
Show HN: Ladder, find a new startup job anonymously - brackin
http://tryladder.com
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taariqlewis
A very busy space. The true demand is that you have lots of passive talent
signing up. These folks are highly valued, but it's not clear how you get
passive seekers (who aren't interested in moving unless they get excited) to
make a change. Active seekers are already in the ATS' of ALL your recruiting
companies. They aren't that valuable. So, you have lots to do here.

Your competitors at Hired.com and elsewhere are investing big money to compete
to move passives into active mode. I wish you the best of luck, but
competition here is brutal and it's not clear what your unique value
proposition or edge is here.

Lastly, "anonymous job searches" is the way of the passive seeker, but it's
very hard to get them to make a decision. The chain of interaction requires
much more ways to engage than their filling out a few boxes on what they do
and where they live/email. If you could bring to the surface things that
passives like but will not reveal to just anyone, you may be able to create an
edge. However, it's tough meng. It's tough out there for a recruiting
platform.

~~~
danielweber
Unlike hired.com, this guy tells me two questions in that since I'm not in SF,
NY, or LA I should move on.

Which I actually appreciate. Other places waste my time. I don't know how my
appreciation translates into revenue for him, so we're missing any decent
feedback loop besides nice HN comments.

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timcederman
What do these calls-to-action mean?

[hiring] [tech talent]

I have no idea what either are going to do.

Also, when I click on "tech talent", this is confusing:

"What role are you looking for? We only accept high quality companies that are
actively hiring."

It sounds like you're trying to qualify me applying...but you're actually
talking about which companies you may or may not refer to me. I understand
you're trying to make your value prop clear, but it's just confusing at this
point.

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brackin
Thanks Tim, changed hiring to companies & clarified that statement. Will try
to improve this further.

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afarrell
Why not "hire" and "get hired"?

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dyadic
I really dislike the use of "Full Stack Developer" and especially when I'm
pushed into that box by the only other choices being FE and iOS dev.

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silverbax88
"Full Stack Developer" is the equivalent of "5 years of experience" in
whatever new language or tech was announced last week. When I see companies
advertise that, I know they are clueless right up front.

~~~
danielweber
About a week ago it occurred to me that "Full Stack Developer" is what we used
to call "Software Engineer." It's like suddenly understanding some idiom the
locals are using; everything in the universe made a lot more sense.

~~~
ForHackernews
Is that true?

I always took "Full Stack Developer" to mean "We're too cheap to hire a proper
ops team, so we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA,
and Software Developer."

Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings?

~~~
jnbiche
>"...we're going to expect you to serve triple-duty as Sysadmin, DBA, and
Software Developer." >Maybe I've been unfairly ignoring a lot of postings?

If that's your impression, then I think you have been. By full-stack
developer, many people in the start-up world simply mean someone who can work
at all levels of web development, from server-side programming to Javascript,
CSS, and HTML.

It's not an unreasonable use of the word, since web developers have _long_
talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for server-side framework,
caching, http server, as well as client-side frameworks and development
environments.

I don't think most people use the term to include sysops, although in a small
start-up you will inevitably be doing a lot of that.

~~~
ForHackernews
> web developers have long talked of "their stack", meaning what they use for
> server-side framework, caching, http server, as well as client-side
> frameworks and development environments.

I guess I would consider the http/app/caching servers to be properly the
province of sysops.

As a web developer, I consider myself to be responsible for server-side
code/frameworks, database schemas (but not DB
installation/configuration/replication), and perhaps client-side HTML/JS/CSS.

I'm capable of installing and doing basic setup for things like nginx,
varnish, and uWSGI or passenger, but I find it frustrating and I'm certainly
no expert in configuring for ideal performance.

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thinkt4nk
Am I missing something? You've essentially started a tech recruitment firm,
right? Is there something novel about your business?

~~~
opendais
It appears to be the $0 plan from
[http://www.typeform.com/pricing/](http://www.typeform.com/pricing/) \+ a
landing page.

So I'd guess the only unique bits are any connections they might have.

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brackin
We quietly launched about a week ago and have already seen good quality and
experience from technical talent. With 50+ engineers, designers, PM's on the
platform. Some with 15 years of experience in their field or previous
experience leading teams at well known companies

Co-founders of startups are signing up to find something new, PM's at tech
companies are looking to join startups and engineers that think they might
want to try something new are getting options.

We speak to every signup to evaluate if they're right for the platform and if
we can find the right role for them. Once a company and employee are matched,
they can communicate directly through their own process.

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pauldino
Was there any concern about a trademark conflict with TheLadders?

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brackin
It's a different market & a generic term used in hiring (this is only for tech
talent & curated approach), the name isn't that important though.

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notahacker
I thought the generic notion of career ladders was what people went into
startups to avoid...

~~~
ForHackernews
I assumed people went into startups because conventional career ladders don't
exist anymore.

When was the last time you got a raise or promotion by staying with your
company?

~~~
dllthomas
Around 2009, working at a university, personally.

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eroo
If you wouldn't mind providing some insight, I'm curious what your approach is
to verifying a hire is w.r.t. collecting commission?

~~~
brackin
We want to get out of the way as much as possible. We're really involved with
companies and check back in. Can check Linkedin, etc. We wait to see how the
employee fits within the company.

If we connect companies with high quality hires they'll want to pay so that
they can continue working with us. This will likely only scale to a certain
size.

~~~
yid
> We don't ask the company to pay anything for 30 days, to see how it goes.

I genuinely would be surprised to see a company pay a sourcing fee in under 30
days, sometimes 60 or 90.

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fiatjaf
5% of salary? Forever? Are you crazy?

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brackin
Made that clearer on the homepage now, just their first year.

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fiatjaf
Still high, but at least saner.

~~~
brackin
Most of the other marketplaces people have mentioned in this thread charge
2-4X more than us. If we can connect companies with great talent it'll be
worth it.

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phantom_oracle
Add "remote" as a location and your signups will probably increase by double
or more.

~~~
brackin
Added remote as an option

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Smutchings
As someone who works at Typeform, it's AWESOME to see people using our product
to make MVPs like this.

Best of luck, it's an interesting concept. (And one I could have done with a
few years back).

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MadMoogle
Why is github or online portfolio a requirement? It doesn't explain what's
being verified, or what we should do if we don't have either of those things.

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lauradhamilton
You misspelled "discreetly."

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brackin
Doh. Fixed, thanks.

