

Ask HN: Have the whoishiring posts been useful? Can we do better? - whoishiring

Thanks for your input
======
whichdan
HN itself is the biggest bottleneck, IMO. A few days after the thread has been
posted, it gets paginated, usually into 3 or 4 pages. Assuming you
Cmd+F/Ctrl-F for a couple keywords (remote, state, city), you end up having to
do 10+ searches, in addition to weeding out the "no remote" matches. On the
same note, it's very hard to keep track of new posts after the first day or
two, which means you're searching for "minutes ago" "hours ago" "1 day ago" "2
days ago" etc - again, on 3 or 4 pages.

I know there's one user who maintains a site that lists all of the job
postings (forgot the url), but personally I'm not a huge fan of the layout.

~~~
lazyjones
Indeed, it might be a good idea to have 2/3 separate threads for
US/Europe/Asia... or US/Rest of the world since postings regarding jobs in
Europe are hardly visible at all.

~~~
jamesjguthrie
I totally agree with this. I'd much prefer a separate Euro post.

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orangethirty
My experience with it has been positive. I'd say a way to improve it would be
to open a third thread for people looking for new full-time jobs (no
freelancers or contractors). Like a reverse who is hiring thread. Programmers
post their info in it, and companies get in touch. That way, companies can
quickly get a good pool of people to interview.

Try it out for this month.

~~~
S4M
I doubt it will have lots of success. First, companies can use linkedin, or
other social networks such as github to reach people, second, most of the
people will not want to publicly show that they are looking (their current
employer could very well read that thread), and finally as mentioned in
another comment, the thread will be way too long (in the "seeking freelancer"
thread, there are about 5 times more people looking for work than people
hiring).

~~~
orangethirty
Fair points. Though I'm sure the HTML template could be modified to _not_
include the username of the person posting. Or people could use throw away
accounts. Its doable.

~~~
S4M
Then you would have lots of throwaways, saying "I am looking for a job, I am
good at X and Y, please contact me at somefakeemail@gmail.com". I doubt it
will have any success.

~~~
orangethirty
Of course this would happen. But do realize how much more valuable the whole
site would be to the users and to YC. This should be tested.

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KnowledgeSponge
I always check them out with lots of hope, but then am dismayed to find that
they are usually entirely filled with technical roles and almost completely
devoid of any marketing/product/business roles.

This is likely in part due to the HN audience composition, but my hunch is
that its also partly because people are making assumptions about the HN
audience composition.

I'd love to see one post for technical hiring and one post for business
hiring. I think calling it out as its own post would actually encourage people
to post those other jobs that they might normally think are not appropriate
for the HN audience.

~~~
malandrew
As someone posting in that thread and in our case we don't post those jobs not
for the reason you mentioned but (1) because we just don't have many of those
jobs available and (2) because we already know people we may to hire so those
job positions are filled even before the job is posted/advertised.

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pknerd
I will like this thing to be continued. I have been contacted quite a few
times from these posts. The only complain I have that I find more developers
looking for job/project than the people seeking developers. This thing needs
to be addressed.

I have a suggestion, please make it fortnightly .

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Imagenuity
Some way to keep the postings brief would be a huge benefit I think. Many are
overly long and make for too much information. Less is more. Just the
essentials should be listed, with a link to more information if desired. Maybe
using a form to fill in the post rather than free-form. Postings should be 4-5
lines long, not 40-50. Filters for location, job type, and skills would be
next after getting the brevity handled.

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yolesaber
I recently scored a nice internship from last month's, so that is a positive.
I also look forward to them because they often showcase companies I may not
have heard of so they have the bonus of providing exposure to products and
services as well.

I second pknerd's suggestion to make them fortnightly.

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vermasque
Very useful! I got a job through a post. I was able to hire an intern for my
employer through a post. The first place to look for my next job will be
there.

Search/Sorting is a definite room for improvement so I can narrow down the
opportunities that I'm interested in by location, skills, etc. Obviously, the
HN comment system is quite limited for that stuff.

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andygeers
The <http://hnhiring.me/> site makes the whole thing a lot more useful

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AncoraImparo
I haven't managed to find a job yet, however that is probably due to the fact
that I require a H1B visa for the USA. I have actually used the who's hiring
threads to meet a lot of people though, I met some interesting entrepreneurs
in 2012 via the thread.

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debacle
I haven't used them directly, but I've browsed a few and they seem to be of
pretty high quality.

------
tstegart
I hired someone from one. They were awesome.

