🕵🏻‍♂️ I'm a double agent: developer & recruiter 👨🏻‍💻 💒
Tags: career, showdev, discuss, beginners
Published: 2023-07-31 19:31:39

_Hello, this is my first draft at picthing the weird career change I'm going through, please provide feedback in the comments!_

## 👨🏻‍💻 I'm a developer

That part is easy to explain.

I have worked for 15 years as a developer, first with Android and then I focus backend stuff, mostly with Java & Kotlin

You can spy my GitHub here
https://github.com/jmfayard/

## 🤨 I'm a solo recruiter

I switched careers in March 2023 to become a solo recruiter.

I'm often asked **WHY**? 

That seems really strange.

And there is a huge personal story behind.

But the short answer is simple: the recruiting world in tech is a jungle.

The biggest job board in France is called "Welcome to the jungle" 

.... and nobody is surprised or asks why?

Everyone understands instinctively.

## 🥰 Hiring is like seduction.

You have girls on the left, boys on the right

The job consists "**simply**" in matching the right boy and the right girl.

By simply I mean it's very very hard.

That's an explanation, not an excuse.

It's very hard too to write software with no bugs.

Does that mean that we should not do our best to become better at it?

## 🙄 Hiring today is like seduction in the 1950s.

Boys and companies on the right are supposed to be the ones who take the initiative and choose and  select.

Girls and devs on the left are supposed to make a nice profile in their resume and linkedin

They then just wait to be selected.

Sometime they wait for a very long time.

And when they are selected, they should accept and be grateful.

Because they might never have a second chance.
They think.

## 🕵🏻‍♂️ I'm an agent for developer careers

Hiring jus like seduction should be understood as a two ways streets.

Companies have needs and select developers that match them.

Developers have needs and select companies that match them.


So we can do hiring both the usual way by coaching companies and help them find candidates. 
Head hunters.

Or we can do hiring by coaching candidates and help them find companies. 
Agents.

What that means is that I am doing **inverted recruitment**. 

## 🙃  Inverted recruitment

We should flip hiring on its head

That's what seniors do, they don't send a CV to the first random recruiters on LinkedIn, they have their networks and they are assective about their own hiring criteria.

But if you are not there yet, well you can take an agent.

Agents are very very rare in tech

We are like 10 agents for devs in France.

That's not much for a huge market...

Not enough.

But agents are common among artists.

Artists tend to be great at art... but they usually suck at marketing and project management and sales.

While devs tend to be great at programming... but they usually suck at marketing and project management and sales.

I hope you see the analogy here :)

## 💡 Write your candidate specs

With inverted recruitment devs become the actors of their own careers.

Consider your developer life as an IT project.

What are your specs?

[Credits to Erik Dietrich](https://daedtech.com/my-candidate-description/), it's the first time I've seen this being done

Today that's one big thing I'm doing.

I help devs clarity what they really want in their careers.

I help them understand their needs, their motivation.

I help them define who they want to work with.

Their red flags too, we are in the jungle.

Everything is so simpler when you have clarity and focus and motivation!

## 🫣  Double agents like recruiters have a bad reputation

Recruiters have a bad reputation.

There is so much distrust, and it's not helping.

I have a friend who bought a second SIM card specifically to honeypot recruiter calls.

In fact recruiters are often nice and helpful when you contact them directly. 

We should talk more, because at the end of the day we have common interests.

But this bad reputation doesn't come from nowhere.

I used to profoundly dislike recruiters,

I don't anymore because I met the good ones, but I did.

Their job is hard and important, and also often done badly, in part because it's hard.

But again  it's not because writing software without bugs is hard that we shouldn't try to do it with the best of possibilities.

The fact is that there are too much bad practices.

## ✍🏻 Writing about bad hiring practices

On the public side, in case you didn't notice, I have written lots of articles about bad hiring practices on DEV.to

[“What is your current salary?” is a red flag that you don’t want to work here ](https://dev.to/jmfayard/what-is-your-current-salary-is-a-red-flag-that-you-don-t-want-to-work-here-3aji)

[Keep Calm And Just Say No To Coding Challenges](https://dev.to/jmfayard/keep-calm-and-just-say-no-to-coding-challenges-1a4)

And more generally on dev careers.

[The Real Imposter is The Inner Judge - On Imposter Symdrome - DEV Community](https://dev.to/jmfayard/the-real-imposter-is-the-inner-judge-3e01)

[Who do I Want to Work With? A Simple Framework - DEV Community](https://dev.to/jmfayard/who-do-i-want-to-work-with-a-simple-framework-3hnl)



## That was my attempt at pitching the weird stuff I'm currently doing.

👉🏻 Tell me what you think here or by email at jmfayard@gmail.com