On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 02:32:36PM -0500, Bill W. wrote:
dozens, if not hundreds, of those I see each week than the three or four job
postings, no matter what their source.
The beginner’s list discussion is a trap that every technical mailing
list
I’ve ever been on has fallen into. Same with do my homework. Over and
over.
The problem there is filtering. The people who participate in all of
those
discussions are mainly the same people who contribute in valuable ways
to
other threads. (Even the kids with homework sometimes become valuable
contributors.) The same cannot be said for job announcements.
Direct employer job announcements are sometimes posted by folks who
contribute to discussions and just want to help their company fill a
spot.
Other times it’s an actual HR type. As a category, they cannot be said
to
be posted by noncontributing people. They also contribute some value to
the
ever-changing segment of the list membership seeking employment.
In comparison, job announcements from third-party recruiters contribute
less value and are 100% posted by people who contribute in no (other?)
valuable way. More below.
but those from third-party recruiters are actively unpleasant
It’s three or four a week, Greg. What’s got your back up?
A third-party job announcement is spam masquerading as value. It’s
unsolicited and commercial, clearly, but it’s worse than that. Anyone
who
responds to the posting, regardless of whether they get the job or not,
is
permanently in the recruiter’s database and will continue to get spammed
by
the recruiter indefinitely. Third-party recruiters work exactly like
spammers, and for the same reasons: even a very small conversion rate
pays
off, and it’s simple to take a shotgun approach by spamming everyone.
I saw two or three messages just today. I’m worried that the trickle
will
become a flood.
and largely useless noise in a way in which direct employer notices are
not.
While I don’t disagree that postings from employers are typically better,
the impact of screening postings from third-party recruiters would be
nothing but negative WRT the growth of the job market for RoR developers.
The fact is that large companies rely on 3rd-party recruiters to fill
their position openings. There are more than a few of us out here
working hard to get RoR positions opened up in those companies.
More power to you, but third-party recruiters do not aid in your
endeavors.
The best at what they do rarely, if ever, get involved with third-party
recruiters. The candidates third-party recruiters bring in average below
the level of direct hires, and poor candidates for these jobs
you’re trying to open up does nothing to help your cause. If there’s a
job
opening at your company, go ahead and post it here. You’re providing at
least as much value to the list membership and to your employer as any
third-party recruiter could, and you’re saving your employer the
recruiter’s fee.
Ignore the posts if they bother you.
I delete 80-95% of the messages I receive from all the mailing lists I’m
on
by looking at nothing more than their subjects. The problem is that
there
is no good way to distinguish by subject an interesting direct job
announcement from recruiter trash. If the recruiter spam increases, I’ll
stop bothering with job announcements at all and just delete them
outright.
I won’t be the only one. The legitimate, direct announcements will
disappear into the noise and companies will have more trouble filling
RoR positions. There is no win from ignoring the problem.
Best regards,
Bill
–Greg