How to fix recruitment: Hit Reply

We all love recruiters. I mean, we all love to blame them. And that’s wrong. Do you know a single developer who is unconditionally happy with the way recruiting works? I certainly don’t. I understand why, and to a certain point, I agree. Yet, complaining behind closed doors never brought change. So I started talking to recruiters.

Since a year or so, I started to explain to recruiters that it’s fine to receive unsolicited emails considering, for example, that they contain valuable and specific information. “I have an exciting opportunity I’d like to discuss with you” is certainly, absolutely, not exciting, but we do have to tell the person writing this that it only triggers indifference from us.

My emails to recruiters usually contain variations around:

I have looked at your portfolio of clients and I really believe they all offer fantastic positions. Unfortunately, your previous email does not contain enough information for me to follow up.

Needless to say, you are not at fault, the recruiting culture is. Please note that I am writing this kind of email to recruiters whenever I feel their disconnection with the expectations that I perceive of the developers. I wish we could work together with a more specific, transparent dialogue.

What changes does it bring? Probably not a lot as is, as only I and a small group of friends are doing it, as far as I know. But I really believe that small changes matter at scale.

So save this: Keep the dialogue open between recruiters and developers.

We can complain as much as we want, but if we don’t act to fix what we think is broken while we have the ability to, we’re part of the problem and our complaints should also point to us.

Keep the dialogue open, let the recruiters know what’s wrong.