

Show HN: Help job seekers by letting them ask employees anonymous questions - millerski150
http://deskanything.com/

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keiferski
Love the idea. I have a bunch of suggestions, hopefully they're helpful:

\--- Change cc to something like "a particular employee". I'm assuming it's
there to target someone particular, like Jim Brown, Engineer at AnyCo. Right
now it's a little unclear.

\--- Make it more clear that the page scrolls down further. Right now there's
no indication.

\--- There's no link to the TOS

\--- The last sentence is rambly: _We can't guarantee an answer, but we will
forward questions to companies and have built a public interface for them to
respond._ Maybe just change it to _We can't guarantee an answer, but we'll try
our best! Read more about how it works._ (with a link to how it works)

\--- How do I know that a) this person works there and b) I won't just hear
good news from the PR person?

Good luck!

~~~
millerski150
Thanks! Making some of these changes now. We're working on the fly so we're
not totally sure how companies will respond, but there is definitely demand
from people with questions. The goal is to have employees answer with their
real names so you can solve (a) & (b) above.

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jemka
For a while I've been thinking about how to provide job seekers with the type
of information one usually acquires AFTER working in a position for a certain
amount of time. A sort of "if I knew then what I know now" collection of
employee data. It wasn't going to be company specific, rather position
specific.

After thinking about what people actually WANT, I figured they wouldn't want
to wade through thousands (more?) job descriptions. Don't tell me what's out
there, just tell me what I would be good at and would like.

So I started to think about a tool that would categorize available jobs based
on what people REALLY look for in a job. Users could identify what they
(thought) they wanted and the tool would show them jobs that fit.

After many months I was losing interest. Then I recently discovered Aaron
Swartz was working on something similar. "...we did agree on another good
idea: a wiki to tell students what different jobs are like. That site should
be launching soon."[1]

I'm not sure how far Aaron got with the project, but I think the idea is still
viable. I often find myself doing a lot of research and job description
comparisons to get past the cookie cutter information to attempt to answer the
question, "what exactly will I be doing for you?"

Maybe I'm alone, but the majority of job interviews I've had were more about
seeking information about the work I was going to be doing. Information I
should have had well before I ever applied.

[1]<https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget>

~~~
millerski150
Thanks for sharing. We didn't know about Aaron's project, but it definitely
resonates. We definitely agree with you here --> "Information I should had
well before I ever applied". Hopefully companies / their employees will answer
the questions!

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mikk0j
As an employer I would want to block this in an instant. It's the perfect
addition to any social engineering arsenal. If it works, great for finding out
little details about a company that only an insider would know, to support a
more thorough corporate espionage or hacking attempt.

Also, given that out of the volume of incoming queries that companies get only
a tiny fraction is related to potential employment there, you'd have to figure
out how to filter out people looking for 1) sales leads, 2) customer support,
3) freebies, 4) a direct line to the CEO for their complaints, 5) a direct
line to the CEO for their charity sponsorship, etc.

Sorry about being harsh. I just think it could be a bit of a Pandora's Box.

~~~
millerski150
Thanks for the feedback. So far the questions are mostly about what it's like
to apply, interview, and work at a company. We'll let companies answer what
they want to. The purpose is to make information about jobs more transparent.
There are numerous questions that could help a job seeker / candidate (and
thus an employer) that aren't harmful to anyone. Maybe they'll answer those,
we'll see.

~~~
bargl
First off I love this site, wow what a great idea!

I think a solution to the concern is to allow employers to mark harmful
information and for that information to be removed. I know that then the
employers could attempt to remove bad reviews, but this is where you'd need
human interaction at some level.

Give employers 5 strikes, if they attempt to take down something defaming just
because it's a bad review that's a strike. If they get to 5 they can't make a
request for a set time frame (to keep the amount of human intervention to a
minimum). The reverse could be true of your anonymous users. The 5 strikes is
arbitrary.

------
freehunter
I work in corporate information security, and I have a few questions. The
first is what email addresses these questions will go to. HR? Random
employees? Both? The "Contact Us" address on their website? If it's going to
random employees, how are you getting these email addresses to contact the
employees? If I say to email John Smith, how do you know if the email address
is john.smith@company.com or jsmith@company.com?

I like the idea behind this, I do. It's useful to know some insider
information. But it's difficult to train employees not to respond to things
that seem like social engineering. What I'm looking to know is, how can I be
sure that the people I'm trying to help aren't giving away restricted
information to anyone who asks? If I fill in the form and say "what kind of
card access system does your company use", or maybe even something as
innocuous as "does your company have a designated area for smokers to be
outside?", this could be giving away a lot to a competent social engineer. I
like the idea. But I'm also a bit concerned.

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arb99
It breaks the back button (ff 19). Also what is stopping employees just email
the company themselves?

~~~
davefp
Back button breaks for me too (latest Chrome). Clicking on 'see companies with
questions' shows the questions, but the url doesn't change and my back button
doesn't do anything.

~~~
millerski150
Thanks, looking into it now

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wheaties
We allow potential employees to ask questions during interviews. Almost
everything is open for ask. I don't understand why anyone would want to work
at a company which wasn't like this. Then again, there's lots of people who
work at terrible jobs...

~~~
smtddr
I have a feeling there are some questions that you'd like to ask about a
company, but actually asking during the interview might not be the best thing
to do.

"Is the manager of WebAPP a micromanager?"

"Do you guys have to give daily or weekly status reports?"

"Are there any slackers on the team that probably should have been fired but
HR/management hasn't gotten around to it?"

"Do you have a work environment that allows excessive swearing?"

"Do you guys make a lot of inappropriate jokes?"

~~~
Kronopath
This website won't help with that, as the answerers have to use their real
name. Only the askers are anonymous.

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jiggy2011
If I were an employer who was paranoid about this I would ask dummy questions
in an attempt to weed out the "leaks".

Unless the company is very large this shouldn't be too difficult, even looking
at writing style and common typos.

~~~
millerski150
Thanks for the comment. The full product will make this more clear, but the
idea is to allow anonymous questions and answers will be from real employees
who show their names.

There might be a section later for (current or former) employees to review or
answer questions about their company anonymously, but that'd be broken out.

~~~
crazygringo
> _Answers will be from real employees who show their names._

Honestly, that seems to kind of defeat the whole purpose, doesn't it?

I'm assuming that questions are all going to be more-or-less standard. The
value is in the "ugly" but true answers (e.g. the product manager is an idiot
and management is a disaster, and the product will implode within a year),
which no employee would ever sign their name to.

So what kind of value is this site attempting to provide, in the end? Is it
trying to simply be a database on workplaces? I don't really understand what
having anonymous _questions_ has to do with anything.

~~~
robrenaud
It might be useful to get former employees opinions. I am sure rachelbythebay
will give you unfiltered answers about what her experience was like with
Google. Former employees jobs don't depend on toeing the line.

~~~
jiggy2011
I would worry that this might open someone to a lawsuit, even an ex employee
if they cannot be anonymous.

However with anonymity it would be very open to shilling.

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rachelbythebay
If you aren't already, please consider collecting their tenure with the
company. That way, you can see who's been there a week, a month, a year, or
ten. Then, once you've been running this for a while, start looking at the
data for patterns. See if people get unhappy after a certain length of time.
Or, see if the responses all take a downturn after a certain date.

Then see if you can correlate that with public output from the company:
products, services, that sort of thing. You could have something really
valuable here: a finger on the pulse of a bunch of companies, in effect.

~~~
millerski150
Thanks! Great feedback and ideas.

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blegman
Awesome idea! Great companies should love this. It attracts passive job
applicants - people currently employed but looking for a better job or
company. Passive job seekers are often deterred from looking online because it
takes so much time to go through all the irrelevant job posts to find the few
they really want. Small companies that are great places to work but haven't
received awards or press attention get lost in the mix on job boards. Now they
can use this tool to stand out. Benefits both sides.

~~~
millerski150
Thanks and agree!

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Peroni
I'm curious how this actually works.

If I put in the name of a company and a specific employee, how do you go about
getting the answer to my question?

~~~
millerski150
Thanks for asking. We're going to pool the questions together and send them
over to the company and let them know they can answer them (publicly) on an
interface we built for them. If someone has cced an employee, we'll put them
on the email. We'll probably send to HR or the founder(s), depending on how
big the company is. We're not sure yet how companies will respond.

~~~
robrenaud
I am pretty sure that you are just going to get filtered PR bullshit
responses. Unicorns and rainbows.

Get some actual off the record/anonymous answers and then things might get
interesting.

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cliftonmckinney
A little feedback:

I think the real interesting answers won't _necessarily_ come from the
companies themselves. I think it's a good start, but much more interesting
from my perspective is what employees with varying opinions--from glowing to
not so glowing--might have to say. I think Glassdoor is close, but it's really
wonky to use imo. An easier to use or niche version of Glassdoor would be
cool.

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auctiontheory
What reason would the company employee (identified by name) have to give an
answer that contradicts the company line, or casts the company in a poor
light?

I'm trying to find a way this could work, but I don't see one - not because of
your implementation, but because there's a fundamental information imbalance
and incentive problem.

~~~
millerski150
It's a good question. We think there a lot of questions with answers that are
beneficial to both sides. Perhaps some companies won't filter their employees
- we're not sure. We might break out a section that allows employees to review
or answer questions anonymously.

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micah63
The whole idea hinges on getting employees to break confidentiality
agreements. Maybe target the company instead of the employees? I know it's not
as fast/interesting/honest, but some of the questions are easy and companies
might actually want to participate so they can recruit.

~~~
millerski150
Good feedback. The company will be involved too. We're going to pool the
questions, send them to a bunch of employees (including HR) and the company
can decide how and if it wants to answer. Agree on it can help recruiting,
that's part of the goal!

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kaa2102
The Vault has provided this type of information for aspiring consulting,
investment banking, and legal professionals. I used it to evaluate
opportunities at management consulting firms. The Vault has information about
interviewing, salaries by position, and life at the firm.

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rrouse
Requiring the employees to attach their names to answers publicly is
guaranteed to produce nothing but puff pieces.

Now if the answers were also anonymous, insomuch as that only the site knows
who the employee is, you might end up with something usable.

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draz
Just putting it out there so it won't sound like I'm trolling: I like it. Now,
isn't this a subset of Quora? (which might not be a bad thing because it's
trying to grab a particular niche, but still I'd like to understand the
"secret sauce" here)

~~~
millerski150
Focus is a big part along with trying to get the company buy in to using it as
a tool for their benefit. Building the product around helping people find info
about jobs or careers will change some aspects of the architecture and layout.

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00rion
I wonder how you would verify if a person actually works or worked for the
company in question. Getting this wrong would allow for fake responses.

~~~
millerski150
Auth with a social account (Linkedin or Facebook) or verifying via their
company email.

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georgespencer
Who did the UX/UI?

~~~
millerski150
We did. cc/ @anto215

