
GitHire Swamped After Promising 5 Hire-Worthy Programmers for $1k - tswicegood
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/jobs/githire-a-headhunter-is-swamped-after-promising-5-hire-worthy-bay-area-programmers-for-1000.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=githire&st=cse
======
guywithabike
GitHire is the sleaziest, scammiest spam setup I've come across in a long
time. It shocks me that it's treated with legitimacy by the New York Times.
Additionally, it saddens me to see so many people uncritically praising the
idea as if it was anything other than a spam house.

GitHire does nothing more than scrape GitHub profiles and spam users with
unsolicited junk mail -- regardless of the users's qualifications or desire to
be recruited. It's spray-and-pray spam and companies wishing to keep their
respect among developers would do well to avoid them. Any company willing just
resort to spam is neither a company I'd want to work for nor a company I'd
wish to be a customer of.

~~~
dpritchett
Really interesting PR hack in play here. At first glance the article is
published at NYT.com and that fact _will_ be milked endlessly. The really
curious part is that the article is syndicated up from the SF-area nonprofit
"Bay Citizen" [1].

Note to PR-hungry founders: Figure out which blogs are syndicated by the NYT
and other big players and then pitch to them directly. They should be much
more receptive audiences than first-party NYT staff.

[1] <http://www.baycitizen.org/about/>

~~~
natrius
It's not really syndication. The New York Times has partnerships with The Bay
Citizen and several other regional news nonprofits to publish articles in
their regional editions on Fridays and Sundays. The articles go through The
New York Times's editorial process, not a completely separate process like the
Associated Press.

In theory, The New York Times won't lend its imprimatur to articles it doesn't
deem worthy, so I don't see why the newsroom that the reporter sits in is an
issue.

~~~
NinetyNine
There's a pretty big effort jump between writing an article and approving it
for editing, in addition to writing involving you intently think about the
story for a significant amount of time. This means that any ethical,
financial, pr - related concerns are applied longer for the writer. NYT
writers are highly motivated and competitive people, and would worry about
even the occasional negative piece. Bay Citizen writers aren't held to the
same requirements, since they're aren't viewed in the same critical way.
Editors, since they simply have to review the piece and what gets on the page
is whatever is the best to choose from, are a lot more likely to approve a
piece.

~~~
natrius
_Editors, since they simply have to review the piece and what gets on the page
is whatever is the best to choose from, are a lot more likely to approve a
piece._

Your view of the role of an editor is incorrect. My observations of the
newsroom I work in (as a developer) are quite different. My organization has a
similar partnership with the New York Times, and some of our stories have made
the front page of the national edition, not just the regional edition.

Your view of The New York Times's willingness to publish pieces that don't
meet its standards are based on speculation.

------
gkoberger
They were practically begging my co-workers and I to interview. They were
offering $10 Amazon gift cards for an interview, which was just insulting. It
wasn't even the amount; it turned what could have been a good fit into a cheap
business transaction.

Here's how I saw it: If I invited you to dinner, it would be considered a nice
gesture. But what if I offered you $10 to come to my house for dinner? It
changes everything.

I feel bad for the company, who we blamed for the "stunt". Turns out, the
company had no knowledge they were doing that.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Joel Spolsky on motivating factors:

> _But when you offer people money to do things that they wanted to do,
> anyway, they suffer from something called the Overjustification Effect. "I
> must be writing bug-free code because I like the money I get for it," they
> think, and the extrinsic motivation displaces the intrinsic motivation.
> Since extrinsic motivation is a much weaker effect, the net result is that
> you’ve actually reduced their desire to do a good job. When you stop paying
> the bonus, or when they decide they don’t care that much about the money,
> they no longer think that they care about bug free code._

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/09.html>

~~~
gkoberger
I think the awesome book Predictably Irrational does a better job of
explaining it:

> What’s going on here? Why does an offer for direct payment put such a damper
> on the party? As Margaret Clark, Judson Mills, and Alan Fiske suggested a
> long time ago, the answer is that we live simultaneously in two different
> worlds- one where social norms prevail, and the other where market norms
> make the rules. The social norms include the friendly requests that people
> make of one another. Could you help me move this couch? Could you help me
> change this tire? Social norms are wrapped up in our social nature and our
> need for community. They are usually warm and fuzzy. Instant paybacks are
> not required: you may help move your neighbor’s couch, but this doesn’t mean
> he has to come right over and move yours. It’s like opening a door for
> someone: it provides pleasure for both of you, and reciprocity is not
> immediately required.

> The second world, the one governed by market norms, is very different.
> There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about it. The exchanges are sharp- edged:
> wages, prices, rents, interest, and costs- and- benefits. Such market
> relationships are not necessarily evil or mean-in fact, they also include
> self- reliance, inventiveness, and individualism-but they do imply
> comparable benefits and prompt payments. When you are in the domain of
> market norms, you get what you pay for-that’s just the way it is.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Once you mentioned it, I realized I knew this was in Predictably Irrational.
I've never read it, but I have heard it mentioned in this context.

I first heard of this through Joel, so I quickly found a citation from his
blog. I know he's mentioned it repeatedly on the SO/SX podcasts as well, so
it's likely the association was solidified there.

That said, your quote doesn't make the point I was trying to highlight.
Specifically, I was trying to show that moving from intrinsic to extrinsic
motivation is not only damaging, but also hard to reverse as well.

Thanks for the quote though. I've renewed my mental note to someday maybe
finally get around to reading the book.

------
latchkey
These guys are spammers, there is no way around it.

<http://lookfirst.com/2012/01/githirecom-is-spammer.html>

Here is my post about an HN post that they _deleted_ after people started
ripping into them:

<http://lookfirst.com/2012/01/githire-spam-again.html>

Please make them go away. Mark all emails from them as spam. Do not buy their
services. Do not respond to their emails.

~~~
X-Istence
I was not even aware that they create profiles from my public data on Github,
and the only way it seems to remove my profile is to log in using OAuth on
Github.

That just seems even more sleazy.

~~~
latchkey
Yea, I'm starting to get upset at Github for allowing them to continue. I've
emailed support@github.com multiple times about this. One email said that they
would take care of these guys and then all further support emails have been
ignored.

Sadly, they are giving Github a bad name now too as it appears to me that they
are supporting these guys by allowing them to continue.

------
almightygod
Seems like hype. This page <http://githire.com/job_board> shows only 19 job
requests and only 3 intros made so far. Also if these intros are made by
programmatically scraping emails on github, then they could be in some trouble
for violating spam laws.

~~~
Aqua_Geek
I would hope that, at minimum, they're respecting the hirable? flag on
profiles. Their about page is full of marketing speak, but short on actual
details. (I understand that they don't want to give away their "secret sauce,"
but is there really that much to it?)

Edit: Also, their algorithm seems pretty off - a search around me returns some
candidates in the "top 10%" group who only have one repo and it's a fork of
someone else's with a small bugfix. (Nothing wrong with that - I appreciate
those who take the time to submit patches. But surely a single fix of a couple
of lines shouldn't rocket someone into the top 10% of GitHub.)

~~~
jeremymcanally
They do not (or at least, did not) respect that flag nor do they (or did they
previously, at least) respect an explicit opt-out of their service. Great that
they're successful, but for a while there they were well on their way to
pissing off the developers they so desperately need to actually make money.

------
idan
Shameless plug: our startup, Skills (<http://skillsapp.com>) is attacking the
resume problem from a different angle. On one hand we don't do candidate
sourcing (yet), on the other hand we don't spam potential hires.

The way our service works:

1\. You create a position. Right now we offer two kinds: Django and Frontend

2\. You get a link from us. Paste that link in your job board adverts, or
anywhere you'd otherwise say "send your resumes to…"

3\. Candidates apply through the link, we crunch their data and produce a
clean, concise report that helps you decide whether they're worth talking to,
without wading through the resume keywordfest.

You can see a sample brief here: <http://skillsapp.com/sample/brief/>

Check us out, we're also just launched, and we're hungry for feedback.

------
rpwilcox
Sounds like businesses can smell a deal a mile away.

I thought normal recruiter practice was some percentages (10%, 20%?) of a
hire's first year pay. So, like $10,000 to $20,000.

If you can get an interview with a potential employee for one _tenth_ of
that... __and __you know these people are famous in some nerd circles (buying
your company more geek cred)... it's a deal.

~~~
praptak
On the other hand, if it looks too good to be true then it probably is. See
other comments.

~~~
rpwilcox
Oh, I have no doubt. Many things are funny about Githire, including just how
many coders are in the top 10-20% of Github users (including those with one
repo and no activity).

------
iambot
Seriously how badly are they using the gitHub API, or scraping. Because if I
find my profile. (I'm not listed in my area "Edinburgh", even though people
with a lower score are.) and on my profile the projects are so severely out of
date it's embarrassing.

Update: In my opinion, even though its not for "Hiring",
<http://coderwall.com> does a way better job. Perhaps they should up their
game and do what gitHire is doing - but properly.

------
dpritchett
The quote at the end made my hair stand on end:

 _"Top programmers are like a race car. Once you get them you don't want to
lose them and you want to get as many as you can."_

~~~
angersock
yay im a commodity

gotta catch'em all zuck

~~~
talmand
even worse, you're treated as such by a large number of people who don't seem
to understand how to properly invest in that type of commodity

------
mixonic
A snippet:

“Top programmers are like a race car,” he said. “Once you get them you don’t
want to lose them and you want to get as many as you can.”

It is a little off topic, but I think comments like this give me an idea of
what it feels like to be objectified, like a woman might be in American media.
I'm only now realizing that's why the "rock star" or "race car" label makes me
feel so shitty. From Wikipedia:

"Some feminists and psychologists argue that such objectification can lead to
negative psychological effects including depression and hopelessness, and can
give women negative self-images because of the belief that their intelligence
and competence are currently not being, or will never be, acknowledged by
society."

Now, I know this is only my career and not my body, but in spite of myself I
get intimidated by all these C-suites looking for such hyperbolically able and
single-minded individuals I start worrying about if I can cut it. If I will be
recognized for anything except my ability to program.

I'm not comparing this problem to objectification of women in scope, and I'm
not saying this is all-consuming my life or anything. It is far from that, but
something about the "race car" statement brought this into focus for me. I
don't want to be collected like race cars or Pokemon by some dipshit.

This was not intended to troll, I just wanted to share my realisation about
being compared to expensive/flashy stuff.

------
rudiger
This article is in the print edition of the New York Times with the headline "
_A New Resource for Hiring Programmers Has Become Entirely Too Successful._ "

GitHire must have some good PR.

~~~
rhizome
It may be all they have.

------
ChuckMcM
And this is surprising how? Great to hear they are being successful though.
$200/lead is probably an order of magnitude too low though.

------
X-Istence
Did they get permission from Github to scrape their website for the content
they have put up?

From the terms of service:

4\. You must not modify, adapt or hack the Service or modify another website
so as to falsely imply that it is associated with the Service, GitHub, or any
other GitHub service.

5\. You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any
portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without
the express written permission by GitHub.

Although I guess if the GitHire guys never used Github they aren't bound to
those terms.

~~~
latchkey
They are in clear violation of those terms. Github is knowingly allowing them
to continue to use their services.

------
tosseraccount
The NYTimes and the WashPost are probably gearing up to get Congress to raise
the guest worker quotas again, after the election. They need a lot of "supply
and demand and capital mobility don't work anymore" stories. Just raise wages
and labor adjust to the incentives. Most of this new stuff is not a labor
supply problem, it's a vision and management problem. "If I could just hire
the best engineers for real cheap , then ...". yeah yeah right.

------
rokhayakebe
I have no idea why companies that suddenly become wildly successful without
press, start to go out and make themselves public, hence waking up every smart
guy in the game. Keep a low profile and milk it, maan.

~~~
jeremymcanally
Perceived legitimacy. In the recruiting game, you need a leg up on the next
200 mindless email drones. Saying "We're so good the NY Times covered us!"
goes a long way towards considering both sides of the transaction that you're
worth the time.

------
shareme
Here is what I do not get:

1\. Recruiters expect me to spend my free-time at their disposal to use my dev
contacts for them? My dev contacts remain my dev contacts because they know
that if I ever turn over a contact to a 3rd party I do some review of the
opportunity to see if its a scam or recruiter bs first and only turn over
contacts to that 3rd party if they are a founder, cop-founder, or the actual
,manager the person will work under.

2\. To me relationships are formed over a good meal and a good drink, no
offense to you HN'ers but that is what it comes down to. If someone wants to
recruit me than consider taking me out for a meal. Its not necessarily the
cost of the meal, its the fact that you took sometime to spend on forming a
relationship with me.

