Just about every job in my career has been sourced through a recruiter. Fresh out of college I went through an agency that specialized in placing college grads in entry level roles. It was also the closest I ever got to using any part of my college degree as a History Major and English Minor with a certificate for technical writing. Yeah, it was a technical writing job. After that I worked with another recruiter that helped me pivot to software as a Technical Account Manager. When I left that job I worked with, you guessed it, another recruiter. In fact, I have only gotten one job in my career via a black box application (directly applying and hoping for the best).
Types of Recruiters
In House
There are different types of recruiters out there. Some companies have their own in-house recruiters. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and many more employ a horde of recruiters looking for new candidates. Even smaller companies may have their own in-house recruiters. These recruiters get paid a salary and typically some form of bonus for hiring candidates. I have gotten at least one job by replying to a message than an in-house recruiter sent me.
Third Party
Next are third party recruiters. These recruiters are under contract by a given company to find a candidate for a specific role. These recruiters typically earn a fee that is a percentage of the salary a candidate is paid. There are usually requirements that the candidate remain for a certain period of time for the recruiter to receive the full fee. These recruiters are like a car dealer that get a set of requirements from a prospective buyer and then has to go find a car they think the customer will buy. I have gotten multiple jobs through this type of recruiter.
Staffing Agencies
Then there are recruiters who are really staffing or temp agencies. They hire people as “contractors” that are really W2 workers earning an hourly wage. They in turn have a contract with whatever company they place the candidates and receive an hourly rate from the contracting company. So, if they pay you $85/hour, the company is paying $130/hour. The recruiter in this scenario keeps the difference. This is a very common contracting fee model. Companies like Nike use this model extensively and augment their workforce with all kinds of workers from agencies operating on this model. Some of these are called contract-to-hire. Caveat emptor, that is never guaranteed. I have never turned a W2 contract role into a full time position, but many have.
Who Pays the Recruiter?
One question I hear frequently is who pays the recruiter? The answer is the company pays the recruiter, not the candidate or employee. I have never encountered a recruiter asking me the prospective employee for money. If you do, assume they are illegitimate and move on.
Why would a company pay a recruiter?
Hiring someone is hard. Really hard. The higher the pay, the higher the bar will be set. Recruiters usually don’t have application portals flooded with applications of various and often dubious levels of viability because they don’t accept applications. Instead, they go hunting for individuals that meet the criteria of the company doing the hiring. Since companies don’t always hire and don’t always have the staff on hand to respond to internal hiring demands, a recruiter is an attractive option as they are vendors rather than full time employees. I have hired people knowing a recruiter was getting paid extra for finding that person for me.
Why Work With a Recruiter?
As I mentioned earlier, I have only gotten one job in my entire career via a black box application. A black box application is when you apply to a job on a company’s website or a job board and hope for the best. It’s a black box because you have zero insight into the process. If you’re lucky you get an email telling you that the company has decided not to move forward with your application. If you are very lucky you might get an interview or even a job.
On the flip side, a recruiter typically established a rapport with the hiring manager for a given job. You get face time, or at least phone time with the recruiter, and the recruiter gets face time with the decision maker. You are far more likely to get an interview with this process. The recruiter isn’t some rando off the streets in the eyes of the hiring manager, they are someone who knows the industry and knows how to find good candidates. When they present you as a candidate the hiring manager is far more likely to give it more than a superficial thought.
This can save a lot of heartache and grief. It is extremely demoralizing to apply for dozens or hundreds jobs with nothing more than silence or automated rejections in return. Working with a recruiter is a great way to avoid this job hunting pitfall.
How to Find Recruiters?
If you have more than just an iota of experience in the tech industry, chances are a recruiter has already reached out to you. A good first step is to do some research on those individuals and respond back if you think they are trustworthy. You can also just search for them on LinkedIn and message them. If you have plenty of experience or better yet experience in niche applications they will probably be happy to hear from you. Set up a phone call and tell them what you are looking for. It’s as simple as that.
What to Expect?
In general the process of working with a recruiter should be similar to the interview process for a job itself. The extra step will be conversations with the recruiter. Typically this is a short call where the recruiter decides if there is good alignment between your skills and what they are looking for. After that, if you get a call with a hiring manager it’s off to the races and you have a good shot of moving forward to the interview. In my experience I moved about half of the candidates put in front of me by a recruiter to the hiring manager call, and about half of the people I spoke with to the interview loop. That’s pretty good compared to the nearly zero people I moved forward that submitted their application via a job board.
Recruiters vs Network
Your network is a great place to find your next job. A strong network and good timing can land you a new job with ease. Companies like to hire people that come with the recommendation of their employees. However, nothing is guaranteed. Just because someone in your network recommends you for a job doesn’t mean you will get it. A network referral is stronger the closer that person is to the decision maker in the hiring process. The further removed a network connection is from the hiring manager or the domain of knowledge, the weaker the connection.
In any case you should try to engage as much of your network as possible. You should also work with more than one recruiter if you are determined to find a new job quickly. It’s ok to work with more than one recruiter and I am always transparent that I am exploring multiple avenues in my job search. Usually what a recruiter cares about is that you agree to let the represent you exclusively for a given company and that you won’t go above their head by going to the company directly.
Closing Thoughts
The most important thing to remember is that no matter how you approach your job search there will always be factors outside of your control. For example, it is very hard to get a new job in the winter (AKA Q4) because it is the end of the year, there are holidays, and no-one wants to make a big decision or approve anything until budgets for the year are discussed. The beginning of the year isn’t much better because people are “so busy” catching up after the holidays and such. Really it’s just dark and cold out and no one wants to do anything. Spring and summer are where things heat up. That’s true for hiring as well. Interest rates also play a role. At least in the tech industry cheap money seems to lead to hiring booms and high interest rates lead to busts. The moral is, don’t let external factors beyond your control discourage you.