<story><title>Takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech</title><url>https://philcalcado.com/2021/12/20/job_hunt.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nicholasjarnold</author><text>I have a feeling it&amp;#x27;s a sales tactic which seeks to purposely use up a candidate&amp;#x27;s time with the hope that the candidate falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy.&lt;p&gt;Desired inner monologue I think they hope to generate in us: &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ve already spent 3 calls and a couple of hours talking to &amp;lt;recruiter&amp;gt;, so I might as well continue on with the process lest I end up wasting all that time.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m a dev and not a recruiter, so take this with a grain of salt.</text></item><item><author>qrohlf</author><text>&amp;gt; Recruiters love phone calls and don’t like doing things over email or text. This means that it is very easy to get overwhelmed by the number of recruiters trying to call you, and we will explore time management a little further down the text.&lt;p&gt;This has been my experience as well, and while I understand the desire for introductory &amp;quot;sales mode&amp;quot; type calls, I think it&amp;#x27;s progressed past that point to something nearly pathological.&lt;p&gt;As an example, I recently had a recruiter that I was previously in contact with over email cold-call me while I was skiing, trying to schedule a meeting with a hiring manager (I picked up the call because I thought it might be one of the people in my group that I didn&amp;#x27;t have in my contacts). When I requested she please send me an email to schedule the meeting, as I was out of the office, I got an email where she &lt;i&gt;sent an email to schedule the phone call, to then schedule the meeting over the phone&lt;/i&gt;. It was 100% the least efficient way to do this, and only happened because of this illogically strong preference for phone calls that recruiters seem to have...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fenomas</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s weird to imagine devious hidden motives like this, when recruiters already have obvious natural reasons to want to do a phone call.&lt;p&gt;Example 1: they need to get a rough idea of whether you&amp;#x27;re a jerk, whether you can communicate in the required language, whether your resume is BS, etc. Remember, nobody&amp;#x27;s paying the recruiter to find you a job - somebody&amp;#x27;s paying them to find high-quality candidates. Their job is to sell you, so naturally they want to know what they&amp;#x27;re selling.&lt;p&gt;Example 2: simple context switching. If your job required you to be involved in dozens or hundreds of simultaneous ongoing negotiations, wouldn&amp;#x27;t you find it more efficient to block out 30-minute calls with each stakeholder, rather than jumping around between a hundred different email threads full of single-question emails?&lt;p&gt;One could probably come up with more straightforward reasons. As a general rule though, nobody is ever consciously &lt;i&gt;trying&lt;/i&gt; to waste your time. They&amp;#x27;re trying not to waste their &lt;i&gt;own&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech</title><url>https://philcalcado.com/2021/12/20/job_hunt.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nicholasjarnold</author><text>I have a feeling it&amp;#x27;s a sales tactic which seeks to purposely use up a candidate&amp;#x27;s time with the hope that the candidate falls victim to the sunk cost fallacy.&lt;p&gt;Desired inner monologue I think they hope to generate in us: &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ve already spent 3 calls and a couple of hours talking to &amp;lt;recruiter&amp;gt;, so I might as well continue on with the process lest I end up wasting all that time.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;disclosure: I&amp;#x27;m a dev and not a recruiter, so take this with a grain of salt.</text></item><item><author>qrohlf</author><text>&amp;gt; Recruiters love phone calls and don’t like doing things over email or text. This means that it is very easy to get overwhelmed by the number of recruiters trying to call you, and we will explore time management a little further down the text.&lt;p&gt;This has been my experience as well, and while I understand the desire for introductory &amp;quot;sales mode&amp;quot; type calls, I think it&amp;#x27;s progressed past that point to something nearly pathological.&lt;p&gt;As an example, I recently had a recruiter that I was previously in contact with over email cold-call me while I was skiing, trying to schedule a meeting with a hiring manager (I picked up the call because I thought it might be one of the people in my group that I didn&amp;#x27;t have in my contacts). When I requested she please send me an email to schedule the meeting, as I was out of the office, I got an email where she &lt;i&gt;sent an email to schedule the phone call, to then schedule the meeting over the phone&lt;/i&gt;. It was 100% the least efficient way to do this, and only happened because of this illogically strong preference for phone calls that recruiters seem to have...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>felipellrocha</author><text>I think this is an unnecessarily cynical view. A phone call is just warmer, and recruiters probably close more often by going to a phone call.</text></comment>