel this is accurate, I would suggest that a challenge be made to agencies/recruiters in effort for them to gain more credibility leading to increased two-way communications.

Instead of standing in front of the .NET group pleading for resumes for open job orders, ask us to stand and deliver what you want to hear. “How cool our projects areâ€? or “What career advantage you stand to gain by joining usâ€?. Stuff the tech community really wants to know. I’m sure your list can go on and on.

We must become better sales people. But, we can only do this by first being a better steward to our community and asking for help. So I’ll be the first. Will you help me do a better job? I think those that accept the challenge will clearly distance themselves in the tech community from the ones that decline.

Again, your thoughts appreciated.

I see many negative comments, which basically stem from individuals who are working with no integrity and no pride in what they are doing.

I am the Recruiting Manager for a small company in Pittsburgh. Reading some of these comments make me sick! I am in this business to make a good match for both the client and for the consultant. I don't know if anyone has thought of this yet, but a recruiter would not mismatch a candidate on purpose for these reasons:

1. It damages relationships with both the client and candidate casuing.

2. Loss of credibility with the candidate (your candidate would loose confidence in your ability to screen and match them properly in a position they are qualified for)

3. Loss of credibility with the company. The company is not going to look at your candidates in the future.

Mistakes happen every once in a while, but in my experience they are seldom if the recruiter and the hiring manager work together and screen the candidate properly, making sure this person is being truthful about all of their skills and abilities.

I see recruiting as a service to the client and to the candidate. I spend hours upon hours reviewing resumes, conducting phone interviews, and often times assisting candidates in reformatting their resume so the person reading it can easily see how qualified they are.

BRENT, About rates:
I am not sure who you have dealt with in the past, but in the first conversation, when I am describing the job to a person I ask for their preference of payment and ask them for a rate (hourly or salary) that they would take the job on for. This is called a bid. Any contracter in any field whether it is Service, Construction, Technical, Consulting, it does not matter, bids a job up front. It is unprofessional to change the rate. The only exception is if the job changes. No one is cheating you, you set your rate up front. The company pays us, so we are not taking anything from you. Why? because then they spend less time searching for candidates. We not only search we clear you though backround checks, call your references, and get you directly to the person you need to be talking to to get the job.

If you can do this then great! I am sure you like spending hours online researching companies all over the country/world that are not even sure you exist. By the way they still accept resumes from individuals so if you can do better go ahead. Just do not generalize us into a few categories that you find amusing becasue we are working very hard to fill a nitch that if it were not neccessary it would have a ready been eliminated.

Thanks,
Crystal

I was in IT (Tier 3 support, consulting and after the 911/bubble crash, I scraped by as a firmware tester at HP - ouch) for 10 years before going into recruiting.

I was in it all through the madness of the 90s when I literally has 2-3 messages per night on my answering machine and could seriously hammer recruiters on their rates (on contract jobs). Yes, it was tiring to have people call you about "wonderful opportunities" and waste your time only to tell you it paid half of what you were currently making.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but frankly, I hate IT. The main reason I hate IT is that the vast majority of people in the business have no understanding of the business principles that drive their industry (present company excepted, I am sure). Consultants can be the exception, but most do not understand basic ideas such as business case and ROI, etc.

Recruiting, as a profession, exists because in many industries, it is very difficult to find the right person to fill a role in a reasonable amount of time. You may think that Monster and Hot Jobs has solved this problem, but it has actually made it worse - it has degraded the signal to noise ratio and the best recruiters use job boards very little.

My focus is in the semiconductor market where I recruit primarily MS-PHD level Electrical Engineers. There are always startups that need good people and are willing to pay to find them - they pay because these people are not on Monster - they are working at IBM and AMD and Nvidia and Analog Devices and Freescale.

EEs on the average are much slower to jump around as the profession is very critical of job hoppers. anything less than 2-3 years in a job is looked at as a potential red flag.

The other thing that is different is that you need to have at least a 90% match in skills and acomplishments. You can't just send in a resume and say "uh, this guy made like...chips and stuff...isnt that what you want?" Sometimes even a 90% match is not enough to make it happen.

My IT background and interest in hardware and electronics and knowledge of that industry (I have talked to people who designed the Commodore 64 and Atari and Apple 8bit computers) goes a long way towards establishing credibility. Simply stated, you cannot fake your way through the EE world (especially in my niche).

Here is the part you may not like. Recruiting is getting harder, and recruiters are more in demand. There is a labor shortage and its going to get much, much, much worse over the next decade. There are not a lot of barriers to get into this field and a lot of people are going to be coming in looking for the big bucks (not unlike the MCSE mills of the 90s).

Fees are also going up - I currently get 25%, but someone I work with gets 30% (construction/architecture) and I know some people ask for 40 and get 35 (sales). Companies pay it because not having the right people at the right time could cost thousands, possibly millions more in lost opportunity.

Why can't you just understand that this is the way that people are hired these days. The business of hiring people helps everyone out and recruiters facilitate the flow of talent and money.

You suggest killing the messengers of today's market economy. The middlemen exist for a reason. Live with it.