Despite that they are burdened by the Buzzfeed name. Just look at this thread arguing back and forth about this. They should really spin it off and shed all the Buzzfeed branding.
That's baked into the assumption of the script though. If your response is a copy and paste, who cares about the ones that ghost you after one message? Doesn't matter because the cost of interaction was quite low.
If they send the ball back after your initial response THEN you know you can open a conversation up until that point, just assume it is spam and you're spamming them back.
You make a good point. This advice is strongly weighted towards people who still have multiple salary doublings left in their career ladder. At each step up the career ladder, you can afford to be more and more selective around what you're looking for.
This basic script is designed to remove or greatly reduce that time-waste from the early process.
I'd argue that it makes early ghosting a non issue, by reducing the cost of the initial and clear response it cuts through multiple layers of that dance that the spam-cruiters go through.
You're also right about referrals and I don't think this is mutually exclusive with them, instead it is a complimentary passive search protocol.
I like to think of it as spamming the spammers! The marginal cost of extra words in a "select all -> copy -> paste" is pretty low so I think it makes a lot of sense to be very clear and address any objections they might have in advance.
I also have found through experimentation that posting one liners like "how much?" just results in the recruiter reverting to their own script of "objection handlers"
The size and clarity of the message really does say "this isn't a conversation", "no bullshit" and "let's not fuck around here"
This is my own experience though. I've been running with it and refining for about 6 months to a year. Maybe It could be better. :)
I'm going to agree that the "if you want me, do some work first" thing seems a bit overkill. For me, usually just a single sentence asking for salary range and job description gives me more than enough to figure out whereabouts in the spectrum they are.
This is the way I think about it:
1) there are different types of recruiters. At least in the city where you are, I can tell you that there are actually some good recruiting firms that consistently send appealing opportunities while avoid wasting your time with emails about lowballers, if you just spend the 30 mins upfront to chat with them about your expected salary range and specialization. These recruiters understand that there's an entire subsection of the workforce that is very capable but has zero online presence, and they build their own moat by connecting w/ professionals directly, to build a long term, high quality, proprietary network. Being part of such networks and having the recruiter sift and prescreen jobs for you can be valuable. For one-off linkedin cold mailers, the signal to noise ratio is generally pretty low IME because they optimize for volume. While they can give me data points about what lowballers offer, I personally haven't gained anything from this info, so I'd optimize elsewhere. YMMV.
2) you can often infer salary range from the company name and job title alone. As a rule of thumb, if it's an no-name company, they're almost always going to lowball if you're at senior level. If your goal is to raise your salary quickly, then rather than looking at sideways increments, you'll want to target "obvious" upgrades (e.g. if one is junior, look for "senior" roles; if you're senior at a local non-US company, look for US-based multinationals; or just go for broke and try for unicorns exclusively)
Those are incredibly good points. If you look at the levels.fyi data I think this pattern applies really well to the people within the bottom half of the graph.
There's ALWAYS the option of trying to go from "No Name" -> "Big Name" but I also feel like that can be a harder path to take. When the person reaching out is a "Meta" or a "Netflix" I know that I don't need to ask how much.
I'm pretty sure the number I got there would be a 4x or 5x... in Meta's case though, it's the leetcode stopping me (2 mediums in 45 minutes? Maybe if I wasn't dad to a toddlerI could study enough to get there, though my other problem is I keep getting bored of the grind and wind up building cool shit for fun instead), in the Netflix case it's because they keep saying "NO" (hahahahaha)
The optimal path here for the bulk of the developers in the middle of the pack is to make a move when the person reaching out has a role at a different no-name shop that is 50% higher than their current.
Remember there are a few vectors for that big salary bump. One where you were grossly underpaid from the moment you were hired, but another one that pops up might be that you've been in the role for a couple years and you have been so busy and engaged that you didn't even NOTICE that the market popped in the meantime, your no-name-company doesn't really pay attention to keeping up with the market and the persona reaching out is ALSO picking you for a spot that has a significant increase in responsibility.
I do think that the "reply to everyone" model starts to fall down once you're at an Uber, or some other big logo.
The best part about advice is once you've heard it you can choose to ignore it on a case by case basis.
:D
I've PERSONALLY only ever heard the "I ignore recruiters" jokes so the idea that they're this tremendous fountain of untapped knowledge was pretty wild to me.
OOOH!! One more thing about the leetcode grind. I'd ALSO argue that if you're in the middle of your grind and a 50% raise comes along, it's probably a clever move to pause the grind for long enough to take the raise and then get back to work on the grind while you're making way more.
> The optimal path here for the bulk of the developers in the middle of the pack is to make a move when the person reaching out has a role at a different no-name shop that is 50% higher than their current
I think it's worth noting that 50% bumps were historically nowhere as realistic as they are today with the current job market. At least from my convos w/ recruiters over the years, large bumps would normally imply some very tangible upgrade, like a corresponding job title change. A 30-50k bump back in ~2015 typically meant moving from a dev role to a role w/ significant leadership/managerial responsibilities.
Being able to command 50% bumps without a significant change in levels of responsibilities in today's market is definitely an anomaly from a historical perspective, but under these circumstances it definitely makes sense to consider lateral job changes to get in on those juicy market dynamics.
I think you could get the same effect but in like 6-8 sentences, 1-2 paragraphs.
If I saw this text in a response, personally (and I'm not a recruiter), I'd move on since the person seems hard to handle.
But yeah my approach is different in the first place. I only respond to recruiters who seem to put good thought and background research into their conversation starter.
I'd love to see your version of the same thing. The exact response isn't really as important as writing something that is authentic and in "your voice"
You're probably right that a different response would work well for you.
Though if a recruiter wasn't willing to read through that for the ~$30k payday I'd represent if they are successful, maybe that's one that I don't want to work with either.
But we all gravitate towards people who we think we'd fit with. Maybe someone skips over me for coming across as a stuffy and a lot of work and maybe someone else says "finally a type-a jackass like me! we're gonna crush this thing"
"Thanks for reaching out, could you send along the company name, a job description and total compensation details for the role?"
Get to the core of what you're asking. The rest of the response is needlessly long-winded. You don't want them to waste your time, and that is a fair ask in our industry, but you also don't need to waste theirs.
I did have that in there at one point. In my case I tend to either practice refining my script, or just thank them and walk away. It's in the autoresponse "without that data I'm unable to continue further discussions"
You do have to stick to that, but it's IMO pretty clear but also concise enough that you don't well on it.
Hmmm... maybe I should have been clearer and more explicit about the fact that there are times when you ignore the script entirely.
Companies that are known to pay top of market... Like you're not going to hammer Facebook or Netflix by saying "how much sucker?" if you're in a bottom of the market bracket.
I also ignore the script when it is a company that I'm really interested in and excited by.
I liked your article, you don't need to cover every edge case imho. Its on people who want to take inspiration from your script whether they apply it like a sledge hammer or a goldsmith's tool.
Hey! Thanks for your feedback. I would love to try and understand what you're saying but I'm struggling a little.
Can you explain what you mean by "There is a time and place for in-house recruiters and third party recruiters." what is that time and place?
I honestly tried to be really nuanced (but clearly failed a little, thanks for that data point).
I think it does speak to the fact that I have seen 20 years of the prevailing narrative that there is zero value to recruiters and this realization was, to me, pretty mind-blowing.
I appreciate that "never" is a word that lacks nuance, maybe that was a little too clickbait of me.
I wouldn't go so far as to say zero value, but I would say that engaging with third-party recruiters is generally an activity with a negative expected value. Generally they don't actually have or aren't willing to share the incredibly useful real and direct insights you wisely point to.
Personally, I've found that high quality messages from recruiters are usually painfully obvious. They lead with the name of the company and show evidence that the recruiter read my profile. These are so rare that I completely skip any kind of bot-ish response to handle them.
Most of the responses I can expect to the kind, compassionate, empathetic script you've so helpfully provided will not contain all three data points requested. At best, we can expect to get a JD and maybe a company name. Comp is usually withheld and the cycle goes around again.
Treating the recruiter-spammers as humans, unfortunately, does not really seem to produce the results we would all love it to. It mostly seems to be treated as proof that the spammer has hooked a fish and just has to reel them in.
I like third party recruiters because I like to use them strategically. I know how they are compensated and they learn what I want to do, so I could get raises every 15-18 months by switching companies that they placed me at and they could get paid multiple times because turns out I'm a reliable employee!
We knew to ignore each other for 15 months. It was a good symbiotic relationship. Sometimes they knew I wanted side gigs and would hook me up with the companies that "needed something yesterday!" while they knew I was employed at one of their client companies. sometimes the recruiter hired me on their payroll directly instead of letting me be a contractor with their clients. it was a fun time for some time.
This has almost nothing to do with random outreach from them on linkedin. It is barely the same topic. But thats what I used them for.
In-house recruiters are distinctly different animals with a couple of overlapping daily tasks and the same name, but the way to use them is very different. A company with one of those wouldn't be using third party recruiters and thats fine, in house recruiters can somewhat bat for you in a unique and more holistic way but they are still just gatekeepers you want to get passed so you can talk technical stuff with hiring managers.
