
Recruitly: Evaluate Code to Get Paid - recruitly
http://recruitly.co
======
pvg
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

"If your work isn't ready for people to try out yet, please don't do a Show
HN. Once it's ready, come back and do it then."

~~~
delinka
Can you specify in what way this isn't "ready?" I'd assume it's because they
seem to be peddling "early access" in which case that's not an immediate
indication that's "not ready."

~~~
franciscop
"Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't
be Show HNs."

~~~
delinka
Perhaps this should have been the quote pasted above instead.

~~~
recruitly
I'm sorry. I should have known better or/and taking the time to read the
rules.

However, like delinka says this is an invitation to a private beta, where our
beta MVP is sent out to a select users we screen. Hence, the landing page will
remain until we open our MVP to the public. In any case, many who signup to
the mailing list now will gain access to an early version real soon.

------
jschwartzi
This reminds me of how unions used to certify that their members were
competent. Specifically, the Carpenters' Union in my area administers tests
for different levels of skill, and rates union carpenters based on the results
of these tests. To be rated a Journeyman, for instance, the test requires you
to demonstrate competence at a variety of carpentry techniques that would be
required in framing a house or concrete form, for instance. Then you pay your
dues and can be added to the list of union members without a job. Then when
you hire someone whose union represents that they are a Journeyman, you can be
confident that they're competent.

------
codegeek
"Evaluate Code to get paid"

This statement is not telling me (a dumb user) what exactly is it that you do.
The name is Recruitly so I am guessing it is a recruitment platform ? So is
the ultimate goal to hire developers through your platform or is it more like
a portfolio for devs who can evaluate code to get ratings for themselves ? Or
is this a freelance type of platform when you say "get paid".

I suggest you make it more clear in your copy.

~~~
recruitly
Thank you for your feedback!

Recruitly is a community that helps its members code better. It does this by
helping managers to pair with other developers and by having members rate each
other.

Given your confusion, how would you rephrase the headline "Evaluate Code To
Get Paid" to reflect this?

Thanks

------
groby_b
The cycle will be complete once there's an exclusive hiring site for people
who work on hiring sites.

In other words: Many things about hiring are broken. It needs a _cultural_
change, not more software.

~~~
Swizec
"It's a people problem"

The hardest 5 words for People Who Like To Build Stuff to grasp. Me included.

The amount of times I should've just hired some help instead of building
myself out of the issue is ridiculous.

------
hasenj
What's the incentive for giving rating to people?

It seems like I will be benefitting them financially with no guarantee what so
ever that I will get rated positively as well.

If people start giving ratings out of reciprocity, then what's the point?

How do you guarantee that people's ratings of each other are relevant?

~~~
delinka
They appear to be paying evaluators based on candidates keeping the job for
which the candidate was evaluated. It says "You'll receive a percentage of the
hired candidate's annual salary for their first full year." If we interpret
that to mean they have to work a full year before you get the commission, it's
in your interests to make sure your rating is accurate.

~~~
hasenj
That's motivation to give ratings, but not necessarily accurate ones.

Actually since your commission per employee is likely to be very small, it's
in your interest to cast a wider net by giving ratings to as many developers
as you can. Since you can't really lose anything.

~~~
Drdrdrq
And you have every incentive to give (just) positive reviews...

------
logicallee
This is interesting. Knowing the online community, it will attract really
strict graders (I'm using a euphemism, you should know what I mean) - so you
can piggyback on this to just paste code that isn't working from a throwaway
and have the pedants tell you exactly why and why you shouldn't be hired (for
reviews that say the code is broken, it can be a requirement to say where) --
which I'm sure they'll be thrilled to do for like $5. "total idiot, didn't
even cast to a float so the comparison is wrong. would not hire. keep away
from real systems." Cheap alternative to debugging!

------
seibelj
I'm not sure how this works. I submit random snippets of my own code, then
others get paid for reading it? Then if enough people read it I can approve
people for jobs? Very confusing landing page

------
ceejayoz
" All developers are graduates of accredited online programs that meet the
highest international standards."

So I'd need a certification to participate?

~~~
fecak
Just based on how that phrase is worded ("all developers..."), this would seem
like a market almost purely to hire bootcamp graduates.

------
asimuvPR
Stupid question:

What safeguards does this have in place to stop me from building a set of bots
that game it?

~~~
hasenj
Not a stupid question at all.

As far as I can tell, their concept is not very well thought out.

~~~
asimuvPR
Its OK for it to not be completely thought out. It is a startup. They probably
don't know how to make money from it. But I'm curious as to what checks they
have to avoid gaming. Its pretty straightforward to build various bot to
commit, evaluate, and accept code. Some people might even get a kick out of
making such things... ;)

Edit: Spelling.

~~~
recruitly
Thank you for clarifying it. I agree everything hasn't been fully thought out,
and there's lots of questions that needs to be answered. This is why we
welcome any feedback people may have as it will help us clarify things.

------
sawyer
My gut is that this product will add more noise than signal to the process.

------
cpfohl
Is this a pair programming site, or a hiring site? It's very unclear

------
recruitly
Thanks for all of your feedback. I have updated the website in the hope of
getting our message across more clearly. We will roll out the MVP in a few
weeks, but we want to ensure that people "get it". Please have another look,
and we welcome all feedback. [http://recruitly.co/](http://recruitly.co/)

------
goshx
I have mixed feelings about this because people may game the system just to
protect people they know or to simply try to make money without actually being
honest with the evaluation.

I don't know the details on how the evaluations happen, but I think you should
only be able to evaluate the code and recommend people without knowing who the
actual author is. This way you prevent some biases.

------
BucketSort
I'm looking forward to this and new ways of getting coders connected. I know a
lot of freelancers, including myself, that are always hard pressed for work
when there seems to be an abundance. The only thing I'm afraid of is having
too many profiles and services to manage. If this could somehow link into
services we already use, like github, that would be great.

~~~
asimuvPR
_I know a lot of freelancers, including myself, that are always hard pressed
for work when there seems to be an abundance._

Tell me about your marketing.

------
bigtech
I submitted my email address and received an HTTP 500 Internal Server Error

------
brudgers
I'm reminded of
[https://codereview.stackexchange.com/](https://codereview.stackexchange.com/)
except for the getting paid part.

------
seangrant
503 unavailable

~~~
recruitly
I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting that many traffic.

~~~
mk-61
_cough_ probably you need to evaluate code of your site then.

~~~
hluska
I don't think you understand what a 503 means.

Edit - In the wild, a 503 usually means that the person who built out the site
did not do a very good job of estimating traffic. An empty response can return
503 if the server is overwhelmed with connections.

In other words, a 503 more likely than not has nothing to do with code and has
everything to do with provisioning enough resources for the amount of traffic
received. Unfortunately, that's a tough thing to get right, particularly when
you land on the front page of Hacker News during extremely busy times.

~~~
mk-61
My comment was just (probably ugly) joke attempt. Though, you was right - I
didn't understand 503 fully, and then I became interested after your hint and
googled for it.

Now I know, that it can be easily a cause (out of the many) when owner simply
"suspended" site for a while, and fixing stuff.

Thank you.

~~~
hluska
Uh oh, I fear that I may have started you down the cold, dark path towards
becoming a sysadmin!!! :)

If you're interested in taking this further, it's a great chance to figure out
how you would:

a.) Deal with a 503 if it happened while your site was under heavy load.

b.) Harden your site to avoid 503s.

Have fun and thanks for your kind response!!

------
mc42
Returning a 503 for a "Code Review" site isn't exactly putting it into a good
light...

Perhaps your own needs to have done so.

------
goshx
A bit off-topic, but: to all the people complaining about the 503 and
suggesting that this is a code issue, I don't think you understand what causes
a 503. You can have a 503 with an empty page if the web server gets overloaded
with more connections than it can handle, for example.

------
recruitly
Good day everyone,

I'm Jonathan, CEO of Recruitly.co.
[https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jonathanfetienne](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jonathanfetienne)

I would personally like to thank everyone for their interest. I recently wrote
the following blog posts, and hopefully that may answer many questions you
guys have. If not, let me know, and It would be my pleasure to address them.
=)

[http://www.recruitly.co/blog/brand/recruitly-bringing-
educat...](http://www.recruitly.co/blog/brand/recruitly-bringing-education-
recruitment-closer-together/)

[http://www.recruitly.co/blog/community/improve-coding-
skills...](http://www.recruitly.co/blog/community/improve-coding-skills/)

~~~
elliotec
Interest? This thread is full of people saying they have no clue what this is.

And I assure you, most developers don't give a damn about more recruiting
software.

Also, the blog posts you link to both return a 500 error, and now the link to
your marketing site you posted is returning 503 for me.

~~~
recruitly
Hi Elliot,

Thanks for your comment.

Receiving honest and brutal feedback is the only way we're going to move this
thing forward.

I made this post long before many of those comments and as a response to the
significant amount of people who kindly decided to join our mailing list,
resulting in our site shutting down multiple time due to an unprecedented
level of traffic.

Please try the blog post link again. If not try it later tonight or tomorrow.
We will evaluate later on today what's the best step to take as a team, and
this after taking all of the comments into consideration.

If you have any other concerns, please feel free to address them.

Best, Jonathan Etienne

CEO of Recruitly.co

~~~
whamlastxmas
Here is some honest and brutal feedback: No one is going to buy the idea that
your site went down due to the number of people giving you their email. It
went down due to the amount of traffic. I doubt the HN crowd was clamoring to
hand over their email to a generic looking, templated landing page with no
product to actually see.

~~~
recruitly
Thanks for your comment.

I would be more than happy to share with you my mail chimp mailing list, but
out of respect and privacy for the user I will not. I am not trying to sell,
and quite frankly i have little to gain in selling "this idea" to anybody.

There's lots to be learned here today, and we are ready to adjust because as
you know this startup world is all about learning. When we do have the product
up and running, i'll make sure that our server are ready to accommodate an
unexpected, and large amount of traffic.

However, before even getting to that stage we have learned that we need to
communicate better, and will use many comments here to refine our idea, our
approach, and the way we convey it to the public.

