If you're going to use a 3rd-party recruiter, be upfront about it

I was contacted by the CTO of a small (~10 person) startup recently over email. That’s not super typical; usually it’s an email or two every day from LinkedIn recruiters for different tech companies, but it’s not entirely unheard of. A lot of small to mid-size companies will let their HR and recruiting run their C-suites’ LinkedIn accounts so it seems like you’re getting a personal email from a founder and you’re more likely to reply.

This email, included in the screenshot below, was fairly standard. It wasn’t exactly in an industry I’ve been aiming towards, but the tech and engineering work seemed interesting. I also had heard one of the cofounders speak on multiple podcasts about their previous companies and their experience so I knew it was a quality team of people. I emailed back indicating that if the full stack position was indeed full hardware to software development then I’d love to chat with them. I got an email back a few days later from the same person with a meeting invite in the format of “Brian : [company name]”, so I assumed I’d be either speaking to whom I was emailing with or another engineer. The only other person on the calendar invite was their ‘Hiring Calendar’ company email account.

On the day of the meeting I called in and someone with a completely different name introduced themself to me. Okay, no biggie, looks like it’s just someone else at the company. This person gave me a rough outline of the agenda for the 30-minute call: an introduction of the role, and then an opportunity for me to ask any questions. Again, a bit odd - I assumed they’d also want to vet me for how well I fit the role with my experience. I brushed this off again mentally and we continued.

The person I was speaking with then proceeded to read me, verbatim, the description paragraph and every single requirement bullet point from the job listing. I had the page up in front of me and there was not one word that was different. I chalked this up to an engineer with maybe some less-than-stellar social skills just going through the motions, but I had a couple of red flags waving in my head at this point.

After finishing the page, they asked me if this was a position I would be interested in (why else would I be on the call…?) and if I had any questions for them. One of the first questions I like to ask smaller companies is what the makeup of both the engineering team is, and the company as a whole. It helps gauge how much they care about the product itself versus selling the product, and things like having double the salespeople as engineers at an early stage startup is a big indicator.

They responded that they didn’t have that information but can get it and get back to me. I clearly knew something wasn’t totally as it seemed at this point, but I still didn’t get a straight answer until I bluntly asked if they worked for [company name] or not.

Their response was, in similar words: “Oh I’m sorry Brian, I do not work for [company name]. I’m here to record any questions you have and relay them to [person in company I had emailed with]. They’ll then determine if they want to move ahead in the process with you”.

…are you kidding me? You took 30 minutes of my time in the middle of a workday to set up a call where I just ask a bunch of things to a random person then have to wait for the company to evaluate, answer, and send back their thoughts? This felt incredibly disrespectful. At no point did the person at the company mention that they used 3rd party recruiters in their process. That person’s email response to me saying that they would set up a call literally contained the words “Here’s a scheduling link to find a time with one of our team members who can tell you more about [company] and the role”.

Recruiters can play a helpful role in helping connect employees and employers for sure. But the hit rate for recruiters that have reached out to me on LinkedIn or by email is exactly 1 out of who knows how many, which resulted in my job at PlanGrid. The signal-to-noise ratio is very low, which is why almost every recruiter that contacts me receives a “No thank you, good luck with your search” response. To insinuate a call with the CTO of a company or another member of their engineering team, then drop a recruiter on a call with me with zero knowledge of the company is a waste of everyone’s time.

Needless to say I immediately (and politely) ended the call. I hope this company finds the engineer they need, but I’m guessing they’re having a bit of trouble finding quality people who know the value of their time.