Why I Like Working with Recruiters
“The leads come at you so fast it’s hard to keep them straight. Unlike submitting a resume on your own, with a recruiter, you can expect a response within hours, maybe a day at most. The interviews will stack up quickly.”
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of the book The Byte Guide, Launch Your Career in Software Development.
I had a conversation recently with a friend who has some experience in software development and he indicated he was having a hard time finding a job. Somewhat surprised to hear this, I asked him how he was going about the search. He said he looked for job postings online, and when he found one he liked, he would send a resume. But, he said, they hardly ever respond. I asked why he wasn’t working with recruiters, and he shrugged his shoulders as if the idea had never occurred to him.
Job hunting on your own is lonely, arduous, and soul-sucking. To receive a single callback, you have to submit several dozen (or more) resumes and cover letters, with each cover letter written specifically for that position. Most will be eternally lost in a black hole and you will never hear back. It’s immensely time-consuming, frustrating and discouraging.
However, when you have a recruiter working for you, suddenly the task of finding a job becomes the exact opposite. The leads come at you so fast it’s hard to keep them straight. Unlike submitting a resume on your own, with a recruiter, you can expect a response within hours, maybe a day at most. The interviews will stack up quickly.
Recruiters expend a great deal of energy on developing strong relationships with hiring managers. Hiring managers trust that recruiters will pre-screen to make sure you have the skills for the position.
In addition to making the job hunt easier, I love working with recruiters because they do all the negotiating for you. The recruiter gets paid a one-time percentage of your annual salary, so the higher your offer, the more they get paid. They will go to bat to get you the best offer possible.
One thing to keep in mind when working with a recruiter is that all communication with the hiring manager (except for the actual interview) needs to go through that channel. Until you walk into work on your first day, if you have questions about anything, ask the recruiter, who will ask the hiring manager and communicate the answer back to you. Circumventing this path is a professional no-no, and neither the recruiter nor the hiring manager will appreciate it.
Finally, once a recruiter has found you a job, it literally pays to send them referrals. Yes, they will send you a check! If you send a friend or co-worker to a recruiter, and that recruiter ends up finding them a job, they will pay you a referral fee of anywhere from $500 to $1,000!
Any way you look at it, recruiters are your friends, and will make the process of finding a job enormously easier and more enjoyable!
After 20 years of software development, I created this website to help coach people who’d like to launch a career in this industry. I’d love to hear from you! Thanks for being here.
— Casey Crookston