Good recruiters can speed hiring and share inside info, but you must weed out generic spam and scammers by looking for personalized outreach, realistic fit, and red-flags like money requests.
Technical leaders waste time chasing recruiters who send blanket messages or chase commissions without caring about fit. The core insight is that a good recruiter will spend a couple of minutes reviewing your profile, personalize the outreach, and be able to explain why a role matches your experience. Bad recruiters push any opening, hide details, or target you for unrelated jobs, and scammers will ask for money or personal data.
The article explains how recruiters earn a commission-typically about one month of the hired salary-and why that creates incentives. Good recruiters meet hiring managers, understand the real requirements, and pre-vet candidates before forwarding them. They may present three variations of a role to gauge fit, but they still aim to save both sides time. Bad recruiters prioritize speed over quality, leading to noisy outreach.
When a recruiter contacts you, ask for the industry, location, core requirements, company stage, title, and compensation range. If the job description includes a hard requirement you lack, ask directly; a clear no-go saves weeks of interview effort. The piece also lists scam signals: urgent language, strange communication channels, and any request for money or Social Security numbers. Recruiters never charge candidates.
For leaders, treating recruiters as a signal source-when they provide honest feedback and realistic expectations-can shorten hiring cycles and improve candidate experience. Recognizing the red flags and engaging only with recruiters who demonstrate genuine effort protects your team from wasted interviews and potential fraud.
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