Recruiting companies focused on web software

February 13, 2008

Are there recruiting companies that focus specifically on web technology professionals? Some headhunters will focus on certain verticals – financial, biotech, etc. Many recruiters tend to focus on particular geographic niches – cities, regions, etc. And when talking with some recruiting companies, I get the sense that certain recruiters in a company tend to handle certain types of jobs – some people will handle more tech/web stuff than others. But I’ve not yet seen an agency that specifically focuses on web technology.

I was discussing this with a friend today and his initial reaction was that it sounded too narrow. Focusing on just .Net or PHP, in my view, would be too narrow, but web technology in general feels broad enough to warrant its own niche job placement services. I guess sites like elancer.com might serve this purpose, but they also seem to be too little. Some of the recruiting companies I’ve worked with over the years do not have a good grasp of the technologies involved, and this hurts both parties. Without that grasp, the recruiter can’t help a company accurately describe their needs in words that webdevs will grok, and the webdevs will tune out poorly written postings or apply for things that are really not a match, wasting time.

For example, looking at job descriptions that require 10 years of .Net, for example, are just a waste of time. Likewise descriptions that ask for someone with expert knowledge of .Net, Java, Linux, NT, Solaris, XML, SQL Server, Postgresql, Excel and Notes scream out that the company likely doesn’t really know what they want. It’s not that it’s completely impossible to have strong knowledge in all of those techs, but to require ‘expert’ status in all of those technologies makes it seem like the company may just be fishing for resumes.

Are there agencies or services that focus specifically on webdevs?

Posted in Business, Job, Web