Whenever I feel I’m getting a little too confident, I type “recruiters are…” into Google and read the autofill suggestions. Today the top 4 were useless, scum, a waste of time, and annoying. In that order. On forum after forum I come across long threads of why recruiters (specifically IT Recruiters) are the worst thing since stubbed toes and at the top of the list is that they have no idea what IT encompasses. My favorite quote is “They don’t know Java from Javascript”. The answer to that can be found here https://www.upwork.com/hiring/development/java-vs-javascript/ and here https://www.seguetech.com/java-vs-javascript-difference/ and can be very basically summed up as Java needs to be compiled, Javascript is text code and Node.js is used in server applications.
That just goes to illustrate a point. It’s not that hard to take the time to read up on the particular job description you’re trying to fill. The more knowledgeable you are about your field, the better your BS detector gets and the easier it is to screen for these positions. You don’t have to be a 1337 h4x0r to get the basic concepts of a skillset or even just know what the names of languages relate to. That’s what Google is for. It takes no more than 15 to 30 minutes a day to grow your knowledge base and research the basic requirements for a position.
I’ll tell you a story to emphasize this point. A friend of mine got contacted by a recruiter for a Scrum Master position. Said friend didn’t even know what Agile methodology was yet, but he was game, why not right? Because he’s personable and smart he managed to game the system by talking the recruiter into giving him all the information he would need to make it through the initial screening and through subsequent phone interviews. It was an exquisite example of benign voice phishing. A few weeks later he’s flown out for a large corporate interview, travel, meals and hotel all covered by the interviewing company. Imagine the discomfort of everyone involved when it’s discovered that their prodigy candidate knew absolutely nothing about what it takes to be a Scrum Master. Had the initial recruiter known more about Agile methodology and cared more about a good placement over meeting metrics, this whole situation could have been avoided. Don’t be that recruiter. Don’t be the one left catching all hell because you didn’t do due diligence. Take the time to read up on what you’re selling, I promise, it will make a difference. Besides, do you want to be lumped under whatever top 4 Google results for “recruiters are…” returns?
Sasha Lewis 