For many of these staffing firms, it's really a numbers game for them. They throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. On perm roles, when you are getting $15-20,000 just for making an "introduction", there is heavy competition and incentive to try to "win" as many placements as possible.
In the contract IT space, fake resumes are the norm. There are some firms that just train up people in a technology, build them a fake resume with 4 years experience, then hope they perform on a phone interview and last past the first week or two of the contract and have learned enough to fulfill the contract.
For disruption, I like what Developer Auction[1] is doing. Where the companies bid on each person they wish to employ and drive up the salary / signing bonus. Seems to be a better model than what is currently out there.
Certainly a useful alternative but I can't imagine it will make a dent on the industry. Ultimately there are a huge number of companies that require average developers and can't be bothered to invest their own time into finding them so instead they pay a recruiter a lump sum to do it on their behalf.
I agree, but I think developer auction could make a dent in less average, "higher-end recruiting", like in highly competitive companies and locations who snipe talent from each other in SV.
I like the idea - except I don't care for the short list of companies they have devs from. From my personal experience I wouldn't hire anyone from Facebook, Twitter or Zynga unless they could really show me something. But the overall concept is interesting.
We're a bit more open than the homepage of DeveloperAuction suggestion - for example, we'll accept select senior developers from Yahoo, Microsoft, Yelp, LinkedIn, Apple, Intuit, Groupon, Salesforce, Etsy, Gilte Groupe, Meetup, Amazon, etc.
It's just a rudimentary filter for the time being.
In the contract IT space, fake resumes are the norm. There are some firms that just train up people in a technology, build them a fake resume with 4 years experience, then hope they perform on a phone interview and last past the first week or two of the contract and have learned enough to fulfill the contract.
For disruption, I like what Developer Auction[1] is doing. Where the companies bid on each person they wish to employ and drive up the salary / signing bonus. Seems to be a better model than what is currently out there.
[1] http://developerauction.com/