Sorry, But Recruiters…
In a recent story ‘Why You Stand No Chance In Getting A Job In Silicon Valley’, I wrote about how the recruiting process is broken and how it disadvantages people with a different background.
Recruiters are at the frontline, vetting and filtering, so ultimately they end up being a big component of the process. Because of that, I wanted to separate the discussion about recruiters into its own story.
I want to go into detail to avoid being misunderstood or stereotyping and misjudging. It’s only fair that if you want to make a big claim, that you back it up with a good explanation.
PS. Its probably not a good idea to be writing this since I’m currently in the process of looking for new opportunities. But I’m in a position right now where I’m going through the process and so its the best time to write about it.
Vetting seems to happen mainly based on keywords
Google “what recruiters look for in a resume” and right of the bat, you see claims about how recruiters are overwhelmed by a huge pile of applications. Some are even bragging that their initial glance at a resume, takes anywhere from 7s to 25s. How at first glance, they look at your name, and keywords like strong verbs, years of experience etc. You are suppose to make sure you impress them quickly. All this isn’t something to brag about
I see these recruiters creating youtube videos showing with highlights and circles what they look for, like its as cool as smoking in high school. I don’t care if you can scan my resume, faster than A-Rod can hit a fastball. If you can’t take the same time to read a resume as that person took to write it — Put the similar effort and value into it — then don’t even bother reading it. Just throw it in the trash. Don’t disrespect candidates by pretending they are only worth 7s of your time.
Recruiters don’t have the technical background
This brings me to my point, unless you have experience in the field you are hiring for, you shouldn’t be doing it. In most cases, recruiters are in the recruiting career so really they can only hire other recruiters. Obviously that doesn’t make sense but it is what it is.
Just because I played flight simulator, doesn’t mean I can go and start hiring pilots. And right away many will claim, just because I’m vetting them doesn’t mean I’m actually turning them into pilots for the company.
The problem here is, you vetted them because you saw “500 flight hours” which of course sounds cool to you and really thats all you can look for. At the same time, you canned someone who had 200 hours, why? Because you had a requirement that said x hours and thats it.
I’m not the guy to play the contrarian and I’m not going to say “But what if that 200 hour guy is better than the 500 hour guy” Why? Because in most cases, they are NOT. So whats my point then?
It takes more than flight hours to be a great pilot. What about how you handle emergencies? How you work with your copilot etc. Even the quality of those 500 hours matters which only a pilot would understand to value. But because you already side-lined them, the technical recruiter who takes a look at the 1% of resumes you send their way, would have never seen that candidate.
You’re vetting candidates like they only need to impress you
Hiring is a two way street, and just because there fewer positions than job candidates, doesn’t mean you don’t need to impress us as well. I have seen big names that are boggled by bureaucracy and mostly living of their brand image. As a matter of fact, I intentionally favor startups and only applied to a few big names as backup.
To Sum it all up
There are a ton of startups springing left and right. The times when the whole city worked at Ford’s manufacturing plant are quickly coming to an end.
Recruiting needs to change. I think It needs to be done by a senior employee as an ‘extracurricular’ activity with HR serving as a partner to align the search with the broader company goals. Not this HR funnel approach where its cool to glance at resumes in seconds and discard them.
It’s important that when companies are vetting someone for a highly technical position that they go through each resume as carefully as only possible. Focus should be placed on real results, not keywords and strong verbs. Unique backgrounds need to be valued, not just diversity for publicity.
Doctors, Scientists, Engineers didn’t go through hell to be vetted in 7s!
What Do You Think?
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About me
I like to describe myself as a technologically savvy person who’s able to leverage experience and a broad background to excel in a variety of roles. Although I have an engineering degree, I have been drawn to various other areas through sheer curiosity, and have developed a strong passion in them. I have dabbled around in the stock market, and currently work on making awesome apps. I enjoy amongst many things technology especially the FinTech space, traveling, fitness and music.
