Why you should never work with technical recruiters

If your company needs resources to complete some software development work, do yourself a favor and stay away from recruiting firms.  You will save yourself thousands of dollars and find a better candidate.  To illustrate my point let me show you an e-mail conversation I had recently with a recruiter from a very large firm.  They were looking to find a developer with business intelligence experience for a manufacturing client.  I just happen to have quite a bit of experience in developing business intelligence apps in my 13 years of experience as a developer.

Recruiter: Are you interested in this job? (paraphrased)

Me: I am interested but the rate I’m looking for is $75/hour.  Is this figure in the ballpark of what they’re looking for?

Recruiter: No actually this is a contract to hire position, the perm salary won’t be 160K, so if we paid 75/hour it wouldn’t be in line with what the company is paying on the perm side.

[Notice that she avoided the question directly, of course $75/hour is the client's ballpark]

Me: $75/hour seems fair to me since the contractor (me) is bearing almost all of the risk in a contract to hire situation.  Not to mention, I’d have to pay my own health benefits which is expensive for a family of 5, so in my opinion the rate should never be based on a straight-line continuation of the expected salary.  That just isn’t fair.  I’m willing to work with Robert Half on a contractual basis if you will be transparent about your rates.   I have 13 years development experience, am one class away from having a Masters degree in Business Administration and can provide a long list of very happy clients that I’ve done work for in the past.  But if Robert Half only hires intermediate and mid-level developers then let me know so we can both move on to other opportunities.

Recruiter:  I don’t think we’d be able to work with that situation.

LOL…”that situation”???  You mean telling me what you are actually charging the client that I am doing work for so I can be compensated appropriately?  Keep in mind that most recruiters make about 25%-40% margin on the jobs that they bid which is insane if you ask me.  Basically what this recruiter was telling me is that it is more important that they maintain their 40% margin rather than hire the most qualified person for the job.  So now they will go out and find some junior level developer with 2-3 years experience and prop up their resume with some fictitious crap that impresses the client.  After all, it is kind of in favor of the recruiting firm if the project runs a little over budget anyway.

So, when you need to hire a developer, especially for the short-term basis, go post a job description somewhere; anywhere!  Even if it’s on something as archaic as craig’s list, it’s better than working with a recruiting firm!  The one guarantee you have from recruiting firms is that they will always charge you as much as possible for a candidate who is as minimally qualified as possible.

Bioorganic, eco-friendly, super compter!!

An anonymous software company has announced plans to release an amazing bioorganic device that is far more complex than anything ever created. 

The device has an extremely long shelf life in terms of technology and it never becomes outdated because it continually learns from its environment the more it is used!  The device acquires most of it’s information via its pair of light receptacles that work much like a camera.  Each light receptacle  takes widely diverging rays of light and bends them through a dark, round opening in the center of the receptacle.  The back end of each receptacle takes the light rays and translates them into electrical impulses that can be read by the device’s central cpu unit to form high-res 3d images.  This stream of 3d images also gives the device amost near-perfect motion detection and even more incredible - facial recognition!  The receptacles can also auto-focus in realtime while rendering a perfect 3d video stream which blows away anything on the market today!!

The central cpu unit can easily process over 400 billion bits per second but the actual power of the cpu is hard to express in typical processing terms because it uses a processing structure that is not like anything we’ve seen in any other device as of yet.  The cpu organizes its database of information in a way that allows it to add existing data from current inputs to previous inputs or stimuli therefore allowing all stored information to become increasingly rich in accuracy and relevance as the device gets used more and more.

The device runs completely cordless and instead gets its energy from the environment.   One of the most amazing features is that the device can self-recover from most minor damages and errors and can even learn to avoid common errors based on highly organized information in its large and unique database.

The device has the ability to both give commands and receive commands through typical speech patterns, allowing the user a completely hands-free experience!  The auditory system on this device is truly amazing.  The system is comprised of a pair of extremely intricate sound receptacles making the device capable of hearing in 3d which allows it to quickly locate which direction a sound came from.  It also can do automatic voice recognition and song recognition!  Most of these devices are also capable of creating music on their own.  They can create original songs based on their own preferences and experiences.

Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about this device is that the company cliams it came into being on its own!!  That’s right!  It kind of just happened!  Isnt that amazing?  The most intelligent and complex organism that we have ever seen, created itself out of basically nothing!!  It doesn’t seem possible!

February Stock Picks – update 2

So, this morning another one of my February stock picks hit its “trigger selling point”.  Pixel Works which is up 43%.  Very nice!

PXLW – +43%

So I think that puts our average ROI right now at about 36%.  Pretty sweet.

February Stock Picks – update 1

Ok so it’s been about a month since I made my February stock picks.  I need to make an update because according to my formula there is a certain point that I would like to sell each of the stocks as well.  Three of them have reached that point – Perrigo, Yuhe International, and LML Payment Systems.  Selling them today would yield these returns:

LML - +75% (wo hoo!  actually this was up about 110% earlier last week and I would’ve sold then, but fair is fair)
YUII - +11%
PRGO - +12%

So a very nice ROI thus far.  A couple of the other 7 are getting close to my “sell trigger”.  Overall the entire portfolio is up about 10% on average.  So maybe there’s something to my new formula I’m testing out??  Still needs a lot more repetition though.