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0 pointsSteveNuts11mo ago0 comments

Totally unrelated, but I was once contacted by an Amazon recruiter and sent him my resume.

He called me to discuss my experience, one of which mentioned that I worked in an environment where my team managed "30,000+ servers". He took the opportunity to say something along the lines of "that's irrelevant, that's smaller than one datacenter in one of our regions".

I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these places have such a superiority complex that they need to belittle people like that. It's not even the manager of the team you'd be working on, just some recruiter that probably doesn't have any of the skills/background the job they're recruiting for requires. Yet they need to make you feel small and worthless right out of the gate.

Is it just prepping you for how you'll be treated there? Trying to select for people that are okay with being belittled?

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deepsun11mo ago

One positive thing I heard from Amazon folks is that everyone there is honest that they hate the company and hang there only for moneys. Both ICs, their managers, and managers of their managers. At least no hypocrisy.

seanmcdirmid11mo ago

Oh ya this. Also their recruiters aren’t the best but they are the most persistent. Meta seems to be going in the Amazon direction unfortunately, I still think Google is the least bad of the three.

holsta11mo ago

> I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these places have such a superiority complex that they need to belittle people like that.

Many, many years ago I sat next to HR in an open plan office while on a freelance gig.

They treated almost all candidates like subhumans, both when talking about the candidates within the team and when speaking on the phone to candidates.

They handled everyone from factory worker and janitorial roles, to specialists to director level. I very clearly got the impression that they only treated candidates well if those candidates could turn into people who had any power over them within the org.

I've carried that with me since and I often recognize it in HR staff I interact with now.

rvba11mo ago

Linkein is now full of recruiters looking for work, who never had any network.

The barrier of entry to become a receruiter in general is very, very low.

dsr_11mo ago

At Amazon? Yes, very likely.

PaulHoule11mo ago

I remember a few years back when it seemed anyone who (1) had a pulse and (2) had rumors circulating that they might be a software developer got a contact from an AMZN recruiter about once a month if not sooner. It was frequent to have somebody complain on HN about how they could not get an interview with FAANG and I'd say "you really haven't gotten interviews with AMZN" and of course they were getting interviews with AMZN.

entropicdrifter11mo ago

I once wrote a reply email to an Amazon recruiter saying effectively, "If Amazon were the last software company left on earth, I would rather become a carpenter than work there. Please never ask me to interview there again."

Anyhow a couple years later I got called by a recruiter from Amazon asking me if I'd be willing to relocate to work there.

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