Why Recruiters Get a Bad Reputation Among Technologists

You know why recruiters get bad rep among technologists? Well, I'll give you two examples.

Back in 2021, we worked with a contract recruiter at Zipline who decided that {{a great engineer}} is the perfect candidate for our frontend role and reached out to them. Problem is, that same engineer worked for Zipline for 2+ years, was on my team, and they've even been on the same Slack channel with that recruiter.

Earlir this week, a recruiter reached out and invited me for a chat about VPE roles in aerospace / autonomous drone companies. It was Monday, and violence was the obvious choice, so I replied and said that I'm but a humble dude smashing buttons on my laptop that make Python code go brrrr, not really close to autonomous aircraft. Without skipping a beat, the recruiter parries and says that my director experience at Zipline is a great fit.

It doesn't matter if you're an SDR, an engineer preparing for an interview, or a recruiter. Doing a bit of homework costs five minutes. Please don't show up unprepared.

Sure, five minutes per candidate adds up. So do applications. Recruiters and managers don't want to see cheap low-effort applications, candidates don't want to see low-effort outreach. The only party that benefits from volume is that one that sells you inmail credits 🙃