Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 289 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#161

Post by cle »

loteck wrote: post #100
freework wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to see it from th job hunter's perspective. It is very common to send out 20 resume's and maybe get a single response or two. It is very time consuming to write a custom multi-paragraph cover letter with every application. Eventually all job hunters learn that you get the same response rate when you write one sentence cover letters as you do when you put a lot of effort into them. Why spend so much effort wh…

Eventually all job hunters learn that you get the same response rate when you write one sentence cover letters as you do when you put a lot of effort into them. Weird way to look at it. I would think a company that would accept a one sentence cover letter would also accept a longer cover letter, but that the inverse wouldn't be true. As such, wouldn't a classic job seeker always sell to the longer-letter requirement,…

If the proportion of companies that don't accept one-sentence cover letters is relatively small, then the cost of writing those cover letters (which can be significant) probably isn't worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#162

Post by zura »

Yes, several years ago I found a great REMOTE C++ job. The first contact, the interview process and the actual work - every step with this company was very enjoyable. The team, the most important factor for me personally, consisted of extremely talented, friendly and simply great people from around the world. The company is defunct now, but I still have a nostalgia of working with these guys and gals.

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#164

Post by q3r3qr3q »

loteck wrote: post #100
freework wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to see it from th job hunter's perspective. It is very common to send out 20 resume's and maybe get a single response or two. It is very time consuming to write a custom multi-paragraph cover letter with every application. Eventually all job hunters learn that you get the same response rate when you write one sentence cover letters as you do when you put a lot of effort into them. Why spend so much effort wh…

Eventually all job hunters learn that you get the same response rate when you write one sentence cover letters as you do when you put a lot of effort into them. Weird way to look at it. I would think a company that would accept a one sentence cover letter would also accept a longer cover letter, but that the inverse wouldn't be true. As such, wouldn't a classic job seeker always sell to the longer-letter requirement,…

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that I see recruiters getting resumes from places like LinkedIn and cold-calling those people, based on experience and keywords in their resumes. And if those people don't need to bother with cover letters, maybe no one really cares.

People might also think that since companies are still crying about the shortage of programmers it's still a "renter's market" and that enough employers are desperate enough to not squabble over missing cover letters.

But I still have no great theory about why people wouldn't have at least a single paragraph about themselves that they paste into emails to make them seem slightly more personal.

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#165

Post by reader5000 »

freework wrote: post #160
TheMog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it works both ways. You might send out 20 resumes. As a hiring manager - especially when using a "no filter" approach like posting on here (keep in mind that IME people posting jobs on Hacker News are more likely doing "guerilla hiring" and circumvent their HR departments) - I easily get 100+ resumes, and I don't have days to spend trawling through them. I think it was rands of randsinrepose who mentioned befor…

> I easily get 100+ resumes, and I don't have days to spend trawling through them It is your job to look through resume's. This is what you are paid to do. You claim to be a hiring manager. It is not my responsibility to convince you to do the job you are paid to do. My resume contains all the information you need to make the determination of whether I am qualified for the job, including "I love writing web apps in R…

Write one cover letter and copy paste. I can totally understand prose selling better than a listing of "past things done".

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#166

Post by lonewolf_ninja »

mikebabineau wrote: post #117

Speaking from the other side, I've hired 10 people from HN over the past 5 years, 2 within the last 6 months. These have included some of my best hires. Currently, I see about 30 HN applicants per month. We interview roughly 30%. The rest are unqualified, demonstrated no understanding of or interest in what we do, and/or were spamming their resume. These get interviews: * Strong candidates who did their homework (thi…

Good to know things from a recruiter's perspective! Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#167

Post by formerly_ta »

danesparza wrote: post #132
freework wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to see it from th job hunter's perspective. It is very common to send out 20 resume's and maybe get a single response or two. It is very time consuming to write a custom multi-paragraph cover letter with every application. Eventually all job hunters learn that you get the same response rate when you write one sentence cover letters as you do when you put a lot of effort into them. Why spend so much effort wh…

"It is very common to send out 20 resume's and maybe get a single response or two. It is very time consuming to write a custom multi-paragraph cover letter with every application." If you're a programmer and you're approaching problems this way, I most likely don't want to hire you. Strike a balance between automation and giving a personal touch where it's necessary.

And if you're shooting your resume off to such different positions that you can't cover them with the same (or one of a few) intro paragraphs, you're probably not that great a candidate for this specific role anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#168

Post by dewyatt »

blinkingled wrote: post #30

Thank you for asking this! I was thinking about what's the best way to ask something like this - I was too negative about the $subject to ask anything without offending people. I have been watching these for months now - for a long time just out of curiosity and recently because I'm starting to look for a new job. My own experience is that a single digit percentage of these jobs actually sound like there might be peo…

> a single digit percentage of these jobs actually sound like there might be people who can interview for those if one had to check all tick marks on the skills and experience requirements faithfully

This has been my experience as well. It seems every job is for a Senior with 5 years of experience in 10 specific technologies.

What happened to the days of on-the-job training? Or was that ever a thing in the IT realm?

Re: Ask HN: Ever been hired through a “who's hiring” post?

#170

Post by zeusk »

I almost got hired.

I had a very good phone interview and then an interesting set of coding questions with Silicon Valley Bank. Unfortunately, before we could meet in person and possibly have an offer - I got an offer from a startup I really liked but they wanted me to respond within the next few days. Given that my start date was less than three weeks out, I accepted the offer and had to quit the process but nonetheless it was quite a positive experience.

Post reply on HN