<story><title>Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation</title><url>https://mocko.org.uk/b/2015/10/14/dont-feed-the-beast-the-great-tech-recruiter-infestation/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mbroshi</author><text>I will admit I did not make it through this entire article, but it really did not ring true to me at all--just sounded like an unsupported, hostile, angry rant.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; “Fucked if we care” think the recruiters, “now grovel and be exploited”.
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&amp;gt;&amp;gt; You’re meat to them, a resource to be packaged and sold and exploited.&lt;p&gt;Who&amp;#x27;s being exploited here? I think he&amp;#x27;s implying the programmers, but as someone who left academia for industry, I do not at all share that sentiment. When I think &amp;quot;exploited&amp;quot; I think of diamond miners in Africa or sex workers in Southeast Asia. I got my first job at a start-up through a recruiter, gained a ton of skills, later left, and now I have a very well-paying job at a place I love. People with technical skills are highly sought-after, and do quite well in my experience, whether or not they go through recruiters.&lt;p&gt;If a comment as irate, mean-spirited, and unsubstantiated as this blog post appeared in HN, it would get down-voted into oblivion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ascorbic</author><text>Are you in the UK? If so, I&amp;#x27;m seriously surprised this doesn&amp;#x27;t ring true. To me it exactly matches my experience both as a contractor and as an employer. 
As to who is being exploited here, it&amp;#x27;s the whole IT industry. They are rent-seekers, pure and simple, and they leech off our industry. They may not be sending children down mines, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t diminish the fact they are terrible companies and terrible people.</text></comment>
<story><title>Don’t Feed the Beast – The Great Tech Recruiter Infestation</title><url>https://mocko.org.uk/b/2015/10/14/dont-feed-the-beast-the-great-tech-recruiter-infestation/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mbroshi</author><text>I will admit I did not make it through this entire article, but it really did not ring true to me at all--just sounded like an unsupported, hostile, angry rant.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; “Fucked if we care” think the recruiters, “now grovel and be exploited”.
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&amp;gt;&amp;gt; You’re meat to them, a resource to be packaged and sold and exploited.&lt;p&gt;Who&amp;#x27;s being exploited here? I think he&amp;#x27;s implying the programmers, but as someone who left academia for industry, I do not at all share that sentiment. When I think &amp;quot;exploited&amp;quot; I think of diamond miners in Africa or sex workers in Southeast Asia. I got my first job at a start-up through a recruiter, gained a ton of skills, later left, and now I have a very well-paying job at a place I love. People with technical skills are highly sought-after, and do quite well in my experience, whether or not they go through recruiters.&lt;p&gt;If a comment as irate, mean-spirited, and unsubstantiated as this blog post appeared in HN, it would get down-voted into oblivion.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>praptak</author><text>&amp;gt; If a comment as irate, mean-spirited, and unsubstantiated as this blog post appeared in HN, it would get down-voted into oblivion.&lt;p&gt;Yet this article instead of getting flagged into oblivion got upvoted to #1 as of now. Could that be that HN readers&amp;#x27; experience with recruiters mirrors the author&amp;#x27;s experience?</text></comment>