
Tech job listings are down 40% on several job boards - uptown
https://medium.com/@cameronmoll/tech-hiring-is-down-40-and-nobodys-talking-about-it-3d6f658d9faf
======
jpeg_hero
I am feeling the chill in the circle of companies I know.

Other thing that should be mentioned: a lot of initiatives at a lot of
companies over the last two years _just didn 't work._

Feels a bit like we are at the tail end of a pretty big macro cycle of tech
companies green lighting big initiatives with optimistic mindset and now a few
years later the due bill is coming and the bets just didn't pay off.

Maybe a big example would be Twitter: a few years ago they were straight up
hoarding engineers; fast forward to now, what did all this amazing engineering
talent get them? Maybe nice code but the engineering they've done hasn't been
able to increase users.

The reason engineers get paid well is because of their extreme leverage: just
a few engineers can pull off amazing results. But you eventually need the
results. And if the results are not there, broadly, then there will be a
reentrenchmet.

~~~
jknoepfler
I really don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but how it "feels" isn't
really interesting or relevant to the question of "is tech hiring actually
down". The OP presented data to support its claims. The data was (imo) very
flawed, but at least it provided something to start a substantial quantitative
conversation. I think the OP's argument should be praised for "failing fast."
By contrast, the internet of hunches is more or less immune to scrutiny.

I don't know which way the prevailing winds are blowing in tech. I could swap
anecdotes with you (a tech investor I had a beer with recently seemed very
happy? my giant tech employer and its competitors are doing great!), but I
don't think it wouldn't get us any closer to the ground truth.

~~~
erehweb
But remember, the plural of anecdote is data
[http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-
an...](http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-anecdote-is-
data-after-all.html) If your giant tech employer and competitors are hiring
apace, that is a useful data point.

~~~
gmarx
The guy who originated the quote is clearly wrong (at least in medicine where
it matters)

------
bigtunacan
Disclaimer - This is all gut feeling and anecdotal evidence so feel free to
ignore.

I suspect that jobs being posted to smaller niche job boards (such as
Authentic Jobs, which I hadn't heard of until this post) is down overall, but
this doesn't reflect the state of job availability.

I believe larger job sites are having enough of a network effect that these
boards are becoming less relevant. Most tech job seekers I talk to are going
one of four routes.

1) LinkedIn (Facebook for job seekers)

2) Indeed (since it aggregates)

3) Direct application (when you know a specific company you want to work for)

4) Recruiters (Let them do the work for you...)

On the anecdotal front (within the past year) I have been contacted twice by
recruiters that took me out and bought me lunch to try and woo me to another
job and once contacted directly by the CEO of a company who did the same
thing. I want to make this point clear; I'm no one special just a regular
software dev with 15+ years working experience.

During one of these lunches the recruiter said to me, "It is so difficult to
hire qualified developers that I would say there is a NEGATIVE unemployment
rate currently."

I have spoke with multiple company owners, CEOs, and others who are in the
hiring position and the general consensus is they can't find qualified help.

This is just my experience.

~~~
jakebasile
I can tell you from my own experience that the "negative unemployment rate"
comment is false. I have been unemployed since March, and I've had no less
than 12 in-person interviews, some out of state, and countless other contacts
all resulting in rejections.

These were positions I am qualified for, and that I know I would have
succeeded at. I've been told it would take me 6 months to start contributing
to a Python codebase even though I have significant experience in the language
and the problem domain for that project. I've been told I have too little
experience mentoring a team despite doing just that at my last job. I've been
told I don't have enough JS experience for a position that did not ask for any
JS experience.

The market right now is poor for a developer without a fancy CS degree, or one
without the luck of a golden pedigree from a previous high profile company.

~~~
manyxcxi
Getting reasons for why you're not getting hired from companies is basically
not an option- even if they tell you anything it's likely safety speak BS
unrelated to why.

As a guy who's been on both sides of the metaphorical table I know what it's
like to bomb but it's almost worse when you feel like you did well and then
really have no clue, so I empathize with you for that.

From the other side, I implement an everybody says yes hiring scheme. If an
interviewer says no we talk about why. We've had most technical no's
overturned when the other interviewers relate a positive interaction in a
similar technical area and we come to a conclusion that it was as simple as
how the question was asked, or maybe that is a specific weakness made up for
in another area.

The no's that are almost never overturned are the ones where an interviewer
just didn't seem to like the candidate personally. I don't expect everyone to
be friends, bristly people are fine if they're generally capable of some team
play, but if someone walks out of that room saying I couldn't stand to spend
more time with that person than my family, that's it- we're not going to hire.

I don't want everyone on the team drinking from the same kool aid, and we
don't have to be friends or even that friendly. We have to be able to work
together and get shit done, and if one of my employees I trust enough to do
interviews says no, then even a very talented developer isn't going to join
the team.

With all that being said, I don't know what kinds of teams you're interviewing
for, it may be a niche thing or it could be they don't like you- it's a
relationship though, you will eventually find a decent match.

If you want to do a trial run through with me with a no bullshit no PC
response as to my opinion on it I'd be happy to carve out some time. Message
me on Twitter @ashurexm and we can set something up. You've got to have pretty
good skills to get 12 in person interviews in a shortish amount of time.

~~~
bigtunacan
@jakebasile, Whether you take manyxcxi up on this or not; I think s/he is
making a great suggestion here. 12 interviews and zero offers is a lot of
interviews. A few feedback style interviews with some candid feedback might do
you some good. Technical skills aside it is possible you just are not
interviewing well.

Also a couple of somewhat related questions.

1) How well are you at reading the interview outcome? Do you leave these
interviews thinking you will be made an offer or do you leave with a pretty
good idea that a no is coming your way?

2) Rather than waiting for a rejection and then asking "why not", have you
tried asking for the "why not" during the actual interview? At the end of
almost every interview someone will wrap it up saying something along the
lines, "Do you have any more questions?" I have had plenty of candidates ask
me (and I myself ask if I'm the candidate), "What do you think I could have
done differently today to improve my chance of success with your
organization?"

This is usually met with a more honest feedback than the ask after rejection
for numerous reasons.

1) Less HR cover my ass BS; after the rejection companies are worried anything
they say could be used to sue them.

2) More people in the room so you may get more than one perspective.

3) You haven't yet been rejected so you may also hear some positives; "Well
you really impressed us on X, but you could focus more on Y." This can help
you to play to your strengths in the future as well as areas you need to work
on.

~~~
jakebasile
Yes, I've replied to them separately. I think it would be valuable as well.

I gave up on trying to gauge the outcome of the interviews. Most of them I
thought I did very well on, some above average, and a few I knew went poorly.
All of them had the same outcome.

One interview battery in particular stands out. I interviewed at least 6 times
over two weeks, some 1:1, some 1:many. I interviewed with the team, an
unrelated employee for a culture interview, the VP of engineering, and a C
level exec. All felt great, all feedback from the recruiter was positive, but
after everything was done I was told the position "wouldn't challenge me
enough" or something similar. I was devastated.

I have never thought about asking for interview feedback during the interview.
That is a good idea.

~~~
ams6110
Are you possibly aiming too low? I know that one thing that is a huge red flag
for me is an apparently overqualified candidate.

~~~
jakebasile
It's tough to gauge, but the jobs I apply for seem right to me based on listed
requirements, years of experience, etc.

------
rev_bird
I don't think I buy the premise. "Tech job listings on one website are down
40%" seems more accurate, and is much less scary. It definitely helps that the
author mentions that they track their listings compared to their competitors,
but I'm baffled as to why there isn't a graph that covers more than a six-
month span when the thesis spans years. If this company has job listing data
for multiple listing websites that goes back to at least 2014, that'd be
interesting data to look at, but it's not here.

Even then, I'm not sure "tech hiring is down 40%" would be a reasonable
conclusion to draw -- it's like saying, "the newspaper only had 15 job
listings in it, the American economy must be in the toilet."

~~~
jxf
> I'm baffled as to why there isn't a graph that covers more than a six-month
> span when the thesis spans years.

There is. This one covers the last three years for the first half of each
year: [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ptKtTWdeh0XfGPrWsr...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ptKtTWdeh0XfGPrWsrPt0A.png)

~~~
rev_bird
That's fair. I should have been more clear -- it's weird to me that chart
shows 18 months of data in parallel, rather than just having a line graph that
spans the 30 months from the beginning of 2014, and (less so) that it doesn't
include the other sites.

~~~
kaikai
Volume of job listings on one site over the last 30 months would be measuring
far more than the trend in number of jobs. Did the job site add new features?
Did they snag a big new customer who consistently posts their jobs there? Did
they run a different ad campaign, or more of them? If the company is doing
well, it'll probably have a steadily increasing number of job listings over
that period, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there are more jobs
available overall.

------
whamlastxmas
I'm a newer web developer with a few years of full-time experience (and over a
decade of hobby experience), but definitely not a "senior" developer. Most job
openings I see are for senior developers. I don't really know if this is
historically normal, because I wasn't doing much developer job hunting a few
years ago.

For the jobs that I have applied to, I would say I am pretty well qualified. I
have put a lot of time into my resume to make it clean and legible. I usually
spend over an hour writing a cover letter, and I am pretty confident they are
interesting, well written, and have a friendly/personal tone without coming
across as awkward or over eager.

Despite all of this effort and being pretty well qualified, I never hear back.
Not even a rejection letter. Just silence. I have applied to pretty entry-
level positions too for which I am overqualified, and also never hear back.
Sample size is only about 10 applications, but they were very focused, well
matched, high effort applications.

If there is any shortage of web developers out there, companies sure aren't
acting like it. It's not even like I would ask very much, I only want maybe
$75k since I am currently way underpaid (about ~$50k in a big city).

My guess is that this is just a side effect of unemployment being pretty high
(if you look at realistic measures, not the biased official ones). Senior
developers are willing to work for less than before because getting a job is
harder these days, and less-than-senior developers can't get a job at all
because there's only enough spots for the senior level ones.

~~~
ryandrake
The "Shortage Of Developers" myth just can't seem to die. Software development
labor is a market. If there was really a shortage of developers, you'd see
compensation rising to adjust, looser restrictions on remote work,
role/responsibility incentives, etc, but is this happening?

If anything, there is a shortage of developers who:

\- Have 3-5 years of experience ("Senior, but not too-Senior" engineers)

\- Have narrow-enough skill sets

\- Are willing to settle for a very narrowly-defined role

\- Are willing to live in specific areas

\- AND Are willing to work for the compensation offered

Picky companies can't seem to find these mythical employees in large numbers,
so they throw their hands up and declare "shortage of engineers!"

Here are some software engineers that are largely getting ignored:

\- People with 0-2 years of experience

\- People with 10+ years of experience

\- Software generalists

\- Engineers who would also like to broaden their roles/responsibility
(+architecture, +project management, +design?)

\- Remote engineers

\- Engineers who demand more than "competitively average" packages

~~~
runT1ME
>The "Shortage Of Developers" myth just can't seem to die. Software
development labor is a market. If there was really a shortage of developers,
you'd see compensation rising to adjust, looser restrictions on remote work,
role/responsibility incentives, etc, but is this happening?

Yes...? All of this has happened. Twitter has become remote friendly. My
employer is 100% no remote but continues to make exceptions and we have 6 or
so remote employees now.

Salaries have skyrocket in the last five years. So I'd say...yes, there is a
shortage of talented developers.

~~~
onion2k
_there is a shortage of talented developers_

"talented" in that context _usually_ means "has the ability of an experienced
developer at the salary of a more junior developer."

If you accept that talented software engineers are the people who are simply
good at software development then there are plenty - but they're often older,
more experienced, and consequently paid more.

------
myth_drannon
I consider StackOveflow's Careers section a good, high quality sample of the
job market (mostly US). I have been scraping them for about 3 months now and I
see slight increase in job posts.

Here is the data dump: [https://github.com/aparij/soCareers-
Data/tree/master/new](https://github.com/aparij/soCareers-
Data/tree/master/new)

~~~
seibelj
That's really cool! Do you have any visualization of it?

~~~
myth_drannon
Thanks. Not yet, I was just planning to put something soon.

It will be probably at NullException.io (just empty domain right now)

------
minimaxir
I call data shennanigans.

There are a _very large_ number of reasons that the number of jobs on a job
site could drop, included to but not limited to the fact that people have
stopped using OP's very small job site. (It is also suspicious why the OP
compared it to 4 other sites which are _unlabeled_ )

That's partially why blogs use large job sites to try so atleast the change is
somewhat statistically significant. (but still could be caused by noneconomic
issues. From the little bit displayed in the charts, seasonality is in play,
which makes looking at a Jan-Jun horizon flawed)

~~~
fencepost
I don't find it odd at all that someone in a niche market is both looking at
metrics from competitors and _not_ disclosing what companies they regard as
"competitors worth tracking." The names that would go with those other lines
are exactly where their customers and users might go instead, why publicize
them?

~~~
minimaxir
Intentionaly omitting relevant information for business reasons is a marketing
tactic, not a tactic for an analysis that attempt to present itself as
serious.

------
hkarthik
Yup, the signs of a slowdown are there. The smaller startups and companies
that use these job boards have cut back on hiring as their revenue growth has
slowed down. The next step for them will be layoffs.

The big tech companies are still hiring but being much more selective and
limiting how many they hire. By the time some of them start having layoffs,
the tech economy will be in free fall for a number of months and it will be
too late if you aren't prepared for it.

Many larger companies are starting to put in place policies and procedures
that will limit the number of promotions, raises, and bonuses that they give
out. These same actions are also intended to expose lower performers more
quickly so they can be identified and managed out.

My advice is this: find ways to continue to learn and grow, and keep building
skills and making things. Save for potentially long periods of unemployment,
and be willing to work very hard to ensure that you're not perceived as a low
performer.

Lastly, don't sweat it. These economic corrections are good thing. They can
unlock a lot of latent talent, capital, and resources that are being wasted.
Just be financially prepared for it and you'll be fine.

~~~
adrenalinelol
The sky is falling much?

------
lukasm
Disclosure: I work on a startup that provides a tool for referrals
(rolepoint.com) as well as SaaS that is used by job boards (rolepoint.io). I
also gathered job boards in a quite popular repository
[https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-
job](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job)

Couple of things that I noticed

\- more channels - There are at least a dozen of startups like TripleByte,
interviewing.io

\- referrals becomes preferred way of hiring. From small companies where
majority of hires are made through personal networks to fortune 500 companies
(using an external recruiter is a last resort).

\- AngelList, Stackoverflow Careers have matching features and you can learn
more about the company.

\- This is an employee market. Companies have to proactive to get employees
(hence the 'poaching'). Posting something to a job board is not efficient.

\- More acquihires by US companies happens in Europe, since they have hard
time competing with Apple, Google, Facebook etc.

First two points are backed by data.

------
xando
It happens that I collect similar data as well. My data range doesn't go as
far as years. Although I've just run few quires for past months. Doesn't look
like it Stack Overflow would have a reason to complain. But yes AuthenticJobs
doesn't look good.

The chart suggests that he compares AuthenticJobs to similar job boards ~200
job post per month. Stack Overflow Careers is a different league. Numbers
averages there 1800 posts per month.

Also, I wrote a counting script for Hacker News' "Who is Hiring" and the
results suggesting opposite as well. Plese check this chart
[https://blog.whoishiring.io/hacker-news-who-is-hiring-
thread...](https://blog.whoishiring.io/hacker-news-who-is-hiring-thread-
part-1/#chart-grow)

Disclaimer: I run [https://whoishiring.io](https://whoishiring.io) I scrape
them all.

Private opinion. Statements like his are trying to produce shitstorm in an
obvious way. There is no bubble where I stand.

------
nfriedly
I get "recruiter spam" pretty frequently. I generally respond with something
like "No thanks, but I'll pass along your info if I come across anyone who
might be interested." And they generally say "Yes please!"

I now have a list of ~300 recruiters email's that I can give out to anyone who
is looking for work :)

~~~
ep103
I would greatly appreciate that list...

~~~
nfriedly
Send me an email (in my profile)

~~~
ep103
sent, thank you

------
lukeHeuer
Authentic Jobs is one of the more old school places that heavily catered to
web design type work. A more accurate assessment of this data may be that web
design work is drying up, but we've known that for a while. It's hard to say
since they don't mention the competitors they are tracking, but they may serve
the same shrinking market as well.

~~~
ryanSrich
I've seen a drastic drop off of jobs on Angel List. In 2013 there were roughly
10,000+ remote jobs available in the US. Today it's down to hundreds. I'd be
interested in a full scale research effort.

~~~
DiNovi
this might be more related to angellist getting its act together and cleaning
up expired listings, of which they had thousands

------
exelius
No, it's not just you.

Hiring is down across the board; and it is indeed due to poor economic
headwinds. Many finance heads are starting to think that all our bailouts in
2007/2008 did were create an asset bubble down the road in equities by
providing access to cheap capital, encouraging borrowing for risky investments
that are just now starting to sour.

Add to this the slowdown in China, Brexit, Donald Trump, and a volatile oil
market and there's just too much uncertainty for companies to staff up right
now. Some firms are even quietly issuing preemptive layoffs under the
assumption that 2017 is going to be a very bad year a la 2007.

That said, there's still plenty of work for tech workers (someone has to
implement those cost savings projects, amirite?). But look for middle
managers, marketing folks and sales people to have a bad time as companies
look to trim payrolls.

------
ILIKEPONIES
On the one hand, we've seen some similar patterns as many seed stage companies
have struggled to raise an A.* On the other, it's hard to extrapolate anything
from such a small dataset.

Anecdotally, I would say it's also likely that tech companies that ARE hiring
are shifting their hiring budget to sources that bring in more qualified
candidates. AuthenticJobs is one of the better niche tech job boards, but it's
still a job board. We see lots of growing companies that are spending less
money on older channels like LinkedIn and job boards and instead, spending
money on an applicant tracking system, hiring in-house recruiters, and using
services like Entelo, TheMuse, AngelList, Hired, etc.

*We run Underdog.io.

------
juandazapata
"My startup is experiencing a 40% churn" will be a better title for the post.

------
matchagaucho
The on-demand gig economy is taking over... aka the "Uber for Web
Professionals".

Many companies, SMBs in particular, are discovering they don't need to "own
the cow to drink the milk".

It's simpler to post tasks to sites like Fiverr than it is to post a "job
description" and hire an employee/contractor.

------
toephu2
FTA: "June’s job report, well above forecasts, suggests the majority of job
gains may be happening in areas outside of tech."

Correct, they are occurring outside of tech, in fact you don't need to guess,
it says it right there in the report if you read it [1]:

"In June, job growth occurred in leisure and hospitality, health care and
social assistance, and financial activities."

The largest increase last month was in "Leisure and hospitality" which added
59,000 jobs. This is basically the hotel industry gearing up for summer which
is when most Americans travel for vacation. These jobs don't produce any real
economic growth. The economy is not recovering. Today what the media failed to
mention is that the unemployment rate actually went up 0.2% to 4.9% (although
the more accurate number to look at is the U-6 which went down from 9.7% to
9.6%). Also Average Hourly Earnings m/m went down from 0.2% to 0.1%.

[1][http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm)

~~~
xxpor
>This is basically the hotel industry gearing up for summer which is when most
Americans travel for vacation.

Aren't the figures seasonally adjusted?

------
abritinthebay
I can tell the number of people who weren't around for the last non-incumbent
election.

Every major election year the job market does this. It's worse when it's an 8
year cycle.

Add into it the uncertainty around Trump and Brexit causing economic
worries... it's basically there is less risk, so less VC capital, so less
startups.

It's a normal cycle.

~~~
vineetch
You mean more* risk (not less).

~~~
__derek__
Less risk tolerance, I reckon.

~~~
abritinthebay
Right, that was what I was going for.

------
distracteddev90
I believe this is symptomatic of an industry moving away from job board based
recruiting. There has been a significant change in the recruiting sphere and
many talent teams are starting to focus more on sourcing and pursuing passive
candidates.

------
percept
While there is still room for other considerations, I was a little more
skeptical about the headline until I saw the article's source.

If this had been the usual analysis of one of the large job listing
aggregators, then I think more of the arguments made here would come into
play, but I give this one slightly more credibility since it's a for-pay and
"curated" job site.

So I'll put it in the somewhat-more-interesting category.

Back to the author's points, of course perceptions help frame reality, too.

------
markbnj
It could also reflect that job boards are becoming less and less useful for
employers or job seekers. I recently went through a job hunt and enabling my
resume on boards like Dice just resulted in a flood of irrelevant recruiter
spam. I'm not being overly harsh here either.

When I landed a job (a good one) it was through a posting on the Who's Hiring
thread here on HN, and subsequent email/phone conversations and co-working
time.

------
lawless123
Most jobs sites i have used recently are inundated with recruiters all
offering/advertising for the same few jobs rather than the companies that are
hiring.

------
sanowski
Maybe job board postings are down 40%

[http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/05/06/it-job-growth-slows-
tech...](http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/05/06/it-job-growth-slows-tech-sector-
hiring-up/)

------
kami8845
From my experience the jobs I have found on "Authentic Jobs" have never been
from the tech startups that I actually want to work at, since those primarily
use AngelList, StackOverflow, GitHub, weworkremotely, Hacker News etc. to
advertise their jobs.

------
me551ah
The post should have been 'Traffic to authenticjobs.com is down by 40%'?

------
mathattack
2 observations:

1) There has been some batten down the hatches.

2) There is migration among boards. (Example: Indeed has become much more
relevant than during my last job search. As a hiring manager I need to pay
more attention to it.)

~~~
RickS
> Indeed has become much more relevant than during my last job search

Can you expand on this? I've long written off indeed as one of the generic
monster.com types that just scrapes stuff from elsewhere and doesn't actually
create a fast path to a technical person with hiring authority (vs something
like angellist, which does).

It's been a few years though - what's changed? Site looks the same as always.

~~~
mathattack
As part of my interview process, I sometimes open with "How did you find us?"
and Indeed has come up a lot more than LinkedIn over the past year. Perhaps
this is because candidates like that it scrapes from everywhere, or it's
algorithms do a better job at narrowing the sea of open positions to relevant
ones?

------
leroy_masochist
Occum's Razor might suggest that the reason for this is pretty straightforward
-- the downturn in VC funding means fewer dollars of other people's money
available for startup salaries.

~~~
RickS
Has a very precipitous downturn in VC funding actually occurred? There's been
convincing clatter for awhile now that it's expected, but my feeling was that
while it was lower, it wasn't the kind of downturn that would shave 40% off
the hiring market.

~~~
leroy_masochist
I think it certainly has occurred from the perspective of the early-stage
founders making cash allocation decisions.

------
swingbridge
"Lean" is the new black.

With investors focusing more on hard fundamentals like revenue and profit and
a lot less on "hype" metrics like user growth, employee growth, number of
baristas on staff and such a lot of tech companies have taken the hint and got
down to business. That includes slamming the brakes on hiring and in some
cases cutting staff. That's not the only force at play, but it's a big one.

------
RomanPushkin
Can I request a feature for authenticjobs? Glassdoor rating for every company.
It will save a lot of time, and I wonder why nobody has it. Thanks!

------
DiNovi
I still get an absurd amount of recruiter spam...

------
jswny
Is it possible that this trend is due to companies taking in more interns and
training them as opposed to normal hiring practices?

~~~
elliotec
Doubt it. I have literally never ever seen an intern developer trained up in
any company I've worked at.

------
current_call
Why the surprise?

[http://www.defmacro.org/2013/12/09/learn-to-
code.html](http://www.defmacro.org/2013/12/09/learn-to-code.html)

------
alexchamberlain
I wonder how many companies have decided to hire more junior devs, rather than
seniors. In an economic downturn, you still need to keep people in your
(human) development pipeline.

------
DailyHN
Posts on [http://angularjobs.com](http://angularjobs.com) are higher than
ever. Disclosure/Source: I'm the owner.

------
cmdrfred
Who is that job site with the orange line in the graph, they seem to be doing
pretty well.

------
geori
This might be happening because Angelist is free and has great candidates.

------
halley
if you need a hacker for hire contact cryptlyonhackers@gmail.com

------
indeedwhynot
If you advertize for a sheep with five green legs, suddenly mother nature will
start sending in resumés of people who claim to be exactly that. Therefore,
job adverts don't work.

What you need, is a resumé database in which you can search.

In fact, I would personally never, ever react to a job advert. Thousands of
people, who do not have the skill set whatsoever, will react too. That will
give a completely wrong impression — of levels of competition that do not
exist in reality — and drive down compensation for real candidates, who
therefore bail out pretty much immediately, or even never react.

Seriously, there is often a good reason why these other people are looking for
jobs. It is always the same people looking for jobs. The people whom you
really want to hire, are usually not looking for jobs.

You should reasonably assume that people who can really do the work, are
already working. The discussion then revolves around why would it be more
interesting to work for your company and how much more are you willing to pay
for that?

Wisen up and stop wasting your time and money on job adverts.

------
phaemon
13 points and no comments...

~~~
lorenzhs
It's quite common for a story to go comment-less on HN for a while while
people come up with comments that exceed the scope of "13 points and no
comments..."

~~~
phaemon
It is quite common, but we don't talk about it.

