I’ve spent the last week or so busy with recruiting, and I’ve learnt some interesting things. So thought I’d post something small just before I take the tube home…. I’ll try not to be too sarcastic.

1. Most recruitment agents seem to be early 20 something bottom feeders who don’t or can’t read, and have no industry experience
2. Most of the agents don’t really know the difference between the various technologies or just do a search on language (instead of focus), so therefore send you crud which you still have to filter out – I received a Linux systems engineer CV for a php role
3. Warning signals include:
   • “I called you earlier”
   • “so you’re hiring a developer, what’s he going to be doing day to day?”
   • “I’m sure he’s great for your social application, he’s got loads of enterprise Java experience”
   • and my personal favourite of today “an excellent web2 ASP Javasphere candidate” (*note, not knocking Java)
4. There are some gems who know their stuff, who listen, and who actually have good candidates = these are gold
5. Most developers don’t seem to know how to communicate why you should hire them, so learn to ask good questions that lead to what you want to find out
6. Your ear is going to get warm, so get comfy
7. Take water to phone call
8. Update:Agents seem to get surprised when you contact previous employers to get feedback on candidates (surely this is something they should do??)

That’s it – hope that helps, and I’m wondering whether you’ve had any experiences with agents and recruiting?