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Re: Headhunters

~ew wrote about experiences with lazy headhunters.

I'd thought I'd share some similar anecdotes.

First of all: I haven't been contacted by headhunters in a very, very long time. I have been contacted by recruiters asking for some info on me to see if they can match me to future opportunities, which I find to be a lot more professional approach. Sometimes they'll call me up a year later and ask if I have any new experiences to share and if I still like it at my current position or am looking for something new.

But those headhunters who have a position to offer and just want someone to fill it...

Back when I wrote my bachelor thesis I registered to the mailing list of an open source project and was soon after contacted by a recruiter who wanted to offer me an on-site sysadmin position in foreign country. They were stressing the point that they were very impressed by my contributions to said open source project.

My contribution was two questions on the mailing list.

A year or so later my peers were starting to graduate, and the recruiters were piling on to call everyone who was signed up for that programme. I had dropped out and settled for a bachelor's instead of going the extra two years for a masters, meaning I already had two years of working experience. For reference my salary at the time was around 25,000 SEK/month.

Without exception all recruiters that called me that year offered me positions in Stockholm. I said I was willing to think about it if they could offer me 50,000 SEK/month. Some of them got rude at this point, telling me (rightly so, of course) that this was far above what anyone would pay for a junior dev. I just flatly answered that they're the ones who wanted me to move to Stockholm, not me; I'd need some serious incentive to move there.

Those calls were rather short.

For almost a decade now I haven't really had any calls or emails like that. I think the fact that I haven't updated my linkedin profile since may have something to do with it.

Anyways, I prefer to be the one looking for a position, rather than this mindless shotgun approach to recruiting.

-- CC0 ew0k, 2021-08-31