"I'd kill you with a spoon if you ever gave a recruiter my contact info!"

It's no secret that I occasionally eavesdrop on our engineers, who chat with each other about random topics on an e-mail list. It's fascinating, and funny, like watching a dog eat peanut butter. Earlier this week, the conversation turned to recruiters. I brace myself when I see "recruiting" in the subject line, count to ten, try to read with my non-defensive voice. This time there were vitriolic darts thrown at recruiters from competing companies (yay) and some high praise offered for our own team (YAY!).


The thread reminded me of some recruiting truths:

• Speed is the boss criteria by which recruiters are judged; a speedy process is thought to be a good process
  
• Candidates do not necessarily separate the sins of the hiring managers from the sins of the recruiters; the process must be flawless on all sides
  
• Don't call engineers at their desks; they think we are stupid when we call them at work. They pretty much hate telephones.
  
• They don't understand why we ask for referrals. Said one engineer, "I'd kill you with a spoon if you ever gave a recruiter my contact info." (Later on in the thread they agreed that it would be OK to pass along the recruiter's info to a friend who needed job search help.) This is particular to engineers, I think. I have rarely had candidates in other fields refuse to give up the goods.

That was the worst of it. The conversation quickly turned to the nature and logic of spoon-beatings.