Employers: If you get overwhelmed with applications, please post an update or a followup that you are, so that candidates know you're not processing applications any longer. Candidates take time to read your post, do research, then apply: if all that effort is never going to be reciprocated, be kind and inform upfront.
Candidates: HANG IN THERE. Also, please help out other candidates and let us know how the company has/is treating you.
dang (and HN Mods), a request: I understand making comments about company behavior is against the spirit of "Ask HN: Who is hiring?", so we want your help. Not only a lot more candidates are applying right now but a lot more are unemployed and have been for months. So they are desperate and companies are taking advantage of and abusing their desperation. Is there a way other candidates can comment on companies that misbehave? Two companies that have been prolific on "Ask HN: Who is hiring?", posting every month for the last year have been identified where they take every candidate through the whole interview process as an exercise to train their current staff on interviewing with no actual intention of hiring candidates - where should we share this feedback? Also, please see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39886586
Are any shops here paying Sr SWEs/SREs in the neighborhood of $350k+ USD TC remote, Austin, or SF Bay Area, or do they all suffer from startup haircut$?
right now, I would say the tech industry is dominated by LC style interviewing, followed by take home assignments, then a smattering of different techniques.
> I had one recently who revealed half an hour into the interview that there was “no cash compensation for the role”. Sure would’ve liked to see that written in the post.
You also made me think how first technical cofounders hedge against being taken for a ride even if they agree to no cash compensation for the role
Looking for unicorn candidates at low prices basically. This happened a lot post 2008.
We just hired a guy as a senior PM who has an MBA, credentials out the @$$, and worked as a former executive. He took a massive pay cut (like 350k to 125k). His reason was, "I want to stop traveling so I can be close to my mom." However he moved apartments to a place closer to our office so I get the impression it was something else.
> Great hires are hard to find. Why not hire both?
> It also cost money in time and effort for that much recruiting effort
Yes, Great hires are hard to find, and yes, it also cost money in time and effort for that much recruiting effort.
However, in the current market, great hires are getting easier to find and even if all the current team was doing was interviewing all day, every day (which is not the norm), the 1-3 months it takes to onboard an employee is the break even point.
Now when you notice that the current team does interviews an hour or so a day, unless a company was flush with cash (as MAANG was the last decade), hoarding candidates because they are hard to find, isn't capital efficient.
What's the solution? I propose increased transparency between candidates, so they can quickly figure out which companies are serious and which not.
> I propose increased transparency between candidates, so they can quickly figure out which companies are serious and which not.
I was considering a similar proposal, for holding recruiters, and the companies they represent, accountable for e.g. ghosting.
But I foresee a dilemma with this:
(1) To prevent abuse / lies / slander, we want to somehow tie reviews to the identities (or credentials) of the person reporting it.
(2) But given the legal risk that poses in many countries, few sane job seekers would provide such reviews. I.e., they'd be privatizing risk but for a common good.
> (1) To prevent abuse / lies / slander, we want to somehow tie reviews to the identities (or credentials) of the person reporting it.
Give it some more thought! There's a graph based solution that works equally well even if all participants (people providing feedback) are throwaway accounts with just one comment.
I assume you're responding to this part of my post?
> Candidates: HANG IN THERE. For those who are unemployed and have been for months, I suggest we create a separate post or move to a subreddit where we can do interviewing, resume and application reviews?
Using separate posts or changing platforms (subreddit) was for the candidates who are having a tough time getting hired and might need resume/interview reviews. This would be orthogonal to the "Who is hiring?" post themselves
> Aside from maybe 1-2 companies that seem to have evergreen postings on Who's Hiring
How likely is it that these 2 companies are actually hiring?
If a company was really needing to hire constantly for a year and wasn't a consulting company, rapidly ramping up adhoc projects, the highest likelihood it seems to me is that the management is really bad and they suffer high churn where they are going through candidates like candy (or they fear they will loose people and are building a queue to tap into during attrition).
> Sure do wish we had some sort of collective bargaining power to prevent this
This feels a bit too extreme but I assume it comes from a place of pain and the effects of being exploited.
A less extreme solution could be increased transparency.
Here are some examples:
- Companies that post "remote" but it's "remote" only if you live 50 miles away from an office location.
They divulge this only in the offer. Why did they do the interview if they knew you were 200 miles away? To find out whether there's another hub worth opening where there are equally skilled candidates but cheaper
- Companies that post take home assignments to see if a problem they have solved can be solved in a more efficient or novel way. They don't intend to hire - they just don't want to share their current solution and also want to find out if there's a better way to solve their problem
Employers: If you get overwhelmed with applications, please post an update or a followup that you are, so that candidates know you're not processing applications any longer. Candidates take time to read your post, do research, then apply: if all that effort is never going to be reciprocated, be kind and inform upfront.
Candidates: HANG IN THERE. Also, please help out other candidates and let us know how the company has/is treating you.
dang (and HN Mods), a request: I understand making comments about company behavior is against the spirit of "Ask HN: Who is hiring?", so we want your help. Not only a lot more candidates are applying right now but a lot more are unemployed and have been for months. So they are desperate and companies are taking advantage of and abusing their desperation. Is there a way other candidates can comment on companies that misbehave? Two companies that have been prolific on "Ask HN: Who is hiring?", posting every month for the last year have been identified where they take every candidate through the whole interview process as an exercise to train their current staff on interviewing with no actual intention of hiring candidates - where should we share this feedback? Also, please see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39886586