Hi everyone,

I've been following this thread, and it's been great reading all your thoughts about what's broken/working in the recruiting space.  As Josh previously mentioned, crappy experiences in tech recruiting arise from the lack of tech knowledge, poor keyword searches, and a shotgun approach to anyone who vaguely fits the bill, which only leaves professionals feeling spammed.  I'm with a new startup, Step.com, and we're building a platform specifically to address these challenges -- giving tech professionals anonymity/privacy and control (elimination of unwanted/irrelevant opportunities) while also allowing employers/opportunities to effectively find them, but only if they fit the exact requirements of the professionals. 

We won't be launching until early next year, but it would be great to get your feedback as we get closer to launch. If you're interested, let me know and I can keep you posted.  Just shoot me an email or sign up here: http://blog.step.com/get-on-the-list/.  (If you happened to have taken our recent survey about career agents and left your email, we should already have your info :)).

Thanks and have a nice weekend!

Jennifer

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Jonathan Vanasco <[address removed]> wrote:

On Dec 19, 2014, at 7:38 AM, Mohammad Jawhar wrote:

This thread has continued so I'll delineate the industry a bit...there are 4 tiers of recruitment companies.

Executive Search:  Sample companies are Spencer Stewart, Egon Zehnder, Boyden, Odgers, heidrick & struggles.  These guys only work on retainer (they get paid 1/3 of the fee upfront), won't role out of bed for a pay range less than 250k, and never advertise their jobs.  Its all direct approach and networking.  These guys work on 1-4 positions at a time.  These guys charge 30%-35% percent of total compensation (including expected bonus).

Contingent recruitment companies:  Sample companies are Michael page, Robert Half, Ajilon.  These guys work on a contingent basis, so they aren't payed up front.  Because they don't get paid unless they fill the job, they are generally a churn and burn.  Your average contingent recruiter is working on 15+ positions at once.  The minute your no longer a good fit for their immediate roles, you go on the back burner.  These are the jobs you see advertised on job boards.  These guys charge about 15%-25% of fixed compensation.

Thanks for saving me a post!

And to add some more insight to the above 2 groups:

The "Contingent" recruiters are often pretty low level.  They tend to offer 3 types of search:

Retained Search

The same as the Executive Search model.  [ 1/3 salary up-front.  The placement is guaranteed for a year, otherwise they replace the hire at their expense.  ]   

The problem is that 95% of these companies are bottom-feeders and have shitty networks.  

Contingent Search -- Exclusive & Open

Basically as described above.

The difference though is this:

Exclusive: They are the only search company involved in the placement.  They'll want a higher comp level, and may actually deliver some candidates.  But they're not seeing any money until they place.

Open: This is usually the default.  They know that multiple recruitment agencies are competing.  They're less motivated to find you qualified candidates, and either send everything your way or barely anything at all.

These networks are generally self selecting:

A retained search from a good firm (executive or lower level) will generally have good candidates and good employers.

An open or contingent search will generally have bad employers and bad candidates.

Sometimes the companies aren't that bad themselves, but their HR departments are clueless.  I've had many C/D level friends get irate when they found out their HR department outsourced a placement to search firms, and even more pissed when they found out the calibre of firms that were hired.  Hiring a bad firm makes the entire company look bad.

IMHO, I think you're almost always way better off replacing a Contingent Search with an employee rewards program -- and having your staff network with developers at meetups.

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