Popular posts

• Recruiters who don't want to tell me the company I'm looking at - I refuse to work for certain companies, if you don't tell me the company, I block you and don't speak to you again (for example, I refuse to work for a tobacco company or companies keeping themselves busy with shady things).
• What salary range they are looking for. Happened several times that the recruiter said I don't need that info, then once the negotiation starts (after several interviews), they can't afford me and everyone's wasted time.
• Recruiters who just want to fill quotas without researching their candidates first. I've not done any PHP work in the last 10 years, yet somebody sees I'm on a database somewhere 10 years ago on a PHP project and keeps on sending me PHP jobs, even when I tell them, listen, I've moved on, I do Kotlin now.
• While in a full-time job, I get approached to leave my full-time job for a 3 month contract when I clearly said I wasn't interested in contracts.
• Recruiters who phone you via your current company's phone number putting you in an awkward spot or come and visit you at your office and signs in at reception as so and so from recruitment company.
• Recruiters who have no idea what they are hiring for, there's a huge difference between Java and JavaScript, MySQL and SQL Server, etc. At least have a basic understanding of the tech you're recruiting for.
• Having to fill in those horrible skills matrices after I've sent you a 10 page CV with everything on it already and when you fill in 5 for a lot of things, they say you can't be a five for all those things.
• Having to sign a contract that says if I accept the offer telephonically, but pull out once I get the contract, I have to pay a penalty fee. Then what they do is, neglect to tell you certain details, then once you sign the contract, you discover some nasties in the contract which they conveniently left out over the phone and you're forced to sign the contract, otherwise forced to pay a huge sum of money.

Best recruiters that've helped me didn't bother me when I wasn't a clear match for their position, studied my online activity upfront to know what I'm interested in and what I'm working on, they told me upfront what the company's budget was, told me who the company was and instead of a generic it's a leading company in the xyz space where you can grow your career as an impact player, I was told exactly what the company was looking for, why the project excites them, exactly what technology they are using, planning to use or how flexible they are in that regard.

So long story short, the recruiters I responded to in the past went the extra mile and as a result, they closed. When I was hiring as well for my one startup, I went back to those recruiters to find myself some more devs and got quality devs.