

Feature: non-YC startups to post to jobs.YC - tjic

Obviously, YCombinator doesn't want its job board to turn into a free version of Dice.  ...yet I suggest that it would be a big boon to the community of people interested in startups, at little or not cost to YC, to allow firms that have, say, less than 5 or 10 employees, to post to jobs.YC.<p>To give an example (and, yes, you caught me, this is a large percent of the reason that I brought the topic up) HeavyInk is looking to hire a Ruby / Rails rockstar to help us do something amazing in the comicbook space.<p><a href="http://heavyink.com/forum/forums/1/topics/30" rel="nofollow">http://heavyink.com/forum/forums/1/topics/30</a><p>
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far33d
You could help this along by requiring a karma floor before you can post a
job.

However, I believe that the jobs tab is a significant competitive advantage
for the YC portfolio companies.

~~~
marcus
Instead of a minimum karma, how about a karma cost.

If you contribute to the community you can expect the community to give back.

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tocomment
Why no requests for contract work or remote positions? I'm actually in your
area, but I'm always curious what peoples' thoughts are on remote work.

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tjic
I have no moral opposition to contract work - I've been a contractor, and I've
hired contractors.

There's a trade off.

Contractors cost more per unit time than do employees (in the short term), and
are usually looking for the next gig. At a startup, we don't have tons of free
cash, but we do have tons of potential. We'd rather reward someone with a
promise of sharing in our success (which we have) than with twice as much cash
(which we don't have).

As far as working on site versus off site: again, I have no moral objection to
this, and I've done it myself. However, I'm not just hiring engineers to
produce lines of code: I'm hiring them for their wide-ranging intelligence,
their ability to contribute to the ideas bouncing around the office, and their
ability to tell me when my ideas are full of shit. All of this takes place
much more easily in an office. Finally, while most people who work remotely
are professional about it, I have noticed that it becomes easier for someone
to disengage, grow tired or frustrated, and mentally "check out"...and it's
harder for me to detect this, and take appropriate action (a word of
encouragement, an announcement that we're all bagging work for an hour to go
get a burrito on the company's dime, or whatever else).

As much as I like the IDEA of remote work, and easily compartmentalized tasks,
I have come to believe that humans have evolved to be highly social, and to
work best when they are immersed in a social environment.

I note that Joel Spolsky has company lunches every day, and considers this
important.

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tocomment
Those are good points. It's just frustering for someone in DC that all the
good jobs are in SF. (Except for yours of course :-) but I haven't done any
RoR )

Here's another thing that's really bothered me as a job seeker.

Most employers will say something like you did "I'm not just hiring engineers
to produce lines of code: I'm hiring them for their wide-ranging
intelligence.." but then proceed to ask me excruciatingly detailed trivia
during the interview, or require someone have X years of experience in some
technology. If you're hiring for intelligence, should it really matter if the
employee hasn't use technology X before? He should be able to learn quickly.

Perhaps your case is different though. RoR is more like a movement than just a
technology so maybe it's a good indicator of sucess for a candidate to have
already used it.

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marcus
When large companies say something like "I'm hiring them for their wide-
ranging intelligence.." they are usually lying their ass off but in startups
that usually is true.

From my experience in startups, most of them care just as much about your 2
cents as about your LOC.

Because startups are much more malleable and prone to change their direction,
strategy, market & product every input matters and sometimes you can recoup
your entire hiring cost for an engineer from a single sentence he says offhand
in some discussion.

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johnrob
Just post your jobs in the news area. If people like it, they will vote up
(hopefully). Actually, it's a good benchmark for your job description -
whether it will float on ycnews.

~~~
RyanJG
I disagree with this. I could see the main page getting bogged down with job
offers. However, being able to vote up/down on the jobs page isn't a bad idea
and I think it'd have the same effect you were looking for.

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rms
I believe this has been requested before and PG rejected it, wanting to keep
the jobs page exclusively YC. Fortunately, there is an alternative and you've
come across it right here.

