 In the UK in ~2000, the last time I was looking for a job without a reliable network, I had an awful experience due to recruiters.<p>I&#x27;d synched up with a recruiter, they scheduled me for a job interview at a swanky gentlemans club (not a strip bar, literally a club for men), in London. I don my old school uniform, for aged 18 I had not yet bought a suit, and printed some resumes at my Mums office and headed over to St James Place in a cab. I check in for the interview and get led into a room filled with desks, some occupied and others not. I take a seat and wait patiently for whatever comes next... ... ...<p>... The seats are all pretty much full now, and a man stands at the front of the room and gives a 3 slide presentation along the lines of: we can&#x27;t tell you who our client is, you&#x27;ll take a test, the top 10 will be offered a job with the client.<p>Being 18, I was great at tests! Everyone around me was in their mid 20-30&#x27;s -- I&#x27;d been hacking for 3 years at this point, Linux user for ~18mo - I was ready. The test papers are laid in front of us, the presenter orders us to start, I&#x27;m done in the first 18 minutes, and sit patiently for the next 12 when the presenter says: &quot;for those of you who have finished please walk your paper up here, for the rest you&#x27;ve 15 more minutes. Myself and two others rise, take our papers to the front and leave through the door and are directed to a lounge (let me tell you, gentle mans clubs are really fancy -- I don&#x27;t take the gin and tonic offered to me).<p>Eventually the room is filled with the other test takers, probably 50 of us in total, and we mill around. I was too insecure to talk to anyone, everyone else was probably a little weirded out by the boy in the school uniform!<p>Some 20 minutes later the presenter enters the room and announces 11 names to stay behind, I was one of them! (What kind of story would this be were I not;)) it was explained to us that we&#x27;d be given a short interview. These were conducted three at a time, the presenter and his two associates would take an interview each.<p>I was in the second three and I had observed that the first three had short conversations, signed some papers, shook hands with their interviewer and then left the room. My interviewer was the presenter. I can&#x27;t recall the questions, they were about my test paper, but after a couple of them he laid the paper down and looked at me and asked: &quot;did you cheat?&quot;, I answered: &quot;no&quot;, and he went on to explain that I got a perfect score, the next highest had received about 80% (if memory serves there were ~50 multiple choice questions and ~5 questions where we had to write out commands: how to compile Linux kernels, etc). He shook my hand and led me out, no papers were signed.<p>And that was it.<p>I went back to the legal office my mum worked at, recounted the story, and she became so furious -- she believed I&#x27;d been subjected to ageism.<p>I certainly do not mean to suggest all recruiters are this short sighted, and I&#x27;m
very proud of where my life has taken me thus far (early yc alum, early leader at twitch, amongst other things), but this experience was so negative that I reasoned to avoid recruiters at all costs. Now, I know the way you find a job is to watch the companies you think are doing a great job, working on tech you care about, and reach out directly to them to find out how you can help.<p>We can kill the predatory recruiters by starving them!