I agree with the vast majority of what you've shared, but this one is a bit trickier.
Reputations can be destroyed quickly, but it isn't normal or easy for them to be destroyed quickly. Someone can end up in the press for something flagrant, sure, but usually what happens is that the people that have seen your work first hand may hear of a lapse of judgement or a flub with technology, raise their eyebrows a bit, and think to themselves "that's not the person I know, but I'll keep an eye out for next time."
A certain degree of humble appreciation for our shared fallibility is a marker of maturity. I've had the opportunity to be both gracious and the receiver of grace in situations like this, and I don't think the message we should be sharing with younger software developers is one that would inspire paranoia. Treat others as you would want to be treated, even when it hurts, and the rest will work itself out even if you mess up here or there is a better orientation to adopt in my opinion.
I am one of the few actually good recruiters that exist and am now capable of doing the good work that got me where I was but absolutely no one wants to hear it or give me a chance.
One of the main issues is I was very senior (but still actively worked on search assignments for niche technical and or c suite) and there are few senior roles and most junior people don’t want to manage me at 45 or even consider me for less senior positions.
45 is oooooooold in recruitment where you are up or out in a sink or swim environment and 90% are just glorified telemarketers.
None of this is anyones fault but man I got emotional writing this.
I hear so much about how terrible the recruitment ‘industry’ is, much of it true, I’m desperate to work and to help but how the hell do I break this loop?
How do I get past the ‘he took his pants off in the office once’ reputation? put CAT scans on my CV?
Look ma no tumor!
I guess there isn't really a point to this comment other than to say you definitely have my sympathies, that stuff can be brutal. I hope you can get past this professionally.
I gambled all our money away, stopped showing up for work, presented as drunk unknowingly.
I was never violent but I was basically like a child with no self control or ability to delay gratification.
I was lucky that I started getting severe headaches and nausea that lead to scans otherwise I'd be divorced, homeless and who knows what.
I don't know nearly enough about your industry to know where reputation fits into the system but it's certainly not a concern from my point of view.
It is word of mouth and the actual contract/consulting work I have had has come from friends in the industry who know me and pass the lead on.
Having said that some of this is just me being negative and beat down - I've had two positions to fill on a freelance basis and that lead to the CFO recommending me for a third role which was enough to launch a llc!
Then the pandemic happened.
So I'm starting again.
Except now it's five years instead of three since I've been in the game, and really now eight years since my troubles started so contacts start to wane and move on and forget you.
I'm not the guy who can play golf and entertain anymore.
Just do good work.
Hopefully that will be enough.
Lots of new areas and ideas floating around right now, and it'd be worth looking around before setting your sights on an old career trajectory.
How common is it for recruiters to work with commercial real estate agents? It's weird how little I know about your industry.
From HN earlier, thought it was on topic: https://allenpike.com/2022/giving-a-shit
Within my chosen specialty I was pretty well known and my issues were very public.
It's getting a bit better as the counter story gets out but its exhausting sometimes and hard to talk about in a 30 minute phone screen, the entire conversation becomes about that.
>"Honestly, it's because I struggle to get to the stage where I can tell the story because people see my name and back channel it."
Assuming you can afford it, have you considered a reputation firm to bury negative search results for your name? The ability to find well-paying work can outsize the cost. Good research is needed here, as some firms are likely ineffective, while others do work.
Have you also considered going by an alternative version of your name? If you have a spouse, could you adopt their last name? If the problem is really that serious, even a name change may be warranted. At the least, a "doing business as (DBA)" name change could work, similar to what gopher_space wrote about operating as a small shop.
>"Within my chosen specialty I was pretty well known and my issues were very public."
Would your skills and experience in recruitment be relevant to another specialty? A real option is to lower your expectations of seniority, and start at a more junior level in a different field/specialty that uses the same skills, and build up new experience and have new connections. With your background, you should progress much faster than a genuine junior recruiter.
>"Except now it's five years instead of three since I've been in the game, and really now eight years since my troubles started so contacts start to wane and move on and forget you."
How have you created those contacts in the first place? There must have been a time when you succeeded without relying on established contacts, and you created them as you were getting your foot in the door. Age and reputation may work against you, but reputational obstacles can be mitigated from the suggestions above.
>"45 is oooooooold in recruitment where you are up or out in a sink or swim environment and 90% are just glorified telemarketers."
Are there ways to obscure your age? If you have a degree, can you remove the year? Can you remove earlier experiences from your C.V.? Would there be anything you can do to physically look younger, or at least make your age ambiguous for in-person interviews?
>"I'm not the guy who can play golf and entertain anymore."
There is a sales book (less relevant for recruiting) called "The Challenger Sale," which asserts that likability, while important, is far less useful and valued by others than helping people identify problems they may not have considered, and offering solutions. Instead of focusing on golfing and entertainment (likability), would it be possible to focus more on outcomes you had at previous work positions?
In a completely different tack, would you be willing to switch to an adjacent field outside of recruiting? For a moment, assume that recruiting is completely non-viable (this isn't true, but consider this for a moment). What do you like about recruiting? What specific skills do you excel at, within recruiting? Are there any other career directions you would really enjoy, where these skills will give you a strong advantage, even if you had to learn additional skills?
Overall, you really can get back on your feet. There are a lot of stories on HN where people are worse off (felony criminal record or homeless), yet who have still created enjoyable and sustainable careers. It's completely valid to feel emotional about your circumstances, but there is a clear pathway to find work you enjoy (address the obstacle of reputation; consider a different style of pitching your skillset that is challenge-focussed while leveraging your past experience; changing fields outside of your specialty, while accepting a junior position and working up; and changing your career path while leveraging your existing skills).
It's late now and I'm going to bed but I will digest this properly tomorrow, after a quick read just now.
I recently finished Warren Buffett's biography Snowball, and this is a recurring theme in his life. His integrity is one of the most important factors in his success; he got a great deal or gotten out of a sticky situation with regulators simply because people trusted him to do the right thing.
This took decades though, he'd been operating in this manner since he was a child, but it wasn't until he was in his 50s that all that goodwill began to work for him on an unimaginable scale.
-Nassim Taleb
It means that Taleb got stupidly, ridiculously lucky with an option trade one time (in a way that he didn't expect or intend) and, as a result, he is rich and therefore people now pay attention to him on all kinds of subjects outside of his expertise.
But you could parse it as: "reputation" is your standing in the eyes of others, and if you define success as a good reputation then you cede control of your success to others. "Honour", "courage", and "integrity" are self-assessed, so if you define success as "acting with honour" then it's your definition of honour that matters.
It's framed as an either-or, but you have a reputation whether you want one or not. It's what other people say about you when you're not in the room. If you want others to choose to work with/buy from/hang out with you, then you care about your reputation for that is what will determine whether they engage with you.
Reputation doesn't automatically follow from the values you live (consistently good people can have weak reputations, consistently awful people can duplicitously craft good reputations). Two people can act with honour, courage, and integrity, yet have different reputations. I think Taleb's rhetoric clouds the point.
If you do the former, you are essentially handing over your free will over to thr judgements of others.
“It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take 300 years to build a new tradition.”
The evacuation went ahead.
The feedback loop on these actions is so long that it's hard to understand the value of a positive reputation. It can take years of consistent positive actions before the long-term, indirect benefits of building a good reputation become apparent.
This is a constant sticking point when I mentor young people: It's easy to enter the business world and assume every interaction with other people is purely transactional. What's in it for me right now? Why should I help you?
It's also easy for junior people to think that changing jobs is a perfect reset button for their reputation or that the consequences of their actions will be neatly contained to the people around them. It can be a shock to discover just how much backchannel reference checking happens when evaluating candidates as well as how often they'll end up working with former coworkers again at other companies down the road.
Reputations are very asymmetric: They take a long time to build, but they can be destroyed very quickly. It can take years to see the benefits of having built a positive reputation, but it's an incredibly powerful asset once you've built it.