Headhunters?

Zergxes

I've stumbled across a few headhunters/3rd party recruiters in my epic crawl towards re-employment. I figure someone here must have some advice, praise, or horror stories to share on this matter.

The big question: should I give recruiters a try, or flee for my life?

Lee3dee

i've had more luck applying at the company website than using the recruiters like digitalartist management. Seems like they collect your information, etc and then you never hear from them again. Email the company direct skip the middle man!

Eric Chadwick

There are plusses and minusses.

Not all companies use recruiters. But those that do tend to use them to fill the higher-end positions, which are harder for the companies to fill, and also make the cost of the recruiter more worthwhile.

But... the recruiter costs the company some money, often a % of the first year's salary. Now this typically doesn't come out of the employee's salary, it has to be paid on top of the existing rate, so the company can get bitten here if the new hire doesn't fit the spot.

So companies would generally prefer to find people without using recruiters. Given the choice between two equivalent candidates, one thru a recruiter and one on their own, usually they'd choose the latter. But as I said, it can be hard to find the difficult-to-fill spots, so a recruiter is sometimes worthwhile.

I almost went with a job offered by a recruiter, would have been great pay, at a big company, but I ended up not liking the job itself. I had a good experience with the recruiter though.


Here's an article written by recruiters, so take it with a grain of salt, but it does have some decent advice.
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990924/recruiter.htm

More good advice, a bit more neutral...
http://www.careerjournaleurope.com/recruiters/workingwith/20020903-capell2.html

Good luck man.

Jeff Parrott

I would try all avenues. I talked to some when I was looking, but I found a job before they could really help. I did have another one call my current work for me. That was really odd. Overall, as long as you don't have to pay the recruiter, look in all places.

Zergxes

Thanks for the advice, everyone! While I plan on meeting with a few recruiters I will definately keep sending stuff out myself.