

Zappos Zaps Its Job Postings - petethomas
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304811904579586300322355082

======
cratermoon
"how to make the hiring process faster and easier by keeping a pool of willing
and able candidates at the ready."

Meaning, people who will take a job for less money because they are lured by
intangibles.

"the standard hiring process is too "transactional," said Michael Bailen, who
heads talent acquisition for the company"

Translation: candidates actually expect to negotiate a fair salary, sensible
working conditions, fringe benefits, and maybe even relo costs, while the
company would rather bring in starry-eyed naifs willing to take the company's
"fun creation" instead of real compensation.

~~~
jstandard
"Translation: candidates actually expect to negotiate a fair salary, sensible
working conditions, fringe benefits, and maybe even relo costs, while the
company would rather bring in starry-eyed naifs willing to take the company's
"fun creation" instead of real compensation."

I don't think your translation is accurate. Your argument seems based around
your personal value for money over "intangibles" and misses the fact that
these intangibles are a non-trivial business cost for Zappos

Ex. Parties aren't free, nor are the meetings of high-level execs who
carefully plan the parties and craft the culture. They just seem free in a
similar way that the roads we drive on seem free.

These intangibles have been at the core of Zappos' success for years and it's
clearly been working for them. [0][1]

The Zappos network is yet another experiment in a long line of experiments
from a customer service company located in the desert considering new,
innovative ways to attract and retain the right talent for their culture. This
experiment might completely fail or it might give them the extra leverage
they're looking for to help their small HR team.

[0] [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-
companies/2013/s...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-
companies/2013/snapshots/31.html) [1]
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-
companies/2014/s...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-
companies/2014/snapshots/38.html)

------
hga
" _A few months ago, online shoe retailer Zappos did away with job titles for
its 1,500 employees._ "

This may come out harsh, but the above suggests to me that the company at best
doesn't get it, and at worst doesn't care about its employees' futures after
Zappos.

Making me play "games" on an private, internal social network to get the
company interested in me? Well, it might work for other fields, but I don't
think the company is _that_ special for this to work for the sort of technical
types I assume they need ... and note, while this might be a failure on the
part of the journlist author, it says nothing about networking, referals from
current employees, etc.

This is so bizzare I reread the article, and note that I wouldn't even know if
I wanted to start playing the game, i.e. do they need people with my sorts of
specialities? After a rather ugly narrowing of this sort of thing, the field's
wild with production quality or thereabout languages, databases, all sorts of
infrastructure. If I were a front end developer I could make judgements (but
not if they were planning on doing something new), but behind it all....

Well, they could make the game more interesting by letting participants poke
around their backend systems ^_^.

~~~
e15ctr0n
Zappos is an unconventional company run by an unconventional CEO, Tony Hsieh.
You can read an earlier interview about his hiring strategy[0], take a look at
his office[1], and read about his plan to turn around downtown Las Vegas[2].
An unusual man, but unusually effective.

[0]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10corner.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/10corner.html?pagewanted=all)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/business/tony-hsiehs-
offic...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/business/tony-hsiehs-office-
welcome-to-the-rain-forest.html)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/magazine/what-happens-
in-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/magazine/what-happens-in-brooklyn-
moves-to-vegas.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
hga
I understand that, although to a greater extent now, e.g. they're the only
compay I'll buy unfamiliar footware from (although I wish they did a better
job with their inventory). And I find nothing wrong in your [0], although I'm
trying to figure out exactly how I'd demonstrate I'd _“Create fun and a little
weirdness.”_ in an interview (relating past examples would be right for me).

I'm just questioning if this new and most certainly unconventional approach---
as filtered through a journalist---will allow them to hire the technical help
they need. Or any other field where the labor market is tight.

~~~
cratermoon
I read it as Zappos not wanting to pay market rates for good talent, so they
introduce a wildcard game element to the process that "rewards" loyal people
with job offers. Offers that happen to be what the company wants to pay, not
what the market rate would demand.

