Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#261

Post by toyg » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

ldoughty wrote: post #216

toyg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me like the actual problem is staring you right in the face, though: you are not in a tech cluster and you don't want to countenance remote working. That instantaneously removes 90% of the pool - or rather 99%, since no city on Earth has 75m people in commuting distance. No wonder you struggle to find people, particularly for a hard skill like assembler.

I did remote work for a while, but honestly, I prefer going into an office. Even with a home office, my family or dogs and up demanding a lot of my attention through the day, and it's difficult/frustrating since it takes me out of my mental zone/thought process. That was a while ago.. now, as a manager, I could try some remote employees, but I honestly prefer having face time with my employees... Most remote workers…

> Over 2 years he did less work

That's a failure of upper management to demand accountability from him. A lot of people hide a lot of stuff even when they are at the office.

> What interview questions can you ask to very "dedicated remote workers" from "easy paycheck remote workers"?

The same you ask to discern between "dedicated office worker" and "minesweeper-champion office worker"?

> How to you improve performance in remote workers

Promote accountability based on deliverables and targets. Establish always-on communication channels and systems, keeping remotes involved in the decision-making rather than being recipients of orders. Have periodic reviews, particularly if things are slower than expected. And at the end of the day, don't be scared to let people go if they are not meeting expectations, or to put your foot down on things like webcam usage if you really need it.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#262

Post by was_boring » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

I'm a hiring manager, but not a recruiter, I use it most months we have a position open to do direct reach out as the pool of people is generally pretty good.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#263

Post by rheffern » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

ardaozkal wrote: post #250

rheffern wrote: post #248

> Did you receive responses that weren't recruiter-spam from your posts there? Maybe I've obfuscated my email address well enough, but I don't get any recruiter spam from the listing. Now that I look back on that, it's something of a miracle. That said, I've only been contacted once per the thread. After one email I was ghosted by the company. Not uncommon really. I'm not really the niche for HN, I'm mostly a bio/med…

My experiences do not really match: Some CV compiler website has been emailing me ever since I posted on the thread, and the opt out is "If you don't want to hear from me anymore, just let me know". Except there's no MX record for the website (Image: https://elixi.re/i/oamrerwz.png ), so I can't reply to them asking them to remove my email from their list. If the person behind those emails is reading this: Please sto…

In taking a look at your postings on the 'Who want to be Hired' thread you list your email outright: hnjobs@ave.zone

I've written mine out as : robert.heffern (at) gmail

I suppose that the way that I wrote out my email address is just a bit more difficult for a computer to parse and scrape, hence my lack of spam. However, it may also be screening out people that want to talk to me, and I would never know.

That said, you have a very impressive gitlab resume! Great work!

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#264

Post by dorgo » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #165

butteroverflow wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greatly depends on the drivers around you. Here it'll definitely shorten your life expectancy if you're lucky, and will leave you with a nice whole-body paralysis, if you're not. You know how motorists sarcastically refer to cyclists over here? "Crunchies", or something like that.

I don't have to drive on the road. My work trip is 5 km and all the way is bike roads and pedestrian paths. One of the advantages of living in the nordics, I suppose. I don't even wear a helmet in the summer - I just pedal intentionally slow.

> I just pedal intentionally slow

Anecdote: I was with a group of tourists and we were about to rent bikes for a guided tour. We were offered helmets, but only some were taken. Before we even departed, a girl managed to fall of her bike and injur herself. A second offer to use helmets was met with much more acceptance.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#265

Post by souprock » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

dbancajas wrote: post #237

souprock wrote: post #4

I've tried to find people that way, but usually there is nobody. Let's see, searching for "assembly" and "assembler" and "embedded"... 1. I already asked. He wants Rust and probably won't leave Albuquerque. Bummer. He'd be perfect. 2. Argentina... nope. 3. Barcelona... nope. 4. One might work. I probably already asked, but don't remember. 5. Remote only... nope. 6. Lisbon... nope. 7. Paris... nope. 8. I already asked…

> -no. That doesn't mean we don't offer WFH (in fact, I'm working from home 3 out of 5 days a week), but remote only is not an option. I think the maximum WFH days per week for other people is around 2. Souprock! you still have austin office right? not looking for work right now but is the sec clearance still a requirement?

Yes, and sort of. Most sites don't require an existing clearance, but you'd have to be eligible. The main reasons for rejection seem to be foreign connections and debt you can't handle. After that I think it is addictions and fraud. Stuff you did many years ago is less of a problem than recent stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#266

Post by Jaruzel » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

summarity wrote: post #154

Jaruzel wrote: post #144

My view on these 'Who wants to be hired?' and 'Who's Hiring?' threads... 90% of the readership of Hacker News are Web Developers, either front end only, or full stack. As such the hiring threads are mostly jobs in that discipline. I'm an oddball on Hacker News, I have a keen interest in all tech development, but my official skill set is Windows Server Applications based Architecture[1], and Identity & Access Manageme…

Based on your skill set, we'd hire you immediately (we're a listed, 3000+ employee company). I work in the Berlin office, but we do have offices in every world region. The other comment here is BS. People who work with Windows Server, AD and .NET are sorely needed. Even more so in Europe, where an enterprise world exists that HN people apparently never heard of (see your 'oddball' statement). The real problem here is…

> Based on your skill set, we'd hire you immediately (we're a listed, 3000+ employee company).

> The real problem here is the WFH requirement. That's just a no-no.

Thank you for the positive comment! Unfortunately the remote-only thing is due to personal health. I wish it wasn't so, but it is.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#267

Post by dheera » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

bacon_waffle wrote: post #40

dheera wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's avoid judging -- remote is awesome if it works, but a lot of people aren't open to remote precisely because they're in a field or industry where it's incredibly logistically difficult. For example if you're a hardware company it's often pretty hard to do work without the actual hardware in front of you.

You're not wrong, but for an awful lot of combinations of hardware and remote locations, it's reasonable to ship gear as needed. I do firmware work remotely, and think of occasional fast shipping (or more rarely, work trips) as a cost of doing business.

Again, typically not easy if you are doing industrial hardware that weighs 100 pounds, has fragile components, still in a phase where various hardware components need to be regularly tweaked or replaced by their respective experts on the team, needs to be on-site to function at all, and depends on other infrastructure.

If you're doing consumer hardware, different story.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#268

Post by chii » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 12:51 AM UTC

epage wrote: post #220

jader201 wrote: post #75

I started the "Who wants to be hired?" threads over 5 years ago [1] after dang giving his blessing on it [2], and was super excited that it led to the job [3] that I still happily hold today. I really wish these threads were more active -- and received more upvotes -- relative to the "Who's hiring" threads, as it seems like the signal to noise is so much better, and also seems like the success rate would be quite a b…

I've thought about it and my concern with using the thread if I were job hunting is that if a coworker saw me on it, it might come out that I'm looking elsewhere when I'm not wanting that out yet. The Who's Hiring Thread would help me keep my search more private.

And this is the reason why your online persona needs to be separated from your real life persona.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#269

Post by jader201 » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 1:10 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #268

epage wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about it and my concern with using the thread if I were job hunting is that if a coworker saw me on it, it might come out that I'm looking elsewhere when I'm not wanting that out yet. The Who's Hiring Thread would help me keep my search more private.

And this is the reason why your online persona needs to be separated from your real life persona.

Or, just use throwaways (with throwaway contact info) when you want to post but remain anonymous (assuming you don’t need to go into details that would otherwise identity you).

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from “Who wants to be hired?” threads?

#270

Post by krageon » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 8:10 AM UTC

mkl wrote: post #86

zuttton wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get an ebike

That avoids much of the exercise (but has its own benefits).

From what I've been able to gather, on average you exercise about a third as hard. If it makes you bike three times more often, it's worth it. It also means you will be bothered significantly less by wind or other variability in travel time (maybe you are tired that day, for example).