

Dear HN "Who's hiring" posters - Why my job search on HN sucked big-time - GrahamsNumber

I started writing a comment on the other Dear HN, however turned out a bit too long, so pastebin: http://pastebin.com/3EHk9PTK
======
pbiggar
I found this post really really good. I've been hiring for a few months and
obviously want to treat candidates well. A lot of the points you made are
things I had realized by myself, some were new and interesting, but there are
a few things I disagreed with.

> If your contact is jobs@foo.bar...

I'm unclear what you'd prefer. I man the jobs@circleci.com mailing list, and
while I agree it's impersonal, I don't think there's a better alternative.
Should I use paul@circleci.com? What if someone else needs to take over for a
few days? What about when we've grown too big for me to personally respond to
every applicant, and we have dozens of HN posts (or other places with similar
content) pointing to an email which is no longer useful.

I think jobs@circleci.com is the best approach, but welcome better
suggestions. It also has the advantage that everyone in the company gets it,
so we can all look them over if needs be.

> If I respond to your post 3 days after the posting date. [...] I obviously
> know the job is still available, I'm looking for a 2-line reply so I know
> you actually give a damn.

Don't do this. Put yourself in my shoes. Do you think I know you're looking to
see if I give a damn? Which I don't, because I get dozens of job emails a day,
and most of them don't come across as stupid (which that does).

> Acknowledge my application.

Totally agree. I respond to all applicants, even if that response is a polite
rejection. The only things I ignore (actually, I mark them as spam) are
recruiters and outsourcers.

> If you have "We get sooooo many applications, we'll only contact those we're
> interested in" I go "Bullshit!".

I think you'd be surprised. Dozens a day. And I have another job - actually
running a company.

> Optional: This might not be for everyone, but I personally think it is a
> good approach. Whenever you send a rejection, state why you're rejecting the
> candidate

Warning for others: DO NOT DO THIS. I did this for the first 3 people who ever
applied. It took me 30 minutes to compose those emails, and I went into
considerable detail. Oh, and it was really harrowing to write negative things
about another human being, especially one who hadn't asked for it.

One replied, and was very thankful for the feedback and promised to work on
it. He replied a few months later thanking me again. Two didn't reply, which
means my hour was not only wasted, but I actually sent feedback that they
didn't want or appreciate (which means they now think I'm an asshole).

Now, I send feedback to anyone who asks for it, and sometimes will have a
back-and-forth about it.

> Instead, put in as much effort as I do.

In this, and the other things which others have described as "a sense of
entitlement", you're committing the same crime as the employers: only caring
about and seeing your side of the story. I've been on both sides in recent
history, and both sides (and both "Dear HN" pieces) suffer from not looking at
the other person's position (something which is useful in nearly all walks of
business, as well as life).

~~~
GrahamsNumber
Don't get me wrong, like I said, there's plenty of jobs@domain.com that
actually read and reply to applications, but it's a black hole a lot of the
times, and I tend to avoid it.

I would suggest you use something like Name@domain.com. Perhaps you could do a
separate e-mail just for hiring. Say your email is john.smith@domain.com, do a
jsmith@domain.com just for hiring. That way, you can just auto-forward to
someone else when you need him to take over. Here's a reason why I think this
would also benefit your hiring a bit. I usually address my emails with the
name of the person, so I'd open with "Hi John", "Hey John", "Dear John", or
some variation of that. I can't do that at jobs@domain.com, because there may
be multiple people reading that, so I'd have to do something more generic.
What that means for you, the employer, is that I actually read your post and
wrote the e-mail, and not just bcc'd you together with another hundred guys.

I'd never think sending feedback would be a bad choice. Of course, don't send
something offensive like "you're the worst programmer ever". I don't think
anyone would be offended by "we're looking for someone with more experience in
X", which is what I suggested.

As for the way I phrase some of my emails: I've only send the "is the job
still available" kind only a couple of times, but perhaps surprisingly I got
some of the best contacts this way. Perhaps because the guy on the other end
was open to going past that. In fact, the best hiring process I've had with
someone I had emailed with "I've attached my resume" when in fact I hadn't.
Few jokes later, I had a job offer.

~~~
pbiggar
> Of course, don't send something offensive like "you're the worst programmer
> ever". I don't think anyone would be offended by "we're looking for someone
> with more experience in X", which is what I suggested.

Well yes, but you have to tell people the truth for it to be useful, which
means saying things like "we didn't find your design to be that good" or "your
code isn't that great". The recipient will not be happy to receive those
unsolicited. I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy with "looking for more
experience", as they're not to blame for that.

------
djt
Honestly what is the purpose of this post?

Its not a big surprise that start ups dont do the things you say because
you're not their target demographic.

If the servers are catching fire and you only have 2-3 people then replying to
inane emails may not be important to them. For instance you say you send
people emails to ask if its still open even though the job description has the
date on it. You are looking for them to reply to you but they're probably
thinking that your comprehension is bad. You're really talking about start ups
that have a full time HR person and I would hazard a guess that by that stage
(ie 10-20ish employees) that the company isn't really in start up mode
anymore.

If you want to get a job in a start up then i would recommend: \- Contact the
Founders personally. This is generally really easy to find out in a start up.
\- Ask your friends if they know any founders and ask for an intro. \- Find a
start up that you may actually be passionate about and apply there. \- Take
the job offers you have and found your own start up later down the track.

Start ups are not for everyone, it seems quite glamorous but it takes certain
personalities to be involved as a founder and/or staff member. That's not a
positive or negative either way but figure out what works for you. I notice
quite a bit of tension on HN these days that is internal tension that comes
out anti/pro start-ups and venture capital.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
The purpose of this post is to help some employers understand that some people
expect a minimum of courtesy. I truly understand that I may not be what a
company is looking for. However, it takes literally 5 seconds to tell me that.

Pretty sure most server fires are dealt with by Amazon and the likes
(intentional ignorance, yes I understand startup founders are busy. So am I).
If their team is not important to them, then that's probably not a place where
I (or a lot of other people) would want to work. I'm specifically not talking
about HR recruiters, but founders/co-founders/engineers that do hiring. I
don't find anything more frustrating than having 10 emails back and forth, and
then suddenly silence. I'm sorry, but I think this is utter lack of respect.

As for contacting the founders personally, that's why I ceased sending e-mails
to generic jobs@foo.bar. Sure, sometimes that works, but I've found much
better success by e-mailing people directly.

Asking my friends if they know any startups isn't really the point (besides,
that wouldn't open up a large enough network). I'm talking more about HN
posters specifically, because it's much easier to find an interesting startup,
one that matches my skills and interests, from the larger selection base on
HN. I'm wasn't looking for just any startup just because it's a startup. I was
more trying to find one that matches my interests. I won't get into the
passion argument again. At least, that's my philosophy regarding job search.

------
chc
You went on too long to fit in a comment, so you made an "Ask HN" post that
consists of just a link to a pastebin. That makes little to no sense.

Also, because I was surprised to hear people were posting such nonsense in Ask
HN, I went and looked through this month's for some of the things you complain
about. There are zero requests for "rock star interns" and nobody I could find
asking you to be passionate about their company. So this whole post is just
mystifying to me.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
How does that make little to no sense? There's a 2000 character limit for a
new submission. The pastebin contains almost 2000 words.

~~~
chc
You could have a) posted the Pastebin link as a comment, or b) submitted a
normal post linking to the Pastebin instead of an Ask HN with the Pastebin URL
in plaintext.

------
iaw
This post went in a completely different direction than I expected. I expected
a lament about the difficulty in obtaining interviews or a lack of response
from prospective employers but this blew my mind.

While I actually agreed with a number of your points, I found the theme a
little disconcerting as it seemed to convey an attitude of entitlement and a
lack of humility. You aren't owed an ideal environment for your internship
hunt simply because you exist, moreover having created your account
_literally_ one hour ago makes me question if you have any non-lurking history
with the community.

Maybe I'm off base with this post but IMO this attitude isn't one to cultivate
and it's a pretty negative first post.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
I'm not sure how exactly this blew your mind, but strutting an entitled
attitude was never the goal of this post, I apologize if it seemed so. Merely
an alternate view that perhaps some employers will find useful, if not that's
perfectly fine. I'm not sure humility (or arrogance) is appropriate here or
anywhere for that matter.

I don't feel I asked for an ideal environment. In fact I didn't ask for
anything. Any employer can have any attitude he/she feels is appropriate with
his/her goals. I merely provided my take on the matter after reading the other
thread (which certainly brings about some good points). Like I said, I'm not
asking for anything, everyone is free to act as he/she sees fit, I will
however tend to avoid them in the future. I'm sure there are others that do
the same, and perhaps it can provide some employers with a bit of insight why
they have trouble attracting good hires.

Also, I'm not sure that and "ideal environment for my internship hunt simply
because I exist" (notice entitlement here, albeit probably unintended) is
constituted by a simple reply to my cover letter or understanding that there
are also poor employers out there and that even the time of the college kid
that wrote you an e-mail is important. Like I said multiple times, no one owes
me anything.

As for the account, it was made specifically for this post. Some employers
could have identified themselves in what I wrote, which was not my intention
at all. Though I believe this is of less relevance, I'm simply trying to
provide my personal viewpoint as a job seeker. The only thing I advocated for
was an equitable exchange of time.

~~~
iaw
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I apologize if I was a bit harsh or
antagonistic. I expect you were a little antagonized when you wrote your
original post and then I may have amplified that in my response. I think we
may have a fundamentally different outlook on employment/economics that leads
to the divergence in intent and interpretation here. Rather than beat a dead
horse I wanted to reply to a couple things quickly.

> "...by a simple reply to my cover letter or understanding that there are
> also poor employers out there and that even the time of the college kid that
> wrote you an e-mail is important."

This is a point you had that I agree with whole-heartedly but is more the rule
than the exception. It is extremely disheartening to put a great deal of
effort into an email/cover letter and then hear nothing, unfortunately the
mentality that spawned the phrase "don't call us, we'll call you" existed long
before I was born and is still going strong in a lot of sectors. While
acknowledgement is the _decent_ thing to do (and a polite rejection is always
appreciated more than silence), I've found it is not a cultural obligation in
the US.

> "As for the account, it was made specifically for this post. Some employers
> could have identified themselves in what I wrote, which was not my intention
> at all."

Completely understandable.

> "The only thing I advocated for was an equitable exchange of time."

This is an understandable desire, and I empathize with it, but I think it
distills a difference in outlook on economics. Rather than framing it as an
equitable exchange of time, I look at it in terms of an equitable exchange of
opportunity cost. Your time is substantially less valuable than the time of
those you email (no offense but probably true), so the amount of time you
spend writing the email may not have as much economic value as the time it
would take to reply to them, even though the time required to reply is
drastically lower. Galling and impolite as it is, economics rules humanity and
this behavior stems from economics.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
> "Your time is substantially less valuable than the time of those you email
> (no offense but probably true)"

If you expect that, you shouldn't be surprised if a lot of their applicants
also consider their time worth less than yours. You get what you "pay" for.

You'd probably be surprised how many of these potential employers are a just a
waste of time, unfortunately.

------
niggler
'I understand there's a lot of poor applicants for jobs out there. However,
believe it or not, there's just as many poor employers in the "start-up
scene".'

The problem is that the poor employers think they are the next google/amazon
and the poor applicants think they are the next kernighan/carmack

~~~
GrahamsNumber
It is unfortunate, however it would seem to me start-up founders are much more
likely to be up on their high horse and believe to be some world-changer. Poor
programmers are more likely to consider themselves good programmers, but not
the best in the world.

------
BrainScraps
>If you have "We get sooooo many applications, we'll only contact those we're
interested in" I go "Bullshit!".

Is it too naive to think that people who are interested in building their
brand and developing goodwill in this _small_ community would take the time to
respond to anyone who would take the time to send along a cover letter/resume?

The other thing that I really don't get is when people are using a platform
like Jobvite, Simply Hired, or Resumator to process applicants while still
failing to notify applicants of a) the reciept the application, b) an
approximate timeline for response or c) the dismissal of applicants at each
stage of screening. Shouldn't these platforms make mass notification a simple
matter?

~~~
GrahamsNumber
That's my main gripe. I find it hard to believe that the time it takes to send
an acknowledgement or rejection compared to the time it takes to read a cover
letter/resume and decide on the candidate is that big of an issue. Really,
just hit reply and say "Sorry, but we're looking for someone with more
experience". Took me 5 seconds to write that.

As for job platforms, they usually give an automated receipt. Dismissal
rarely. I still have applications with the status "new", from November.

------
mnicole
> DO NOT make first contact with me two months later asking me if I'm
> interested in the job. I'm not. I was interested two months ago.

I get that you're talking about an internship here, so response time can be
hugely relevant (although you were looking in advance), but you don't have any
idea what is going on with this company. If they had chosen a candidate and
that candidate was unable to fulfill the role at the last minute or they were
really unable to get to the internship emails until then, they're doing you a
favor reaching back out to you. When you're looking for work, it's a
_blessing_ to hear back from someone other than an automated response, no
matter how late it is.

------
rm999
My issue with both this and the post it's replying to is the underlying sense
of entitlement. The "who is hiring process" is great for reducing friction in
matching good employers with good employees. All the pride (in the deadly sin
way) I see from both sides does nothing but add friction. "You didn't send a
timely response" is no better than "this applicant's reply is terse". And in
both cases neither makes any attempt at determining how good the employer
matches the employee.

~~~
Tangaroa
The frictive responses are unhelpful, but for the sake of courtesy an employer
is entitled to a well-written introductory letter (even if only a paragraph)
and an employee is entitled to a response (even if only a line). For both
workers and employers who care greatly about common courtesy, the lack thereof
does show the unsuitability of the other party.

~~~
davedx
Well said. Matching a candidate to a company isn't just about checking off a
list of technologies and skills.

------
csdreamer7
Thankyou for posting this. I'm graduating this year and I just find the lack
of response from startups frustrating.

------
natrius
It's understandable to want acknowledgement when you apply for a position, but
when you're doing the hiring for a small team that doesn't have automated
processes to handle all of that yet, you'll understand why so many people
don't send you anything unless they want to interview you.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
It's not just about acknowledgement for an application. Perhaps I could
understand that. However, like I said, cutting off contact after numerous
e-mail exchanges is just bad form. I'd be interested in someone sharing how
many replies they get after a "Who's hiring" post.

Also, if you don't plan on responding to applications that you don't like, I
don't think you should ask for lengthy cover letters and the like.

------
maxcan
As a co-founder of a startup that is about to begin the recruiting process, I
think you have a lot of valid points. Sometimes we do get swamped but I
personally try to reply to all queries within at least 7 days. This may seem
long but its really a function of wanting to give thoughtful replies when
possible. It would be good if there was a way to anonymously call out
companies with such crappy processes. Both because applicants deserve
transparency but also because founders should always want to know if they or
their staff are mistreating applicants.

-max cantor co founder, docmunch.com

~~~
GrahamsNumber
It's great that you do that. There are plenty of other companies that do the
same, and it's really great when they do. I'm not sure if calling out
companies or pointing fingers is the way to go, I'd be great if some employers
would perhaps see the other side of issue. A little courtesy goes a long way
(of course this also applies to job-seekers).

------
Aloha
Having spent many moons looking for work in the _rest_ of the tech industry, I
find this post spot on. The startup world is strange, and not the real work in
my humble opinion. On the other hand it shares some sucks with the real world.

Cover Letters - This seems to be an excuse for me to gargle something
unmentionable, and speak the great praises of myself and my often feigned
interest in your company.

Keyword Matching - How I hate thee, so much hate. On the other hand now fully
1/3 of my resume is a skills matrix, which helps the folks in HR who often
cant tell a fax machine from a switch.

References - I have an extensive collection of these, please do not ask me for
them before you interview me. They could just as easily be bullshit and are
not really a guarantee of anything, also, anyone who wants more than two of
these should really go away.

Land of Unrealistic expectations: I know I live in Seattle, but there is no
way you will find a desktop support person for 13 an hour with 2+ years
experience, the last time I made that little money was 8 years ago.

Recruiters - Please read my resume before calling me. Clearly you have it,
PLEASE read it. I dont even know what half of the roles are I get sent.

Recruiters from India - See above; please improve your conversational english
skills, and or just EMAIL me, also, I dont know what an E-Mail ID is - but I
do have an email address.

Online application systems - please dont make me fill out a profile in your
system, just let me send a resume, I have no less than 100 of these accounts
for one employer or another.

I think thats all of my rant for now.

~~~
GrahamsNumber
I'm glad to see that others are having the same experience and I don't have
some incredible expectations from employers.

I feel a lot of employers here will get defensive, however my rant wasn't a
blanket statement applying to everyone. Employers need to understand that just
as poorly prepared job-seekers make the hiring process frustrating, so do poor
employers.

~~~
Aloha
Oh, totally.

Nearly everytime I can get my resume into the paws of a decision maker, I get
the job, but to do so I need to wind my way thru HR.

------
gaussianblur
I find that posts like these send their message better when formatted with
"Here is an awesome example of what I like, DO THIS!!! (and casually mention
how you feel when you get the opposite treatment).

"Company Foo made it optional for me to list my GPA, I liked that!" vs "Never
have I ever, or will, apply to anyone asks for GPA. Make it optional."

Which feels more likely to be taken seriously?

~~~
Aloha
Unless this is your first job out of college, I dont think GPA is relevant.

------
jaebrown
I agree. If you're posting on HN, you can do a lot better then what you
typically see in the ""Who Hiring" every month. There is a larger issue
outside of HN with recruiters and the hiring process at most companies,
including startups. That could be thread of its own.

