32 ms·

I always thought the preference for phone calls over e-mails is so there's no written account of anything that might be convenient to backtrack on in the future

I always thought the preference for phone calls over e-mails is so there's no written account of anything that might be convenient to backtrack on in the future.

mavelikara 5y ago
No. Phone calls are more personal than emails. Some people like that. For everyone complaining here about getting phone calls, there is another half who'd jibe "Damn, another templatized email. Why should I be interested if you haven't put any time of yours into communicating with me??" TL;DR: programers are hard to please. No good deed goes unpunished.
- 9dev 5y ago
  I mean, all I expect is a mail written by someone personally, referencing at least any of my work, offering a job I’m actually qualified for and would fit previous experience. Receiving fifty mails for a senior Java developer is pretty jarring if there’s no single Java role on your CV… Is that too much to ask from recruiters?
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    I got offered an internship recently. 12 years experience. Why?!?
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Who cares if they're more personal. Phone calls are more intrusive than e-mail unless they're pre-scheduled.
- csydas 5y ago
  I don't think it's that simple really; it seems like people (not just programmers) are hard to please because the circumstances and available time differ from day to day, and different conversations are better sometimes in email and others on a call. I'm very protective of my time in general because I tend to be involved in many things: sometimes technical, bureaucratic, sometimes internal-political, and so many more. Each category requires a different part of my attention/focus which I'm not always readily able to shift to, or more importantly, would rather not shift to as I'm more preoccupied with a different category. Most importantly, the majority of the time all these calls have one common denominator; the requestor wants/needs something from me, not the other way around. Wanting/needing my help or input isn't something wrong in and of itself, but if it's not reciprocal and especially if it's not something I'm obligated to do, I absolutely tend to be pretty defensive of my time. It's perfectly common in modern business to exploit people's tendency towards good faith interpretations and our aversion to conflict, and disengaging from situations/requests that aren't one's responsibility is something many people have difficulty with. (Just think in your work place if you know someone who just has a hard time saying "no" and over-commits themselves constantly) And it's a skill to identify these situations and gracefully disengage depending on the person who is creating the situation in the first place. When there are complaints about a template email, the opposite of that isn't a phone call, it's taking the time to state a point clearly and directly and showing that it has specific relevance to you and justifying your time/attention. A conversation can be just as "template" as any email, even more so sometimes when you are listening to someone who speaks only in aphorisms but cannot go deeper than that. ("You have a chance to get in on the ground floor of something truly revolutionary!", "It's a high-paced high-reward environment that a 10x-er like you can thrive in, and the growth opportunities are limitless!", or even we can think of the hey-day of descriptions along the lines of "the Uber of _____") If the conversation lacks substance or purpose to someone specific and relies on general advertisement like attention grabs to keep you going, it doesn't matter what the medium is, the conversation simply offers next to no value. A phone call doesn't mean personal by any means, it just means a slightly higher amount of attention and a situation that is sometimes difficult for people to exit. It has it's time and place, but far too many people exploit the good nature of others to peddle some agenda that serves only themselves. Absolutely, we should be more protective of our time/attention, and we should be more respectful of other people's time/attention
  - mavelikara 5y ago
    > Each category requires a different part of my attention/focus which I'm not always readily able to shift to, or more importantly, would rather not shift to as I'm more preoccupied with a different category. ... > but if it's not reciprocal and especially if it's not something I'm obligated to do, I absolutely tend to be pretty defensive of my time. You have every right to protect your time - I did not state otherwise. For abrupt interruptions on the phone, the simplest way that has worked for me is to not answer the call. All I stated was that phone calls have their value, and the reason for using them is NOT exclusively to avoid leaving a paper trail. If one of the people on the call wants to leave a paper trail, it is easy to email "Hey, thanks for the call. Just so I totally understand, we agreed XYZ on the phone. Please confirm if that is your understanding too." Also, if I understood correctly, the person I was replying to was not exclusively talking about phone calls for the first outreach. But your response suggests you are talking about interruptions on the phone.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  > For everyone complaining here about getting phone calls, there is another half who'd jibe "Damn, another templatized email. This is a false dichotomy. A non-templated phone call can be replaced with a non-templated email. Incredibly easy to please. Paper trails are very professional.
- saurik 5y ago
  What happened to the happy middle ground of sending a personal email? Why are the two extremes having someone insist on synchronous voice communication on the one side and a fully automated e-mail on the other?
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Programmers as a group may be hard to please. The programmer in question, though, is not so hard: Send them an email to schedule the meeting with the hiring manager. That's not hard. And if you're a recruiter and you can't listen to a request like that, how are you going to listen to the rest of what the candidate says?
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    > The programmer in question, though, is not so hard: Send them an email to schedule the meeting with the hiring manager. That's not hard. It is not trivial either. Neither side wants to show their full availability immediately and you eventually have to block multiple timeslots till a response comes in. On a call you can give out preferred times at first and if they aren't a match look for alternatives. And you can confirm on both calendars at once without blocking other slots as well. But yes, shouldn't be hard to manage ...
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I'll typically give out 3 slots that work for me and "if none of those work, propose a few days next week where you have availability and I'll offer additional slot in those days". I've only had that go more than a couple rounds when trying to setup meetings with someone incredibly busy (and those people often have assistants that I can work directly with to find a slot). I'm not opposed to getting on a phone call to setup a meeting, but only after the vastly more efficient method has failed twice.
      - pbourke 5y ago
        Some people are switching to the “book time with me” apps, which seem to be a better way to handle this.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        Sure, if I wanted to offer “take any free time” to the counterparty. It’s more common that I want to offer a slot that’s adjacent to other interruptions in my day. If I have a 4 hour block of focused work time, I’m not offering as an opening bid 30 minutes in the middle of it to my CEO let alone a recruiter.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
devoutsalsa 5y ago
When I was a recruiter, mostly I wanted to make sure you could speak English well enough to hold a conversation, make sure you were interested enough to go through the process, and make sure you weren’t an asshole. Also I could help sell you to the hiring manager by getting details I know the manager is looking for, and getting that information over email can take too much back & forth. But really just making sure you could hold a conversation was big, as so many applicants cannot.
- syngrog66 5y ago
  > When I was a recruiter, mostly I wanted to make sure you could speak English well enough to hold a conversation, make sure you were interested enough to go through the process, and make sure you weren’t an asshole that makes sense and I respect that. the problem is that it is a jerky thing for the recruiter to do. and as someone looking for a new job/gig one of my top filters is to avoid/eliminate jerks where I can. it might feel paradoxical or counter-intuitive to the recruiter, but in trying to weed out jerks, they themselves can behave like a jerk. and thus we will weed you out. ;-)
  - imajoredinecon 5y ago
    Strong disagree. As a candidate I want to make sure everyone’s time is being used effectively, and I’m perfectly happy to offer up information that can be used to make sure it’s a good match. It’s not “jerky” to want to know a candidate can hold a conversation: it’s (in my opinion) eminently reasonable due diligence.
    - ok_dad 5y ago
      Someone who immediately jumps to calling someone a jerk, not knowing that there are probably good reasons for what a professional recruiter does (like phone calls) probably is a jerk themselves, honestly. I personally appreciated when my recruiter would talk with me on the phone versus email, as they took the time to really listen to me and find out what I wanted from a job, rather than treating me like another dart they had to throw out of twenty darts to try and get a bullseye. Maybe I’ve always talked to good recruiters but I’ve never questioned their methods and gotten several good jobs with great pay raises from them.
urthor 5y ago
Not really. No recruiter is trying to avoid a paper trail, that's not their gig. It's a reputation based industry, there's no limited liability like with corporations. There's three reasons: #1: The phone call allows them to get a read on your personality by listening to your tone of voice and your attentiveness. #2: There's a whole body of research that says building rapport etc means the deal is more likely to get over the line, basic sales. #3: Recruiters like to talk on the phone. The primary reason people get into recruiting is that talking on the phone all day sounds like a swell time to them.
- stathibus 5y ago
  Having worked with recruiters on the other side, I think the biggest contributor is a version of number 2 - they think they will get a better result via their amazing powers of verbal persuasion and charm. In reality they are probably applying selection bias and only moving forward on the people sufficiently interested that they actually pick up the phone.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    > via their amazing powers of verbal persuasion and charm. Not really. Just the mere act of talking to a human being is a more invested act than an email.
  - thisoneistheone 5y ago
  - roenxi 5y ago
    That sounds effective, they are probably happy with that bias. If people aren't interested enough to talk to them for half an hour then the outcome will probably be so-so.
    - stathibus 5y ago
      I really disagree, it selects people with high tolerance for others wasting their time, so it chases away the most high value candidates.

I always thought the preference for phone calls over e-mails is so there's no written account of anything that might be convenient to backtrack on in the future.

mavelikara 5y ago

No. Phone calls are more personal than emails. Some people like that. For everyone complaining here about getting phone calls, there is another half who'd jibe "Damn, another templatized email. Why should I be interested if you haven't put any time of yours into communicating with me??" TL;DR: programers are hard to please. No good deed goes unpunished.

9dev 5y ago
I mean, all I expect is a mail written by someone personally, referencing at least any of my work, offering a job I’m actually qualified for and would fit previous experience. Receiving fifty mails for a senior Java developer is pretty jarring if there’s no single Java role on your CV… Is that too much to ask from recruiters?
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  I got offered an internship recently. 12 years experience. Why?!?
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Who cares if they're more personal. Phone calls are more intrusive than e-mail unless they're pre-scheduled.
csydas 5y ago
I don't think it's that simple really; it seems like people (not just programmers) are hard to please because the circumstances and available time differ from day to day, and different conversations are better sometimes in email and others on a call. I'm very protective of my time in general because I tend to be involved in many things: sometimes technical, bureaucratic, sometimes internal-political, and so many more. Each category requires a different part of my attention/focus which I'm not always readily able to shift to, or more importantly, would rather not shift to as I'm more preoccupied with a different category. Most importantly, the majority of the time all these calls have one common denominator; the requestor wants/needs something from me, not the other way around. Wanting/needing my help or input isn't something wrong in and of itself, but if it's not reciprocal and especially if it's not something I'm obligated to do, I absolutely tend to be pretty defensive of my time. It's perfectly common in modern business to exploit people's tendency towards good faith interpretations and our aversion to conflict, and disengaging from situations/requests that aren't one's responsibility is something many people have difficulty with. (Just think in your work place if you know someone who just has a hard time saying "no" and over-commits themselves constantly) And it's a skill to identify these situations and gracefully disengage depending on the person who is creating the situation in the first place. When there are complaints about a template email, the opposite of that isn't a phone call, it's taking the time to state a point clearly and directly and showing that it has specific relevance to you and justifying your time/attention. A conversation can be just as "template" as any email, even more so sometimes when you are listening to someone who speaks only in aphorisms but cannot go deeper than that. ("You have a chance to get in on the ground floor of something truly revolutionary!", "It's a high-paced high-reward environment that a 10x-er like you can thrive in, and the growth opportunities are limitless!", or even we can think of the hey-day of descriptions along the lines of "the Uber of _____") If the conversation lacks substance or purpose to someone specific and relies on general advertisement like attention grabs to keep you going, it doesn't matter what the medium is, the conversation simply offers next to no value. A phone call doesn't mean personal by any means, it just means a slightly higher amount of attention and a situation that is sometimes difficult for people to exit. It has it's time and place, but far too many people exploit the good nature of others to peddle some agenda that serves only themselves. Absolutely, we should be more protective of our time/attention, and we should be more respectful of other people's time/attention
- mavelikara 5y ago
  > Each category requires a different part of my attention/focus which I'm not always readily able to shift to, or more importantly, would rather not shift to as I'm more preoccupied with a different category. ... > but if it's not reciprocal and especially if it's not something I'm obligated to do, I absolutely tend to be pretty defensive of my time. You have every right to protect your time - I did not state otherwise. For abrupt interruptions on the phone, the simplest way that has worked for me is to not answer the call. All I stated was that phone calls have their value, and the reason for using them is NOT exclusively to avoid leaving a paper trail. If one of the people on the call wants to leave a paper trail, it is easy to email "Hey, thanks for the call. Just so I totally understand, we agreed XYZ on the phone. Please confirm if that is your understanding too." Also, if I understood correctly, the person I was replying to was not exclusively talking about phone calls for the first outreach. But your response suggests you are talking about interruptions on the phone.
xboxnolifes 5y ago
> For everyone complaining here about getting phone calls, there is another half who'd jibe "Damn, another templatized email. This is a false dichotomy. A non-templated phone call can be replaced with a non-templated email. Incredibly easy to please. Paper trails are very professional.
saurik 5y ago
What happened to the happy middle ground of sending a personal email? Why are the two extremes having someone insist on synchronous voice communication on the one side and a fully automated e-mail on the other?
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Programmers as a group may be hard to please. The programmer in question, though, is not so hard: Send them an email to schedule the meeting with the hiring manager. That's not hard. And if you're a recruiter and you can't listen to a request like that, how are you going to listen to the rest of what the candidate says?
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  > The programmer in question, though, is not so hard: Send them an email to schedule the meeting with the hiring manager. That's not hard. It is not trivial either. Neither side wants to show their full availability immediately and you eventually have to block multiple timeslots till a response comes in. On a call you can give out preferred times at first and if they aren't a match look for alternatives. And you can confirm on both calendars at once without blocking other slots as well. But yes, shouldn't be hard to manage ...
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I'll typically give out 3 slots that work for me and "if none of those work, propose a few days next week where you have availability and I'll offer additional slot in those days". I've only had that go more than a couple rounds when trying to setup meetings with someone incredibly busy (and those people often have assistants that I can work directly with to find a slot). I'm not opposed to getting on a phone call to setup a meeting, but only after the vastly more efficient method has failed twice.
    - pbourke 5y ago
      Some people are switching to the “book time with me” apps, which seem to be a better way to handle this.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Sure, if I wanted to offer “take any free time” to the counterparty. It’s more common that I want to offer a slot that’s adjacent to other interruptions in my day. If I have a 4 hour block of focused work time, I’m not offering as an opening bid 30 minutes in the middle of it to my CEO let alone a recruiter.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

devoutsalsa 5y ago

When I was a recruiter, mostly I wanted to make sure you could speak English well enough to hold a conversation, make sure you were interested enough to go through the process, and make sure you weren’t an asshole. Also I could help sell you to the hiring manager by getting details I know the manager is looking for, and getting that information over email can take too much back & forth. But really just making sure you could hold a conversation was big, as so many applicants cannot.

syngrog66 5y ago
> When I was a recruiter, mostly I wanted to make sure you could speak English well enough to hold a conversation, make sure you were interested enough to go through the process, and make sure you weren’t an asshole that makes sense and I respect that. the problem is that it is a jerky thing for the recruiter to do. and as someone looking for a new job/gig one of my top filters is to avoid/eliminate jerks where I can. it might feel paradoxical or counter-intuitive to the recruiter, but in trying to weed out jerks, they themselves can behave like a jerk. and thus we will weed you out. ;-)
- imajoredinecon 5y ago
  Strong disagree. As a candidate I want to make sure everyone’s time is being used effectively, and I’m perfectly happy to offer up information that can be used to make sure it’s a good match. It’s not “jerky” to want to know a candidate can hold a conversation: it’s (in my opinion) eminently reasonable due diligence.
  - ok_dad 5y ago
    Someone who immediately jumps to calling someone a jerk, not knowing that there are probably good reasons for what a professional recruiter does (like phone calls) probably is a jerk themselves, honestly. I personally appreciated when my recruiter would talk with me on the phone versus email, as they took the time to really listen to me and find out what I wanted from a job, rather than treating me like another dart they had to throw out of twenty darts to try and get a bullseye. Maybe I’ve always talked to good recruiters but I’ve never questioned their methods and gotten several good jobs with great pay raises from them.

urthor 5y ago

Not really. No recruiter is trying to avoid a paper trail, that's not their gig. It's a reputation based industry, there's no limited liability like with corporations. There's three reasons: #1: The phone call allows them to get a read on your personality by listening to your tone of voice and your attentiveness. #2: There's a whole body of research that says building rapport etc means the deal is more likely to get over the line, basic sales. #3: Recruiters like to talk on the phone. The primary reason people get into recruiting is that talking on the phone all day sounds like a swell time to them.

stathibus 5y ago
Having worked with recruiters on the other side, I think the biggest contributor is a version of number 2 - they think they will get a better result via their amazing powers of verbal persuasion and charm. In reality they are probably applying selection bias and only moving forward on the people sufficiently interested that they actually pick up the phone.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  > via their amazing powers of verbal persuasion and charm. Not really. Just the mere act of talking to a human being is a more invested act than an email.
- thisoneistheone 5y ago
- roenxi 5y ago
  That sounds effective, they are probably happy with that bias. If people aren't interested enough to talk to them for half an hour then the outcome will probably be so-so.
  - stathibus 5y ago
    I really disagree, it selects people with high tolerance for others wasting their time, so it chases away the most high value candidates.