ASK HN: Going around a tech recruiter
jsdalton: It's hard hiring tech people, and most small companies aren't very skilled at hiring people.My company had this difficulty recently...we posted the job on craigslist and on our site but didnt' get what we were looking for.A headhunter finally contacted me and offered me a great developer. We loved him and hired him. That was 6 months ago and he's still doing great work for us.The headhunter got a 5-figure fee on the deal...for what? Probably just helping my developer out with his paperwork and then interceding with us on his behalf. He couldn't have spent more than 8 hours working with us and working with our developer.And yet, I love my new developer and we would not have found him without this headhunter's help.Moral of the story: Think of headhunters like investment bankers. They make enormous sums of money (sometimes) and seemingly do no real "work", but they can play a very useful role in the functioning of the market (in this case the "talent" market).I'd stick with your guy.