Ask HN: Has the "Who's Hiring" thing worked out for anyone? - theboywho
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buro9
Given that I've hired a couple of very good people via it...

And given that a while after that I went through the round (at least 12
interviews by 10 unique people) at AWS because of it (though I later turned
that down - I wanted a combination of tech and customer focus, they wanted
either one or the other and felt I was too strong technically to be used on a
customer focused role)...

Yes.

It works.

If you are hiring you should think hard about how you present it. Corporate-
speak is ill-advised, and less is definitely more. Plain developer-to-
developer language is the best route.

It is not unusual for candidates to go back over old whoishiring posts, filter
by city and then look... so if you can include a permalink to a "positions
available" page on your site you will continue to reap the rewards of a good,
short advert for quite a while. Make sure to include an email address too (in
the advert) so that HN candidates reach you directly rather than get lost in
the official HR process.

If you are going for a position, I would advise that you use the opportunity
to strike up a conversation and learn about the position and company, rather
than just spam them with your CV (how does that help either of you?).

And as mentioned above... look at the whoishiring posts for the last quarter
or 6 months, a company in growth probably is still looking.

It works, so long as you realise that this platform connects individuals,
rather than treating it as an agency/corp HR style thing.

~~~
beachstartup
> felt I was too strong technically to be used on a customer focused role)...

seems like amazon and google have the same ideas when it comes to support.

~~~
buro9
My impression of Amazon was that they really are customer obsessed.

They did say I was too technical, but what I think they really meant is that
they were looking for someone with more business/customer-facing experience
and a bit of tech... it was an AWS Solutions Architect position.

What they offered instead was a very compelling purely technical position, but
I have this deep belief that technology is a set of tools that solves customer
problems. I didn't feel comfortable accepting a position in which I could not
directly hear from a customer.

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tptacek
We've hired more people from HN than from any other single source of
candidates.

I wish there was a rule that the "Who's Hiring" thread happened on the first
Monday of every month, not the first day of the month. It's pretty silly to
have that thread happen on a weekend.

~~~
tqk
Why? Do you not have your own net connection, and are relying on your
employer's? Why can you not wait for Monday to roll around for you to finally
see it?

I was very happy to see that post yesterday and applied to what I thought a
great looking job. OTOH, I'm new here (HN).

~~~
tptacek
Obviously, because fewer people read HN on Saturday morning than do on Monday
morning.

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ryporter
It has yielded many of our best candidates, but not yet any hires. We judge
job boards mainly on the quality of candidates that it connects us with, since
what happens from that point on is more a function of us and the individual
candidate. So, yes, we consider it to have worked out well for us.

That said, I have my doubts about the mechanism. It seems to me that it would
be more efficient to have a job board, since even a primitive one would allow
candidates to better search for the jobs they are interested in. A basic job
board doesn't seem very hard to set up, and we'd be definitely be willing to
pay a monthly fee, because the quality of developers here is so high.

~~~
Zaheer
Would a job board decrease the quality of candidates on average? I would guess
part of the reason the quality of candidates is so high is because it's active
readers/participants of HN that respond/post to the threads. Having a job
board would invite many other people as it is easier to access (non-active
participants may miss the 'Who's Hiring' thread but a job board would be
harder to miss).

There are potential solutions to this, for example only allowing users with a
certain reputation point threshold to access it (I believe StackOverflow's job
board employs a similar system). Just something to think about...

~~~
ryporter
That's a good point, and I like your proposal, but we post on other job boards
and don't currently lose much time sifting through obviously bad candidates.
So, even without any such mechanism, I think that the benefits of improved
interactions with HN members would outweigh the extra costs.

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ecaron
My only recent issue with the "Who's Hiring" threads has been the repetitive
nature of the posts. It is starting to be that the majority of the posts are
the same 95% of the evergreen positions that were in the previous month's post
- from accounts created mostly to post in that thread.

 _sigh_ Why did we think it was wise to brag to HR & recruiters about how well
this mechanism is/was :)

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mbesto
100%. I would trust Who's Hiring and Who's Freelancing threads over any
recruiter, website, etc. any day.

P.S. - For anyone thinking "oh wow, I could scale this type of thing with a
website", think again. Tight communities > scale.

~~~
skizm
Can we scale tight communities? Isn't that what reddit is doing with the
subreddit system? Check and mate sir. Don't tell me what I can and can not
scale! </sarcasm>

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squirrel
Works very well for me, a startup CTO in London.

Average hit rate for me (in two different roles as hiring manager) has been
about one inquiry every two or three postings and one hire per year. This
volume isn't enough to grow teams as fast as I normally do, so it doesn't work
on its own. However, unlike broadcast methods like StackOverflow that I also
use, whoishiring gives me _only_ high-quality people so I don't have to do any
CV weeding - so it is always a very important part of my hiring strategy.

Most recent hire was in March and we're _really_ pleased with him (hi Ben!)

~~~
andypants
> whoishiring gives me _only_ high-quality people so I don't have to do any CV
> weeding

I don't understand this. HN is an open website where anybody can sign up, and
the Who's Hiring posts can be reached from a google search. What makes you so
sure that applicants are all high-quality people?

~~~
pathy
My guess is that the most unqualified job seekers don't know about HN. You
have to be interested in Tech/startups to stick around HN for the most part.

And perhaps are the users who read the Who's hiring threads more restrictive
with to whom they send application. That is, they only send CVs to openings
that they think they can carry out.

The last part is just total speculation though but that is my own experience
with Who's hiring, I've read many posts but have not applied for those I would
be unqualified for. Unfortunately for me, that is almost all of them as I am
no developer but it is quite interesting to see what kind of skills HN value
highly.

~~~
swombat
What sort of work are you looking for? Would you be willing to relocate to
London, e.g. for an internship?

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seanp2k2
I've gotten a few interviews out of them, but more importantly, they were for
places that I was very interested in. IMO the personal touch and EFFORT that
it takes to post in a "Who's Hiring" thread makes me believe that the company
is serious about hiring someone from the tech community.

I'm just reading my comment above and thinking about how it's a bit elitist,
but again I like it more for the personal touch / effort / show of good faith
vs. "exclusive club" reasoning.

~~~
seabee
This reasoning is the converse of the importance of a cover letter with your
application. Targeting and personalised messaging are important for both sides
of employment!

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wyclif
The "Who's Hiring" threads are very interesting to me, and I imagine they also
are for those who aren't currently looking for work. It's fascinating to see
what established companies and startups are looking for.

One minor gripe I have about WH submissions is that many still aren't abiding
by the rules. I see a lot of them that leave crucial info out, especially
those that don't say if the role can be remote or must be at their office.

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rch
I picked up a job from a "Who's Hiring" thread, and had a fairly positive
experience moving to Boulder last summer to start work. The company offered
$15K more than I was making, but in retrospect I should have taken the $30K
bump I was offered to stay where I was.

What the new company didn't offer was an expenses paid on-site interview,
relocation assistance, or an incentive structure. The software engineers work
in a dark, boiler-room environment, and struggle mightily to maintain a
sprawling, legacy code base. Turnover at the company is extremely high. I
lasted 9 months; the last 6 of which were spent trying to 'change things' at
the urging of a couple of friends I had made there. Several people from my
group have left since, and nearly everyone I worked with has asked me to let
them know about other opportunities I might come across.

The CTO making the postings to HN was hellbanned at some point, and stopped
posting altogether once I pointed it out. I'm really not sure why that
happened to him though. Is posting the same text every month grounds for
removal? The environment wasn't right for me, but I'm sure there are a few HN
readers who would be willing to put up with it to make a 6 figure salary as a
programmer in Boulder. The right person might even be able to help turn things
around.

~~~
jordanbaucke
Ouch ... Boulder huh? Now you've got me wondering who your talking about so I
can warn others...!

~~~
rch
I wouldn't want to go that route. Some parts of the company are better than
others, and I would like to believe things are changing for the better in
general. I shared the anecdote just to emphasize the value of an on-site
visit, and to encourage people to look for signals that the hiring company
intends to retain the people they bring on board. Others might be cognizant of
those things already, but in retrospect, the fact that I found the opportunity
on HN did influence my assumptions about what the culture would be like.

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fryed7
Yes, it works.

I used it once and tracked responses. The best and worst* candidates came from
HN.

Worst, as in scattergun "here's my CV" emails.

Best, as in the "I love what you're doing because X. Here's the kinds of
things I could do for you... and here are the things I've done before. I
notice you're using X, Y and Z... perhaps we could try using this instead?
Because..."

I'd definitely post here in future, but only after posting somewhere else.

I also posted for a remote job which I think helped. I had 0 responses from
California.

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ahsanulhaque
I got hired from a HN "Who's Hiring" thread back in mid-2010. My life's
changed for the better ever since. And I live in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Been
working remotely since then. Although I've switched jobs since then, that
first gig was life-changing.

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Radim
I hired a backend developer through "HN: who's hiring".

And _in Prague_ , so it's not "SV only" either.

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jboggan
I found my current gig through the August 2012 thread, so yes.

It was immensely useful to me in the many months before I picked up and moved
to California because it gave me a great sense of what kind of companies were
actively hiring, what sorts of skills were most in demand, and what kind of
compensation was available. Now as an engineer helping out with recruiting I
find it's a great way to get the attention of candidates with more unorthodox
backgrounds. It's especially helpful for companies located outside of S[FV]
since we don't have the same critical mass of local personal developer
contacts to hire from.

I'd second that the thread should be the first Monday of the month.

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Aqua_Geek
I've gotten a couple of interviews through the Who's Hiring threads. I've
found that you tend to get a faster response from posts where the poster
include an email address (for obvious reasons).

I've yet to get a job from those threads (if that's what you're asking), but I
have met some awesome teams and my pool of contacts has significantly
increased.

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paradox95
We should do a "Who's Looking for a Job" thread. Post your location, should
description of your skills and what you're looking for.

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yen223
Has not worked for me as a job seeker, but that's more because of geography
than anything else.

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jmspring
Picked up a long term contract a couple of years ago, started out with 20-30
hours/week and has tapered off a bit as they transitioned from bootstrapped to
venture funded and hiring full time devs. I mostly do one off must haves for
them these days as I've moved on to other things.

Best way to handle such clients is to be available, adaptable and competent.

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pistoriusp
I think there's an unrelated and positive aspect to it as well:

I moved to London 3 months ago and often checked the freelance and job threads
on HN. Seeing the amount of jobs available for London gave me a boost of
confidence.

(I'm yet to approach anyone via those threads - because I've already got too
much freelance work.)

~~~
iends
Mind sharing what kind of freelancing you're doing? Things like Rails, or
enterprise Java stack?

~~~
pistoriusp
100% of my work is Django and frontend web based.

Although I'm trying to market myself as an iOS/ Objective-C developer.

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adient
Was hired using the thread last year. Would look here before looking elsewhere
in the future. There are always clueless companies mixed in, but less noise
here.

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babs474
Worked for me. I found one of the best companies I've ever been at from HN,
and I'm in Minnesota.

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pyre
As a job-seeker, I've applied to a few posts in HN: Who's Hiring threads, but
I haven't managed to land anything (thought it's not like I've applied to
hundreds of posts, because most of them are not in my area).

Guess my karma can't be cashed in for a job. ;-)

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memoryhole
Yes it definitely works. We hired a very talented remote c++ dev using this
method.

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hafabnew
While I'm aware this isn't the actual topic, this is just a warning to not
take this thread as a accurate representation of how useful "Who's Hiring"
threads really are (e.g. as compared to a recruiters/job site/googling). I say
this because that's pretty much what this thread may be miscontstrued as.

Reasoning: the majority of the posters will be people saying they got a job,
effectively ignoring the swathes of people who were looking for a job and
didn't find one they liked on HN. Since finding a job on HN is obviously much
more notable than not finding a job on HN.

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philh
It's worked out very well for me - I got my first (=current) job through one
of those threads.

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ericskiff
Chiming in with one more "absolutely yes!" We just interviewed and hired an
amazing developer who's right down the street from us.

HN does seem to select for a certain set of folks who care about the industry
and their craft, and the "who's hiring / who's looking" posts let me take a
passive approach and ping people directly when they sound like great fits for
what we need.

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shyknee
Was introduced to and hired by a company through one of the who's hiring
threads. Given my location in the US Midwest, the fact that the company even
knew about HN and had employees active here was a good indicator that it was
the kind of company I would like to work for - which turned out to be the
case.

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henrik_w
Developer in Stockholm, Sweden here. I usually check who's hiring in
Stockholm, even though I am not actively looking for a job at the moment. You
never now when you need to find something else, and having seen a company
posting to "Who's Hiring" is always a good indicator of an interesting
company.

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mseebach
Yes, I got my first job in London almost three years ago through a "Who's
Hiring" post.

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misframer
Yes. I saw a comment that interested me and was in the area I was looking for.
I sent them an email asking if they had any internship positions.

I'm looking forward to working with them next week.

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nkohari
Most definitely. I've found two developers through HN posts.

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lgomezma
For me it helps in the sense that I would prefer to work for a company that
actually knows what Hacker News is. Not that easy to find here in Europe...

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pbiggar
Very effective. We hired 3 people at <https://circleci.com> directly from HN's
"Who's hiring" posts.

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Symmetry
Yeah, I found my previous job through a "Who's Hiring" thread. It was a great
place, but I left when they were acquired.

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mpermar
Found my actual employer on Jan 11's HN Who is Hiring :) Still here. Working
from Spain and my employer is from SV btw.

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jtreminio
Got hired 2 months ago because of a Who's Hiring thread. I don't think I'm
ever using another job posting board again.

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pjnewton
I would love to see more non-technical/semi-technical posts on the thread as
well...

Most of the companies that I've dug into from the "Who's Hiring" thread seem
to have non-tech jobs open once you get to their site and poke around but they
don't seem to get posted on the thread.

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CWIZO
I've gotten an offer via a who's hiring. I didn't took it, but yeah I'd say it
works :)

ps: it was for London.

~~~
rokche123
Well, since you left for London eventually anyway, it could probably at least
be said that it sparked some interest.

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eli_gottlieb
_No evil eye_ , I found my internship for this summer on a "Who's Hiring"
post.

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thirdtruck
I got an offer on Thursday and expect to give an answer on Monday, so yes. :)

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bkanber
Yes. I recently hired a great, ambitious developer from one of these threads.

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BerislavLopac
About three years ago I've forwarded a link to a friend of mine, and he got
the best job ever. Just last week I got hired after responding to the last
month's "Seeking freelancers" post. So, yes.

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furyofantares
I'm not job hunting but I read the thread anyway and there are a number of
companies on my radar that otherwise wouldn't be. Unfortunately about half of
them are SV and not remote though.

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Two9A
Worked for me. I applied because of a Who's Hiring post nigh on two years ago,
and was hired. As an aside, I eventually ended up working on the same team as
the guy who made the post.

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MattGrommes
Absolutely. I found the job that allowed me to move back out to the place I
love (San Diego) and work at a great place from a Hiring thread. It was
literally life changing.

~~~
davidandgoliath
Congrats! Note there's an HN meetup in town on the last Friday of every month,
may want to check it out :)

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jawns
I was hired at Monetate (Philly area) after hearing about the job on HN. I
believe we have hired several other software engineers who found out about it
from HN, as well.

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miloshadzic
I got a client and several inquiries with my first SEEKING WORK post. The
second one got me nothing. How you write it matters a lot and having some
karma helps.

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doctoboggan
I found my current position on a Who's Hiring post back in March 2012. I love
my job and couldn't ba happier.

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hippich
yes, found a job where i am well compensated and and stuff i am doing is
actually very enjoyable for me.

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sahil_videology
Yes, I got hired via "Who's Hiring" and I've hired an intern through it. A
positive experience indeed.

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anonj155
By the way any tips for writin a SEEKING WORK post? I can't figure out a good
way to stand out.

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kclay
Worked for me, been working with a great company scaling their video platform
and its been fun.

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madhadron
Got my current position, which I really like, through it.

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wglb
Yes very well. Found most excellent gig thereby.

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jstreebin
Our first hire came from one of these :)

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fractalb
I'm new to HN. I have just now found out this "Who's Hiring" thread. looks
interesting. takes some time for me to see if it's working.

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bazookaBen
i got mine through HN, changed my life for better

