
Dear YC companies, I responded. You could do the same. - Mc_Big_G
This should be self explanatory, but I'm going to put it out there anyway.  If you are going to spam all the freelancers in the "Freelancer" thread each month, asking for a very detailed quote, portfolio examples and an estimate, at least have the courtesy to respond.<p>My time is worth a lot, which is probably why you didn't respond. I don't forget which companies are rude and don't hesitate to tell others about my experience with you.  I'm sure the other freelancers feel the same.<p>Thanks
======
steven2012
I'm not sure at what point the Valley decided that it was okay to not respond
back to applicants once they were no longer interested, but it's terribly
unprofessional behavior. I had an interview with a very established dotcom in
San Jose, and I went through 5 interviews and talked salary with the director
of the group, and then they stopped responding to my emails for some unknown
reason. I emailed him directly asking for feedback, as well as the recruiters,
and it was radio silence.

I applied to a bunch of companies last year, and was in the middle of the
process with many of them when I decided on the company I was going to work
for. I wrote them _all_ an email notifying them, but thanking them for the
opportunity to meet with them. A few startups didn't even bother responding
back, but I did receive some nice emails back from some companies thanking me
for letting them know, and wishing me luck at my job, and if things didn't
work out, to contact them again.

I'm not saying I needed to be treated like royalty, but basic common courtesy
goes a long way. As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat
well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are.

~~~
hackinthebochs
>As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on
the type of company (and person) you really are.

This is really an underappreciated bit of wisdom here. The true nature of a
person is revealed by how they treat those that are "beneath" them (socially)
or are otherwise not useful to them. Someone who is rude and demanding to
waitstaff, or rude to a stranger passing by is someone who will eventually
turn on you once you are no longer beneficial to them. Take these instances as
warnings.

~~~
dclowd9901
I think you took it too far by pandering to wait staff. Their jobs are to
wait. I don't think they're below me. I think they should take as much pride
in their job as I do in mine, and if they don't care to even try to do well at
their job, I'm going to let them know. It's one thing to be rude or obnoxious,
but it's another to let them know that their service is not up to snuff.

You say it's bad to treat people "below you" badly, but I think it's even
worse to believe anyone's below you, and thus, beyond scrutiny.

~~~
jdbernard
You are defending a position he did not take. When did he say to pander to
waitstaff? All he said is don't be rude and demanding. There are ways to
address deficiencies without being rude or demanding.

> You say it's bad to treat people "below you" badly, but I think it's even
> worse to believe anyone's below you

That's why he put it in quotes. _hackinthebochs_ never said he thinks they are
below him, just that many people do, and treat them badly. You cannot deny
that there are people who think this way or that there are not some standards
that society in general uses to compare people.

------
pc86
I sent about half a dozen follow up or introduction emails emails out between
April's two threads for contract work. Some were extremely detailed, offering
portfolio samples, repository URLs, even contact information of former clients
as references.

Not a single response, not even to say "no longer looking, but thanks!" I
can't think of anything in a professional context that is more rude or
disrespectful. If I spent half an hour writing a customized email and giving
you 100% of the information you need and you can't spend 30 seconds to tell me
you're not interested, you're just a bad person. That's all there is to it.

------
Udo
My experience is similar:

From time to time I partake in the HN freelancer thread. Not that I _ever_ got
_any_ business out of it. I still think in principle it would be nice to do
business with fellow HNers, that's why I keep trying it.

Usually, I get about 2-3 inquiries per month from the Freelancer thread - by
far most of these from people who apparently came through a search engine and
aren't HN users at all. Of these, 2 are general carpet bombing mails, asking
me for things that I didn't advertise and can't/won't provide ("would you like
to move to Berlin and work as an entry-level tech support person?").
Sometimes, that leaves one real contact.

Here's where things start to get on my nerves: there will typically be an
exchange of 3 to 4 emails back and forth. It starts with a project
introduction (which is often excellently detailed), then we're moving on to
references and code samples, then we're talking fees (even though I explicitly
state them on my profile website), after which it's all "I'll totally do this
project with you", and after that: nothing. In two cases, there were even 30+
minutes Skype conversations, all for nothing of course.

Last month I decided to do something different, be more proactive: I sent out
emails to people looking for freelancers on HN. Same procedure (see above),
same results. _But_ I got something very interesting out of it: a few of them
told me they received upwards of 30 applicants! Holy crap, even for the lamer
job postings!

It's now clear to me why the freelancer thread doesn't work, at least for
"normal" HNers like me. As a freelancer, there is so much competition, the
chances of success are exceedingly slim. Companies are drowning in applicants.
Of course they're going to choose either the cheapest one, or if you're lucky
enough to inhabit something of a niche, the most famous one.

So why are they not responding? Why are they just breaking off communication
after a short exchange? Because they don't have any reason to value our time.
There are just so many of us.

~~~
coolsunglasses
Reading this made me despair.

Getting contract work online should be a last resort.

~~~
Udo
I don't really need it, it's just a point of interest. But yeah, I feel bad
for people who have to live on this. Especially those with decent skills, it's
very hard to compete in an environment that is polluted to the brim.

It's the same with commercial freelancer sites, by the way. Tons of lame
projects, many of them quite shady or illegal, with absolute rock-bottom
budgets and dozens of "developers" fighting over scraps.

Experiences like this make me think our profession truly is in the toilet
right now. A view weeks ago I chided a commenter on HN for saying the software
employment situation is a buyer's market and thus he has trouble treating
programmers with respect. I can see why that is, though.

~~~
coolsunglasses
This is what I'm doing to put food on the table until one of my business
projects gets rolling.

Dipping your toe in the water and exclaiming how it's so awful isn't
constructive and just unnerves other people.

~~~
Udo
_> Getting contract work online should be a last resort._

I obviously totally misunderstood this initial statement of yours somehow.

For what it's worth I just wanted to share my experiences. It's absolutely
possible that I'm the only person who saw these problems and everybody else is
having a positively marvelous time - that's why it's called anecdotal
evidence. If that's true: sorry, I didn't want to give the wrong impression.

------
alecdibble
Frequently, people in a hiring position treat prospective candidates like
cattle. They forget there is a human being behind that resume or portfolio.

All it takes is a reply like this:

    
    
        "Hello _______, We are very appreciative that you took the time to send us your _______. Once we get a chance to review your ______, we will contact if you we feel like you are a good fit.
        Best Regards,
        _____________"

~~~
arbuge
Works both ways in my experience. Whenever I was hiring I always got spammed
by many candidates who were obviously sending out their resumes to large
numbers of jobs without even bothering to read the descriptions or application
instructions.

~~~
xtracto
This reminded me of the time I got a Resume from someone applying for a
software-engineering job. The guy somehow thought that putting "Sandwich
Artist" as part of his work experience was valuable for his application. This,
on a 2-page resume which could have been easily reduced to 1-page.

I got the resume before the first phone screen... he did not do well.

------
ScottWhigham
My first thought was, "Isn't this sort of like job hunting? It's unrealistic
to expect a company advertising a job to respond to each and every resume,
regardless of how much time the user put into it. For the same reason, I would
guess the "Freelancer" threads would be the same way." But the more I think
about it, the more I agree with you. The difference here is that these people
personally reached out _to you_ , rather than you just sending something to
"hr-resumes@intel.com" or whatever. So yeah, makes sense to me.

~~~
koopajah
Why is it unrealistic to expect a company to respond to each and every resume?

I can understand a "personalized" response to be unrealistic. But at least a
simple automatic e-mail saying "Thank you for applying, regretfully the
position is now filled" or anything indicating "don't wait for an answer"
should be the norm. Especially with a lot of large companies indicating that
an answer could take up to 2 months.

~~~
ScottWhigham
There are tons of reasons. I'm not trying to be rude but, IMO, not being able
to see some of the reasons implies to me that you haven't done much
interviewing/hiring.

The most likely reason is to stay "in charge" of your interviewing process. If
Johnny sends in a resume and he is unqualified, what do you say? "Thanks,
Johnny, but you are not a fit for our organization. Best of luck!" Form
letter. Awesome - that makes someone feel better? Okay... Anyway, here's the
problem: Johnny writes back and asks, "What is it that I could have done
differently?" Do you respond? If you do, what do you say when he writes back
yet again (and again and again)?

"Scott - this is the kind of guy you want to hire! He's persistent!" Oh
really? So that's all it takes to get the job you are hiring for -
persistence? Of course not.

"But you can take a guy like that and train him - he'll be great, I bet!" Will
he? What's your proof? He's already shown you that he's trying to punch above
his weight and that he's okay with that. He's already shown you that he's kind
of a PIA. What makes you so optimistic about his ability to learn?

The point is that there are lots of reasons that employers don't continue the
dialog, but this is a major one. No company wants to pay someone
$25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the Johnnys of the world ad infinitum. And
as for companies getting interns to reply, that's just ridiculous IMO. What
CEO wants interns to be in charge of replying to job applicants? That's awful.
At BEST you can train them not to *#$& up a form letter.

~~~
tjic
> The most likely reason is to stay "in charge" of your interviewing process.
> If Johnny sends in a resume and he is unqualified, what do you say?

When I'm hiring, I respond to each and every resume. 99% of them get a canned
"Thanks for applying. Unfortunately, it's not a match, but we wish you the
best of luck."

Is that so hard?

My personal answer? No. It's not.

You're programmers. Write a macro. Then tap the key.

> No company wants to pay someone $25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the
> Johnnys of the world ad infinitum.

First, this is ludicrous; even if you're sending thousands or tens of
thousands of these letters, you can have a process that doesn't cost but a
penny or two more than REVIEWING the email in the first place does.

Second, any company that can't design good processes that work well and
cheaply isn't a place where I want to work.

~~~
ScottWhigham
> Is that so hard?

Yes, actually. To say that it isn't implies that either (a) you aren't doing
much hiring, or (b) that the number of applicants you get is very small. For
an admin position, we might get 150 applications. Of those, less than 50% will
have met the stated job requirements/pre-reqs. Even if I were to automate it,
how much time have I spent automating it? Maintaining it? And for each person,
there's certainly a few seconds/minutes of "Let me make sure I get the name
right..." And that's just one position. It _is_ hard to do what you're saying,
unless (a) you aren't doing much hiring, or (b) that the number of applicants
you get are very small.

~~~
malachismith
So in other words you're saying that your time is so incredibly valuable that
you should be made exempt from the generally acceptable standards of behavior?

(I've spent 20+ years in the tech biz. I've probably hired a few hundred
people myself. I've never been "too busy" to live up to the bare minimum
professional standards of behavior. To me this smells less like being too busy
- and more like being too arrogant.)

------
jonathanjaeger
I think some people are confusing people who "apply" for jobs vs. startups
actually going after a freelancer to help them. If someone applies for a job
it would certainly be good business practice to give a personalized or
automated response acknowledging receipt of a resume or portfolio. If a
startup specifically reaches out to a freelancer, by spamming all the
freelancers as OP puts it, then the startups better respond to the people who
respond to them!

~~~
alecdibble
I don't feel like people are confusing anything. The issue is being
generalized from a specific problem. In either case, it is rude not to
respond.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
I agree in both cases it is rude not to respond. But in one case the potential
employer is the one who reached out first. For example, when I got out of
college I brushed off the fact that an employer didn't respond to my resume at
all. That didn't make me angry. What did make me confused was someone who
specifically reached out to me to try to hire me through email and a phone
call and then fell off the face of the earth when I followed up via email with
a resume and more details. Sure that person might have been busy and had more
important hires to make than a post-grad, but it was still rude and I probably
won't forget it.

~~~
DigitalBison
Yup. I had a similar experience in college when I applied for an internship at
Facebook, got back an enthusiastic-sounding response asking me for my
availability for a phone screen, and then the recruiter dropped off the face
of the earth and never responded to me again.

~~~
tjr
I agreed to a job offer from a company, and by the Friday before I was to
start, I hadn't heard from them on where exactly I was supposed to show up on
Monday morning. I emailed them about it, and they replied, "Oh, oops, we
neglected to inform you that we restructured our existing staff and don't need
you any more."

------
codegeek
Why is it so difficult to comprehend that if you contact me first and I write
you back, you _should_ write back again even if you don't want me anymore. If
I contacted you first, it will still be _nice_ to hear back but I will not
lose my sleep over it.

~~~
ritchiea
I agree this is pretty clear. Why is it so difficult?

------
otikik
> I don't forget which companies are rude and don't hesitate to tell others
> about my experience with you

Well, do tell others. Where are the names?

------
orangethirty
You are seeing this with an employee mindset. As a freelancer, you are a one
man business. Thus, you get treated as such. Businesses don't usually have the
common courtesy you described. Let me ask you a question? Have you ever
stopped ignoring a sales person? Even after they gave you their time in order
to try and close the sale? Did you say "Hmm, I should be courteous and let
them know how much I appreciate it"? No, you did not. Because you know that's
part of their job. Getting rejected. Getting ignored. Part of being a
freelancer is being rejected, and being ignored. No one owes you anything.
This is business. Rather than making a fool out of yourself publicly (and
reducing any potential client you might have had here), why don't you decide
to polish up your sales skills? Maybe improve your marketing?

~~~
caw
I've never ignored a sales person that I initiated contact with, which I
believe is the topic of this discussion. If it gets to the point that you're
not interested, you tell them as such. It's corteous, and if you want to look
at it in the self-serving point of view, you stop the repeat phone calls and
emails because you just fell off the face of the earth after asking for
information.

------
shubb
Asking for a detailed quote (where the one time effort taken to create the
quote is significant compared to the value of the contract) probably isn't
reasonable.

If you ask 500 freelancers to spend a day making a quote for a months work,
you just cost many times your contract value.

A suggestion:

A better way is to describe the contract, and provide a brief 'pre-
qualification questionnaire' where a candidate proves that it is worth both
your time proceeding.

After that, you invite bids from the top say 6 applicants, and work with them
to get the best bid possible.

------
maxent
As a freelancer, you can put a great deal of time into carefully considering
the needs of a new/prospective client, developing a preliminary plan for the
project and preparing a carefully considered estimate. This is typically done
gratis. It is in one's best interest to spend this prospecting time on the
highest likelihood/value prospective clients. Behavior like the spam-and-
ignore on behalf of some of these companies reflects poorly on the group and
will make the best freelancers reluctant to participate.

As an aside for freelancers, I recommend following Brennan Dunn's work:

<http://brennandunn.com/> <http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/>
<http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/>
<http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy>
<http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint>

He does _so_ much for the freelancer community.

------
bdcravens
As a freelancer I understand where you're coming from. On the other hand,
we're a business. How many times have we gone into a store, and are "just
looking"? Went to a lot, test drove a car, and said we needed to leave and
"think about it"? Called prospective businesses for pricing and never followed
up with them?

Part of doing business is servicing those who may not be paying customers. You
must have that time margin built in. Is it rude for potential customers to not
follow up, even to let us know nothing's happening? Maybe. I'd never call a
lot back to let them know I was just prospecting, either.

If your freelance practice can't bear to lose time like this, you need to
rethink your pricing or your chosen profession.

~~~
roland37
I think the analogies you make to other types of sales aren't terribly strong.
Walking through a brick and mortar store without buying anything takes
effectively no time from the business - they can handle many customers in
parallel. By contrast, calling prospective business or test driving a car does
involve at least acknowledging the seller. You might not tell them you've
bought a different car, but you also don't hear the proposed price and hang up
the phone without a word, which is a closer analogy to getting an offer and
replying with nothing, not even a form letter.

------
aray
Relationships with potential contractors, or anyone, really require the same
two things: respect and communication. Replying--even a short message--in this
case would satisfy this; you respect them enough to recognize their effort on
your behalf, and communicate that this (for the time being) will be the end of
your interest.

------
namank
I started doing a litmus test with a 1-3 liner where I give them points for
professionalism/courteousness. The ones that pass are amazing people to get to
know, not just work with. Though I might be generalizing too much, I found it
separates the ones with sincerity.

It's not just YC, it's founders all over.

------
fridek
This is why I used to ask some upfront payment for price estimation. Not much
but enough to find if someone is serious and targeting me or if it's just a
mass email to hundreds of people. In latter case I stood zero chance against
students who would quote $100 for virtually anything.

------
gus_massa
Just to clarify a detail: There are like ~500 official YC backed startups, but
many also independent companies read the freelance/hiring thread. You are
complaining that many of the YC-startups didn't answer or there were generic
companies?

~~~
rhizome
I think it's apparent from the post that it's about companies responding to
posts in a news.yc thread. It's not a VC thing.

------
malachismith
Anyone interested in putting something together so that we can start
aggregating the worst violators? I know I'd use that list not just to filter
out the time-wasters but also to apply pain-pricing.

~~~
usernamepc
May I humbly suggest my site <http://www.oncontracting.com> I'm still testing
it in Seattle but would happily work on adding new content from elsewhere.

------
hashtree
This is the single most frustrating thing I experience when I freelance from
time to time. It is also the reason I don't use that thread.

I am often willing to give decent sized discounts for people who communicate
well. I'll take the cut in pay for someone who is courteous and responds in a
somewhat quickly manner. I should NOT be more excited and engaged about your
project than you are. It has gotten to the point lately I will turn down
sizable jobs because of their lack of communication. It isn't worth the
hassle.

------
iamjamie
There's no excuse for ANY company to totally fail to respond to applicants in
the present day. There are so many automated HR and recruitment platforms out
there now, it's poor on the part of non-responding companies and illustrates
what kind of people are running the ship. This, 'we're a startup and too busy
to eat' crap is nothing short of a lame excuse.

