As a programmer I’m active on several professional portals like LinkedIn and I’m getting in touch with several recruiters every week. Most of them are really nice, but unfortunately during the years and especially during the last months I collected a lot of bad experiences with them. Sometimes I’m finding myself in strange situations, which I have never expected. When I was in such a situation quite often I couldn’t find the optimal solution, but later on I was thinking about how should the situation have been solved and found some good ideas. In this post I try to collect the most typical issues with recruiters and their possible solutions.

“I have a great position as senior java developer” - Finding you with totally irrelevant positions

At least once in a month I get some messages about senior java developer positions, however I’m not experienced with java and java is not mentioned on my profile at all. To be honest I don’t understand why. Sometimes I’m writing it down in an answer, usually the reaction is “no problem, I’m sure I can find you something”.
So my suggestion in such cases is just send and answer containing the fact that you have nothing to do with that technology, maybe there are other opportunities as well.

“Send me your number, I have a great opportunity, I will call you”

I get often messages like “You have a good profile, send me your number, I will call you”. OK and now? I don’t wanna waste my time with talking about irrelevant opportunities. So usually I’m asking the recruiter to send a description about the opportunities. Most of the cases I even don’t get an answer on that. So if you have a lot of time, feel free to do these calls, otherwise just ask for a description.

“Please fill out these 10 page long document to be able to start with your process”

A lot of head counters are asking you to fill their documents. Usually these documents are containing exactly the same content as my CV but in a different format. But still it takes quite long to fill them out. I don’t really see why they really make sense. But here if you really would like to have a position you can not do anything else, than filling out the document.

I have a position for you, but I don’t know anything about that

I often receive messages like: “Hi, I have a great C# position, are interested?”. Come on, how could I decide based on that if it is interesting for me or not? So the simplest solution: ask for more details.

My other usual issue in the same category is when I’m asking about the location of the office (since often the name of the company is not public). If you don’t wanna move to a new flat I think is important to find a workplace which is not too far from you. And in case of bigger cities it really makes a difference if the office is in the next streets or in the other side of the city and it takes one and a half hour to get there. So I usually asking for the location of the office. Most of the cases the recruiter has even no idea about that and it is sad. Here the only thing what you can do is to wait until the first personal interview, there you will know the location of the office.

“Are you interested?” OK, then I disappear now

Sometimes I’m just getting messages like “I have a position which would fit to your profile, would you have interest?” And if my answer is “yes” you are never hearing again about the headhunter. It is strange, I never understood. But if really have interest you can try to apply the the company directly (without headhunter).

“You are interested in this position? No problem, I have 5 similar opportuities”

This is the most annoying one. I happened with me multiple times: I’m applying for a position which would fit really good to me. In some days I will be called, but at this time it is not going about the position which I was applying for, but about similar positions which are anyway always less fitting for me. I have sometimes the feeling that these positions are not existing at all, they are there only for Marketing. Because if you are getting already in touch with the recruiter most likely you will check he’s other opportunities as ell. In this case you can not do a lot, just decide if the other (offered) positions are interesting for you or not.

“What is your current salary?”

I got asked by recruiters so often about how much I’m currently earning. I think this is a private info and anyways it shouldn’t influence my situation. So my suggestion is: never tell your current salary, it is a secret info, but tell the salary what you would like to get. I think in this ways it will be most more fair and clear.

The strangest interviews

There are several different kind of interviews. I think the strangest once are the ones with the HR about questions like “what are your strength?” “How can you imagine yourself in 10 year?” etc.

The strange one was when I got a complicated problem to be solved during the interview. What ever I tried to explain about my solution idea I got the feedback: “Yes it would may work, but this is the not solution I would prefer. Come on? If my solution is working as well, why should I stick to his solution? I didn’t get an offer, but to be honest I didn’t mind.

With such “strange interviews” I think you can not do anything. But what is important in my view: an interview is not just about the introduction of the candidate, but about the introduction of the company as well. If the interview is strange, then there’s a high chance that the company is strange as well.

“Would you like to move to the end of the world for a 6 months project? You should start tomorrow”

I’m getting such messages every week. And I really don’t understand who would overtake a fixed-term project for some months long long kilometres away from his home in the middle of nowhere. The costs of moving and staying there does not worth, even if the salary is good. Regarding start ASAP: I think the good developers are usually not free and they can start earliest in some month, but for sure there are exceptions.

Never ending interview processes

The interview process at some companies are really chaotic. You are having 3-4 rounds of interviews and that’s why the whole process takes 2-3 months long. Is it really neccesary? I think after one, maximum two round a decision can be taken. Otherwise there’s the risk that the candidate joins to an other company. And of course it is really frustrating for the candidate as well: somehow you need to get free from your work for each and every interview. Normally you don’t wanna tell that you are having a job interview, so you need to lie something. It is really inconvinient. And them do it 3-4 for times for each company you applied too. Really crazy.

So this was short collection about the things what are annoying the most connecting to topic recruitment. I hope it would be good for all the developers, but also for the companies if these point would be avoided in the future. If you have any points to extend don’t forget to do it.

http://howtosurviveasaprogrammer.blogspot.com/