HACKER Q&A
📣 the_only_law

Why are many recruiters so guarded about their roles/clients?


I see this a lot. A recruiter might message me with nothing but a single sentence l. For example one I got was along the lines of

> I have an [Vague job title] position that is looking for experience in [Technology X] and [Technology Y].

I have no idea if I’m remotely qualified for the role, if it’s something that fits my long term goals and plans, etc. and they won’t give any more information until I call them, until I do X or Y for them.

It seems we could both avoid wasting each others time if they just upfront gave me a brief JD and ideally the company.

  👤 devstein Accepted Answer ✓
It's an incentive misalignment. Third party recruiter optimize for their contingency fee. The goal of their emails is to peak your interest enough to get you on the phone, so they can pitch you one or many of the companies they are working with. There is no incentive for them to disclose all the information upfront.

I'm actually in the very early stages of a product to better align incentives and promote transparency between candidate and recruiters. If you're interested, you can get updates at: https://sharedrecruiting.co/

Feedback and thoughts are welcome!

👤 slekker
It’s so you don’t go directly to the company’s career page and then they lose out on their fee.
👤 thorin
Scenarios:

1. They hook you in and get you the job in the advert, they get 10-20% of your 1st years salary or whatever for making a few phone calls

2. They hook you in, but you're a poor fit, but they can match you with another job

3. They get your details and add you to their mailing list which they probably have a monthly target on linked with a bonus

You need to think like a salesperson and not use logic

If you connected with the company direct they would get nothing, so they want to prevent that at all costs, but then most big companies are spending a lot on hr and recruitment which overlap what the recruiter provides.

👤 muzani
Yeah, if it's cold, you'll just go to the company to check it out. It would be interesting if they did the referral thing apps do, like, "If you apply to Stripe through us and get the job, we'll give you free Bose headphones."