
We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us! - jpadvo
In response to a story currently on the front page titled &quot;FB is the Only Other Platform Used by 20% of College Students. Join Us!&quot; [1]<p>Do you actually want to hire people who are going to fall for dishonest linkbait like that?<p>YC companies, I understand that you get to post job ads on HN and they automatically show up on the front page. Great. But please, show some respect to the people you are trying to recruit, and show some respect for this exclusive privilege PG gives you.<p>If you read the full post[1] you&#x27;ll see that what they are referring to is the college students at a single university. At this university, apparently, 20% of students signed up at launch, and 30% of those use it daily. Making it more like 6% of students, at one university, who use their app. Probably a little more if you count weekly or monthly users. But still. That, in comparison to what the headline claims (20% of college students, everywhere) is ridiculously inaccurate.<p>And also, what about Google? Way, way more than 20% of college students use Gmail, Docs, etc. And what about things like Craigslist? It is even claimed that their app can tell you &quot;exactly what you need to get done every day, with no input&quot;. No input is qualitatively different than &quot;very little input, but it&#x27;s really easy and quick.&quot;<p>You can, and should, do better. In addition to misleading people being a mean thing to do (even when effective), it doesn&#x27;t do you any good to mislead <i>your own future employees</i>, anyway. Geez.<p>---<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6269664
======
pearjuice
YC companies always have the worst link-baiting lines to get you to click on
their job offers. Just put them in a standard template so we know who is
looking for what before clicking on the link. I propose:

{company} ({yc season}) looking for {role}

Role should be the actual function title and if applicable mentioning the
language-stack (i.e. RoR, node) the candidate should master.

~~~
dylangs1030
I second this strongly. I'd pay a lot more attention with a simple format.
It's more respectful to the audience and makes you seem more professional.

Common objections:

 _But we 're young and hip, we wanna look different from the big companies!_
\- Doesn't matter. Still bad practice.

 _But we don 't like labels. We want generalists._ \- Then specify that.
Asking for a "ninja" or some other nondescript title is retarded.

 _But we want to say what we do!_ \- That's what the post is for.

YC companies have the exclusive ability to post job ads on the front page. I
_highly_ doubt there's any reasonable justification for posting anything aside
from a standard template. It's not like you need more help.

~~~
biot
What about this objection?

"We A/B tested the copy and we got far better results with custom, quirky copy
than we did with a standard format. Why should we purposely use a version that
people find boring and has been proven to be less effective? If you don't like
our job postings, then the job isn't for you anyways."

~~~
dylangs1030
Then I respond with this:

"Your A/B test demonstrates it's better for you in the short term. Great! Now
you're just being dishonest, instead of ineffective and dishonest."

EDIT: That probably sounds harsh. I have nothing against YC companies, this
advertising is just something I personally find disagreeable and annoying.

------
leetrout
As a newer HN user I was surprised that there are no comments on job postings.
I've also noticed some interesting posts and think there could be some
constructive conversation around them.

I can appreciate why there are no comments but also I think it would be
interesting to allow direct feedback to job postings.

Anyone else ever thought this, too?

~~~
jacquesm
Comments are off on job postings because they tend to become a running
critique of the company or product doing the posting.

~~~
larrys
"because they tend to become a running critique of the company or product
doing the posting"

Why do they feel that is bad? And have they ever been on on HN job postings
(if so how long ago)?

~~~
jacquesm
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022018)

Some more background info. Other issues were:

\- outing companies that were still under the radar

\- hijacking threads with other job postings

~~~
larrys
Thanks.

PG did a good job (as tptacek did) of trying to spin this [1] but the bottom
line is there aren't comments because somehow it's not good for YC. (Which is
fine of course since it's YC's sandbox.)

Fully see the problem of course with the "outing companies that were still
under the radar". I would have just left it at that. The rest is just a
distraction that gives people a reason to refute the additional points made.

In selling it's best to just concentrate on the strongest angles. Otherwise
you give people an opening on something that doesn't even matter or a problem
that can be solved.

[1] Reminds me of when trying to "explain" to children why they can or have to
do something. The bottom line is "we're your parents and that's why and a
different set of rules applies to us".

------
argumentum
It wouldn't have been that bad had they made one simple change .. from (20% of
College Students) to (20% of <some big name school>) or (20% of a major public
university).

It would have actually been more impressive if they weren't so vague .. now
they are probably going to turn off a lot of good prospects.

I say this as a YC alum whose 1st job post was fairly ill-advised (though not
dishonest). Believe me, it is quite tempting to play around, so I wouldn't be
too hard especially on the smaller teams who haven't been recruiting/employing
for too long.

They will learn, soon enough. It's also important to note that many teams
consist of 17-22 year olds, and as this app is aimed at college students it
seems like it could be one of those teams. So cut them some slack.

~~~
jpadvo
I figured they would learn by getting called out like this. And since the post
was anonymous, it doesn't really hurt them anyway. Free learning experience.

~~~
argumentum
I agree with this (particularly since it's anonymous), but piling on seems
kind of mean.

Another option would be to simply email the given address and state your
complaints. For example that you may have been interested (if you were), but
felt mislead by the posting.

~~~
jpadvo
The reason I publicly posted this is because it is an issue about community
standards, not just a personal issue between me and the company.

It's interesting to think about my own motivations -- I wonder if I would have
been gentler if their post _hadn 't been_ anonymous. If so, should I have been
gentler even though their post was anonymous? Anyway, I apologize if this
caused unnecessary hurt, I didn't mean to.

~~~
argumentum
I didn't mean to imply that _you_ were piling on, and I don't doubt your
intentions one bit. . The problem is that once this is posted, you have little
control over the outcome in the comment threads and piling on is inevitable.
Again, not a criticism of you at all, my reply was aimed at the comments in
the thread.

------
joeblau
Thanks for addressing this, I was wondering what was going on with that other
post. The content did seem intriguing, but also a little shady at the same
time.

~~~
balsam
FWIW this shows what it takes to get to the front page. There are a lot of
interesting links in "new" right now but only stuff with a bit of negative
tension gets boosted to the front page (fear & conspiracies work!) Disclaimer:
I provided the crucial vote that boosted this here very thread.

~~~
nknighthb
YC job ads are not voted on. They appear on the front page automatically.

~~~
balsam
i'm not talking that YC job, I'm talking about _this_ post replying to the YC
job.

------
lolwutf
Hats off to that! Lots of the job postings on HN tend to make outlandish
requests/offerings just because 'hey we got HN front page'. Some are downright
shameful.

Also, in before the HN cabal muzzles this one.

------
airnomad
What is really dishonest is not having an option to downvote a job ad.

------
p_campbell
Looks like they've changed the title and apologized.

------
jmgrosen
The way I saw it was that they only operate at a few universities, and at the
ones they do, they have 20% of the student body.

That being said, I agree it was disingenuous at the least and downright
misleading at the worst.

------
porterhaney
That's a load off. I thought they were talking about Tumblr.

------
csdreamer7
Thankyou for posting this!

------
thegeneralist
seems like this worked, being at the top of HN and all...

------
hydralist
who cares honestly, everyone talks shit when they are recruiting. if an
applicant can't figure that out, what gives?

------
icecreampain
Unfortunately, dishonesty sells. How did all the large megacorporations get to
where they are now?

Not by being great programmers and free thinkers, but by being greedy
businessmen and, later, buying tons of lobbyists.

This piece of shit company is ... well... just being a normal company.

~~~
aaronbrethorst

        Unfortunately, dishonesty sells. How did all the
        large megacorporations get to where they are now?
    
        Not by being great programmers and free thinkers,
        but by being greedy businessmen and, later, buying
        tons of lobbyists.
    
        This piece of shit company is ... well... just being
        a normal company.
    

Citation needed.

~~~
larrys
Although I am one to also ask from time to time for links or citations I think
that in this case this is clearly one persons opinion as opposed to someone
saying "it is well known that dishonesty sells and that all large mega
corporations get to where they are by.." [1]

As far as "dishonesty" in business that is determined many times by when the
consensus actions of a particular industry is. Behavior in one industry in
many cases means you have to play the same game or perish. Each industry works
differently.

[1] Add: In which case a citation would be appropriate.

~~~
jmomo
Confirmation bias is pretty close. People actively seek out not neutral
factual information, but whatever makes them happy. Conservatives watch Fox
NEWS because it makes them feel good about themselves. Liberals watch MSNBC
because it makes them feel good about themselves. "Truth be damned, lie to me!
It makes me happy."

Big oil doesn't cause global warming because that would make a bunch of rich
powerful people bad guys, and they can't have that.

And, sales, marketing, and advertisers aren't sleazy liars because that would
make them bad guys, and they can't see that. They can't. It's impossible.
Can't be true. No way.

Advertisers are just showing people what they want to see. What they demand to
see. They demand to be lied to, so it's okay.

