
Poachbox – Recruit Startup and Tech Talent - noahchase
http://www.poachbox.com
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7Figures2Commas
At this point, somebody might as well launch Chatroulette for "recruiting."

As far as I'm concerned, if you're an employer and something like "I want to
leave my job at a top VC backed startup. I’m an iOS Engineer and Designer
looking for a new challenge" is enough to pique your interest in a candidate
who is ostensibly not motivated enough to reach out to companies of interest
and instead wants to sit back and be "poached", you have no right to complain
about how hard it is to hire and retain quality employees.

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gopher1
So what you're saying is that the photos for 4 out of 5 candidates will be
junk shots?

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sbisker
I'm very wary of the photo feature, even cartoony and blurred out...will there
be a bias between male vs female candidates in terms of whether people bid on
them? Race? Hair color? Etc. There's a reason most companies don't want you to
attach a photo to your resume.

~~~
shuzchen
I'm not certain but from the copy it sounds like they'll be using that same
pixelated cartoon no matter who the candidate is. Also, it doesn't appear like
the signup form has a field to attach a photo.

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theboss
"Anonymously" aka. Please give us your name, current employer, etc.

I'm a student and this even looks crazy to me. Who is going to give you an
offer when they know nothing about you?

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noahchase
Thanks for your feedback. Really appreciate you checking out the site. Offers
are non-binding, and employers are not obligated to hire candidates. After
employers make an offer to a candidate, they receive the candidate's full
profile. Poachbox delivers employers a pool of vetted candidates, employed at
venture-funded companies, with a unique set of skills. We believe companies
will recognize the value.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
As an employer, why would I want to limit my pool of candidates to those
employed at venture-backed companies? What is that vetting for?

Venture-backed startups tend to hire lots of people, quicky, and there's
limited diversity in roles. In my experience, that doesn't always produce
great candidates, at least from the perspective of an employer looking to hire
truly well-rounded candidates who don't believe they're _entitled_ to
$200,000/year because they worked on a spammy iOS app for a company that isn't
likely to be in business in 2 years.

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ericb
I would love to see a pure merit based approach. Let people see github
accounts and make offers based on that alone. Maybe we can evolve farther past
age and race issues if we focus on work.

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pgodzin
What about candidates whose merit comes from what they did in companies and
not in open source?

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JeremyMorgan
They should be able to put something together on their Github to demonstrate
skills.

I rarely hire anyone without it these days.

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Denzel
By "something," what exactly are you looking for? I'm just curious.

It's very difficult to contribute open-source work outside of a day job,
especially when you're working on your own side business. The best I've
accomplished in the past is getting my employer on-board with the idea of
contributing back to open-source for 50% of my time. That's a lot easier at a
start-up, however.

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donretag
Wish there was a website for remote developers to announce their candidacy.

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hoodoof
odesk? freelancer?

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donretag
Those are for consulting gigs, not full-time employment.

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abimaelmartell
They should put a "Made with iWeb" banner on the website...

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interested_dev
I love the idea of this. I'm trying to find a new job right now and it's a
pain trying to stay somewhat anonymous while searching.

What I don't like about your approach is the fact that the entire experience
of applying/signing up to be poached feels half-assed.

You guys didn't make your own form and the embedded version doesn't really
match the rest of the site and looks just thrown together.

There's horrible design inconsistencies (serif fonts mixed in with sans-serif
fonts on the same line, and no.. it's not design).

This feels like a badly done DeveloperAuction/Hired clone with an anonymous
aspect.

Why make prospective employers apply? It feels like a better experience for
both parties would just be a listing of candidates, their skills, their
location, etc with the ability to start up a conversation (via email or
private message or something). If the guy gets hired, he can remove his
posting.

~~~
noahchase
Thanks for the great feedback. We're working really hard to make the site
beautiful and useful to our users. We're currently bootstrapping and working
as fast as we can. We want to make sure candidates get to work for great
companies and employers get to hire great talent. All employers and companies
are vetted to ensure this. This is why we require companies to apply. Also to
make sure candidate info is not seen by their current employer. Thanks again
so much for your feedback.

~~~
interested_dev
So what's different from you guys and Hired/Developer auction other than the
'anonymous' aspect?

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oo7jeep
Click logo in the top left -> 404.

Maybe they should poach an entry level web dev!

~~~
noahchase
Thanks for you feedback and catching that! We fixed it. We will continue to
work to make Poachbox awesome for our users. Thanks again!

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xianshou
I'm sure Matthew Deiters really appreciates the pun.

[http://pitchbox.com/](http://pitchbox.com/)

That said, even though this would have been a great April Fools' joke, it's
also part of a developing trend to provide hyper-liquidity in the hiring
market. Besides this company, I've seen at least two "Tinder for hackers"
hiring sites in the past couple of months (HackMatch and Blonk) that claim to
be making a lot of successful placements.

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coreymgilmore
based on the website, it doesn't look quite finished or polished. The top-left
logo is a 404 and the placeholder form text isn't displayed correctly (Chrome
Beta).

However, this seems like a decent idea. Kind of a mix between ebay and
odesk..sort of.

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frade33
>with attitude like this it should not be a surprise to you that you are
probably the type of employer whose employees will be using this type service.
instead of whining about this service maybe you should be paying more
attention to why your employees would be even tempted to use a site like this
in the first place.

Got too many downvotes on the previous comment, so here is your chance again
to downvote me. If I am a shitty employer, why the phuck is one sticking with
me., you only want to flirt with me, that I shouldn't and can not allow. the
point I had made was going totally against the employees which is under-stand-
able, however I had raised my concern as an employer.

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iamthepieman
the fonts are all messed up for me in Chrome 33.0.1750.154

~~~
noahchase
We're working to fix font on all browsers. Thanks you for letting us know, and
for checking out the site.

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hoodoof
Read the comments in this thread. So hacker news to focus criticism of a newly
launched site on fonts and minor design inconsistencies.

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SvenAndersson
To be fair, the first impression of a job seeking related site should come of
as professional, minor design quirks (even stuff like font errors from minor
CSS mishaps) can be a thumb in the eye. Valid points and the authors seem to
appreciate the feedback.

And there are quite a few non-design related comments as well.

~~~
hoodoof
Hang on, all the advice I read is "get it out there, ship it, don't wait for
it to be perfect". BUt you're saying it should be polished before release?

~~~
SvenAndersson
All I'm saying; know your audience. :-)

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fnbr
Personally, I enjoyed:

> Get at least 5-10 real job offers in 24hrs. Sometimes less.

Isn't that contradictory? Cool idea though.

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argumentum
I think "less" refers to 24hrs, not 5-10 real job offers.

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opendais
Eh, the jotform doesn't work after you sign up anyway so this site is
harmless. xD

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hemantv
well hired.com do a lot better job, its a amazing company too.

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noahchase
Thanks for the feedback. We agree, Hired is great. We love and respect what
they're doing. We believe there's a big enough market for two similar
companies to exist. Currently what makes us different is that we're mobile
focused. Along with Design, we focus on iOS and Android engineering talent.
Another way we're different is that our auctions only last 24hrs. Again,
thanks for checking out the site.

~~~
hemantv
No disrespect to you guys. Its great to have alternatives and competition,
because that's the only way consumer wins in the end.

Great work, keep up :-)

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Arsenije
This looks like a [http://hiremyfriend.io/](http://hiremyfriend.io/) ripoff.
Hire my Friend is on the scene for some time and it's awesome.

~~~
SvenAndersson
Woah, that looks pretty good, the on-boarding was fantastic. Sadly Poachbox
first impressions was not on par at all.

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frade33
If an employer does not get the response for their offer, who is in the same
area and industry and already has people in similar positions (which is likely
going to be case, unless one is searching job in an other location than their
current employer).

It won't be hard to assume, one of their employees is on the job hunt. So
being anonymous might be little of no value, at the end of the day.

And If you are a CEO, you would know which of your employee he/she is, the
moment you see the ad ;)

And as an employer, I do not get the idea, it would be more of pain in the
asrse than of any 'real' value for employers. And I hate this service.

>Every day, top employers like Google, Apple, Facebook and others use
services, tactics and tools like Poachbox to recruit top talent like you.

they use poachbox or a (any other) service like poachbox? If the later, what
is the point of even mentioning it, except for deceiving users? If the former.
wow! it's incredible.

so bottomline is, you are making shifting ass from one company to another
easier, while one could save his/her ass. You know, I am an employer and I am
already getting upset. ;)

aaa! downvote. no worries, Mr. Employee. If you ever grow up to become an
employer, you would have less or more the same feelings ;)

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JeremyMorgan
lighten up Francis

~~~
frade33
haha! mind you i am an asian, it took me to search whole world wide web to
find the meaning of this phrase!

And! yes consider yourself dead ;)

