Ended up less clear for me - I, probably foolishly, was expecting a piece on the screen of a mobile phone.

The case you're making about Hirelite vs. recruiters is a good one, but a conversation with a recruiter isn't a phone screen either. It's just a conversation with a recruiter. It's like calling the negotiation over a used car an "interview".

Not really a phone screen, either. The phone screen happens after the recruiter gives your information to someone you'll actually be working with.

If there are answers to questions that result in your information not being passed on to someone who you'll actually be working with then it's a phone screen.

If after the transaction you could still go directly to the company and interview with them, it's not a phone screen.

Well first he said HR, then he said recruiter so I assumed a recruiter working in the HR department directly for that company not as a 3rd party which could be bypassed after the fact without an inside contact.

If you say "recruiter" to me, I think "huckster third-party middleman trying to insert themselves between HR and candidates". My definition is, I think, pretty close to the prevailing one.

At the last BigCo I worked at, we would call our HR reps who did phone screens recruiters. We had no outside recruiters.

Otherwise, this "someone is wrong on the Internet" stuff that just takes up space on comment threads on HN has gotten way out of hand.

I reread the article. You're probably right (he talks about getting "called back for an in-person interview).

I swear to god I'm not commenting out of someone-is-wrong-on-the-Internet-ism. There are developers out there that really believe that what recruiters think about them matters, and recruiters really do prey on that.

As an employer, I also have an irrational distaste for recruiters. They are the worst cold-call inside salespeople ever; it is impossible to get them off the phone.