

Coderwall (YC W12) launches a separate new recruiting product, Pitchbox - bitsweet
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/09/coderwall-launches-pitchbox/

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pacaro
Pitchbox certainly worked well for me.

I wasn't actively looking, but I was reasonably interested in the possibility
if the right job came up.

I signed up and forgot about it.

About a month later they matched me with a genuinely interesting position.

This Friday will be my last day at Microsoft.

The experience was very positive for me. I know some people seem overly
concerned about the salary selection, but I always got the impression that was
more to make sure that candidate and company are in the same ballpark - the
previous time I had looked I was seriously low-balled (by ~50%) by a startup
that claimed to offer "competitive salary". For me negotiation about salary
and package happened when it should, at the end of the process.

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revorad
This looks like a nice service, but I don't get this idea of programmers
suggesting the salary. Companies should make an offer based on their business
needs and the profile of the prospect. Then, it's up to the prospect to accept
or reject the offer.

The power balance is already pretty heavily in the favour of employers. This
just perpetuates the status quo of treating programmers as interchangeable
commodities which come with fixed price labels.

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vonmoltke
To supplement your point, having the programmer suggest the salary also
creates problems in that Pitchbox is separated from specific geographic
regions. The salary I want for the exact same job varies greatly depending on
where it is. My number for San Francisco would price me right out of Austin,
for example.

~~~
peterjmag
Exactly. A while back, I was considering jobs in both Colorado and the Bay
Area. A $100K position in the Bay Area might only be worth half that in my
home town of Fort Collins (and perhaps $70-80K in Denver). I wouldn't want to
undersell myself by selecting $60K during the signup process if I thought that
I could make more than that in the Bay Area. When I first checked out Pitchbox
earlier this year[1], that uncertainty was enough for me to skip signing up
entirely.

bitsweet mentioned below[2] that my selection is used only as a filter and not
shown to employers, but I think that could stand to be made more clear either
during the signup process or somewhere on the landing page.

EDIT for another slightly related point: I take it this is for US-based
employers at the moment. Are there any plans to expand to other markets? Now
that I'm moving to Berlin, I'd love to use something like Pitchbox in my job
search (though incidentally, salaries are a completely different story over
there).

[1]<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022472>

[2]<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5521244>

~~~
bitsweet
It's not clear, which is our fault, but we do take this into consideration
when looking at other geographies for relocation. We also always share
compensation in a pitch, so you know early on if the adjusted comp is
reasonable for you.

Thanks for the feedback though, we'll certainly be exploring a different sign
up ux.

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windsurfer
I am in the Pitchbox beta, and it's a pretty clever take on traditional CRUD
apps. I believe the whole site just dumps data into a backend that is then
manually searched by agents to match companies with developers. These agents
then manually email the developer and converse with them personally.

EDIT: Changed wording

~~~
bitsweet
Hey windsurfer - IIRC you and I did exchange a few emails because of a bug
early on that didn't correctly schedule a call with the company from the pitch
you liked within the app...sorry about that. I think its been fixed for a
while now.

BTW we never share data with recruiters.

~~~
windsurfer
Hey, yes we did. No problem with that bug!

Sorry, I wasn't sure what to call your agents. It's a neat app! I like it.

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colevscode
I love the design. Something about it makes me feel like I'm planning a
vacation, rather than a career. Nice work.

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tahoecoder
Do you need to upload a resume for this to work? I signed up a while back but
didn't hear anything from them.

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esharef
Passive candidates are completely under-represented in recruiting efforts.
This is awesome.

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aleksandrm
Is this tailored more toward experienced and established developers, or junior
roles too? The site states that you handpick the best companies; will the
companies be able to specify that they may be looking to fill junior positions
too?

~~~
bitsweet
Hi Aleksandr, We do screen companies but many of them are hiring for various
roles and levels of experience.

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pdufour
This is nit-picky, but the huge vertical padding on the homepage is quite
bothersome to me. I can fit just about one feature per page on my monitor.
Something more condensed would look a lot better I think.

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westonh
Is this just for developers or are other positions like UX or product design
eligible?

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gav
Would be nice to be able to provide Linkedin details in lieu of a resume.

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phormula
how is 20% of first years salary cheaper than a recruiter? seems like the same
deal but without the annoying phone calls

