I recently moved jobs. Since I work in a fairly niche field, made plenty of good
friends at my old workplace, and the company was looking to add to my old team
while I was still there, I&#x27;ve had the pleasure of seeing several sides of a
hugely inefficient job search.<p>First, there is the Chinese whispers from within the company. They don&#x27;t seem
keen on finding candidates directly, which in this field is as easy as it gets,
so off they go to the recruitment agency.
My (now former) boss
writes a job spec, this goes to HR (who aren&#x27;t familiar with any of the technical details) and
HR add some company blurb and send it on to a recruiter, but not before crippling the job spec
by slapping on a below-market salary that nobody competent will accept to try and save some cash.<p>The recruiters think they have plenty of candidates who will take the salary, but
the candidates simply aren&#x27;t good enough or don&#x27;t have the right experience. The recruiters have no way of telling this, so they keep telling
the company that there are plenty of great candidates and to keep
interviewing.<p>From the applicant side, several friends of mine who are generally looking to move
to a new job had this role aggressively pitched to them by a recruiter.
Most of them would be brilliant for this job.
What my friends really need is a ten minute phone call with my old boss to see if
it&#x27;s a potential fit before starting any formal interview process.
I&#x27;d have been happy to put them in touch
directly at an earlier stage, but there has now been contact through a recruiter
and I don&#x27;t want to meddle behind the scenes.<p>None of my friends ended up going for the job since the recruiters were telling
them confusing things, and all got better offers than the
advertised range elsewhere. The company have unsuccessfully interviewed a few
candidates that the recruiters have pushed on them, the team has been desperate
for someone new for months (and they&#x27;re crucial to the company&#x27;s success)
and people like my old boss have no idea and little way of knowing how close
they are to finding the right people.<p>And yes, the stereotype of the shiny-suited young &quot;failed salesman&quot; recruiter is unfortunately true in my experience.