See how linkedin has changed the recruitment and the role of headhunters: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242445
I have been doing contracting for last 7 years or so. The way I look at recruites now has changed: nowadays, recruiters need to get paid their commission or fill their quota; so, they need to find at least 4 prospects for the hiring manager. So, they don't care as long as one of them gets hired. Since they don't maintain long term relatoinship with candidates, they don't know where the prospect stands.
So, just treat them recruiters like car salesman: you don't need to be disrespectful of their profession. They need to make a living like we do. Recruiters (car salesman) are not the problem; but the industry (recruiting or selling cars) is the problem.
I worked as a salesman for two years; I know how difficult it is: commission, base pay, selling warranties, targets, etc. I was lucky to get out of that shitty sales job; many don't have that option any more. After all, becoming an internal recruiter is better for many new graduates than working for Enterprise car rental at their counters.
Joe Random Recruiter can decide one day that he is a recruiter for Google/Twitter/FB/anyone else. He doesn't need or obtain their permission - he just starts firing out emails to everyone he can find on i.e., LinkedIn.
The email says something like: "My client, {Google, Facebook, etc}, is looking for someone with {one of your skills}. Are you interested?"
If you reply yes, he then sends an email to {Google, Facebook, etc} and says:
"I'm representing an engineer with {your skills} at {outrageous price including fat commission}. Are you interested?"
Assuming they are in fact interested in you (which they likely are), Google/Facebook/etc is now in a tough position.
- Google/FB/etc can say YES, pay the fat commission to the recruiter, and give you the job. You think the recruiter is a gift from heaven.
- Google/FB/etc can say NO, and the recruiter will just tell you they flaked, the opportunity disappeared, or just never contact you again.
The twist is that if Google/FB/etc says NO, the you will end up with a bad impression of THEM, not Joe Random Recruiter. They don't even know your name, with which they could reach out and explain.
Google/FB/etc know this, and as an engineer you are (currently) so valuable that they are (currently) forced to play ball.
And unfortunately, since this method actually works, we see more "recruiters" popping up every day. Even worse, the bad ones are the most aggresive, and they drown out the honest players.
My advice to the Googles/FBs/Twitters of the world: make a page listing the firms you DO work with, just as you list the IP ranges of your crawlers. Not a great idea, but its all I've come up with.
My advice to the job seekers of this world: cut them some slack - you probably didn't ever actually talk to Google/Facebook/etc, or at least they were misinformed about you.
I've known the founder of the company for about 5 years now and he is well respected within the communities he operates in (Ruby on Rails, iOS, DevOps, etc)
There are people that stay in contact throughout multiple switches, but it's pretty rare. Staying in touch after getting you multiple jobs presumes they are likely in agency and that they still work on the same type of roles. Agency turnover is high so they might not even be in recruiting after the first year. Then also take myself, I worked on varying roles from finance, healthcare, mech eng, swe, ml, pm, and more all in the last 2 years. Chances of me working the exact type of role I got you into a year later is unlikely.
Its a tough market to serve because the most people don't change jobs more than a couple times in their career.
I can't imagine getting a bad impression of Google from what a random recruiter tells me.
You wouldn't dislike them, but you might then not apply for a job there (thinking you had already been turned down once), and then Google/FB/etc misses out on any chance to hire you.
They'll stop doing it, when candidates stop beating down their door to get in. That I suspect if what's really behind self-driving cars and the like. No-one would put up with being dicked around by their recruiters if they knew that 99% of Google staff working on displaying, billing for, and reporting on ads.
I see what you are saying though, most of that isn't shiny.
"You mean you're mad because people are trying to get you a job?" "Yeah, but..."
I really appreciated the people who did listen and sign up though - it feels really good when they do listen to you when you state the best way to contact you. Recruiters take note!
That being said, the best recruiters take the long view, and realize that their career depends on maintaining relationships and growing their reputation. If they become known as someone who simply puts butts in chairs, they won't get very far. However, if they develop a reputation as someone who really is looking out for everyone's interests, their words will carry more weight with their customers, and they'll have the best product to sell.
I have only had 2 bad experiences with recruiters one was just a dick about salary disclosure (whom I fired and put his agency on my personal black list) and one totally misrepresented me to the client.
Having your recruiters behave badly doesn't really help the company brand.
The behavior of recruiters is puzzling to me. I've repeatedly been contacted by recruiters who want to talk to me about opportunities at X (where X has been Amazon, Google, and a few others). I've responded to these and then received no further contact from the recruiter. They go to the trouble of making a pitch to me and then disappear when their pitch is well-received. My only guess is that they're operating like a telemarketer, spamming the message out to some large number of people to ensure they get a few responses and ignoring any extras.
Just last week a Google recruiter contacted me and gave me a link to his calendar to schedule an appointment. I made the appointment and he no-showed. He later contacted me and said he'd spent the day at a conference he received a last-minute invite to attend. I'm just astounded that these folks treat people with such contempt, given that it reflects poorly on them and the business they're associated with.