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Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

frenxi.com

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Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#72

I stumbled across "we hire" messages across Paypal, Techcrunch, and dozen of other websites, even no-name startups. You can find them in headers, CSS, HTML, JS and all over different places. The thing is: the message neither changes the recruiting process nor company values, so it does not matter if you come from X-Header or company/careers. This cryptic message thing will only get you "oh cool" reply from recruiters…

> If you are a good engineer you'll be hired no matter of these messages

That's a bit idealistic. When one job has 100 applicants, the unfortunate reality is not all 100 resumes will get read. If you've already got a couple years to a decade of experience under your belt, your resume will naturally surface to the top of the pile, but if you're just starting out, it can be impossible.

Recruiters may only say "oh cool" to you, but, especially if your resume shows zero years of professional experience, there's a tiny bit more effort that goes on behind the scenes. You're right that you still go through the exact same flow, but it's a (tiny) shibboleth that helps show that the candidate fits the mold.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#73

Reminds me of the time google mined my search data in order to redirect me to their recruiting pages, but instead of abusing my data in unforeseeable ways, these guys only require that you are able to switch to the network tab of your browser. Pretty neat.

Maybe engineers who are not concerned about Google mining their search data for recruitment purposes are exactly the kind of engineer Google wants to hire.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#74

I had a similar idea for financing Open Source software projects. The contributing sponsors would get their URL and add-text into a comment at the top of the source-code. The bigger your sponsorship the higher up in the list your company will be. The adds would of course be targeted at hackers, such as come work for us, since only hackers read source-code. So it would be a very targeted ad (like the http-header thing…

> only hackers read source-code

maybe I'm behind the times, but is 'hacker' now colloquial to mean 'anyone who codes'? Plenty of normal software engineers / devs, who are by no means 'hackers' (myself included) read the source code.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#75
post #38

For a while we had a recruiting message in the reddit headers. We also had this for many years: x-Bender: Bite my shiny metal ass We also had this for a long time: Server: '; DROP TABLE servertypes; -- Sadly, it looks like it was removed when they switched from haproxy to varnish. They did put this in though: x-moose: majestic So that's something I guess.

X-Bender came from slashdot.org didn't it? I recall it being present in the early 2000s.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#76

I had a similar idea for financing Open Source software projects. The contributing sponsors would get their URL and add-text into a comment at the top of the source-code. The bigger your sponsorship the higher up in the list your company will be. The adds would of course be targeted at hackers, such as come work for us, since only hackers read source-code. So it would be a very targeted ad (like the http-header thing…

> only hackers read source-code maybe I'm behind the times, but is 'hacker' now colloquial to mean 'anyone who codes'? Plenty of normal software engineers / devs, who are by no means 'hackers' (myself included) read the source code.

Inside the community, a hacker (as opposed to "cracker" or "security hacker") is someone who uses technology in a creative way.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#77
post #38

For a while we had a recruiting message in the reddit headers. We also had this for many years: x-Bender: Bite my shiny metal ass We also had this for a long time: Server: '; DROP TABLE servertypes; -- Sadly, it looks like it was removed when they switched from haproxy to varnish. They did put this in though: x-moose: majestic So that's something I guess.

X-Bender came from slashdot.org didn't it? I recall it being present in the early 2000s.

Yes I believe we blatantly stole it from them.

There was a whole thread on reddit about it a decade ago when someone first discovered the drop table header: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/c0m9v/reddits_...

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#78
post #32

I've found similar headers in emails. For example, I was setting up a sieve-based filter for Groupon emails and there was this x-recruiting header. That was nice.

This made me curious. I'm going to look through my email archive and see if I can find anything of interest. Will update this post when I do.

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#79
post #54

Just telling people to apply to domain.com/jobs is pretty lame. So, basically the same door that anyone else goes through when they click the "Careers" link in your site's footer? Reminds me of when I solved one of the CTF challenges for a website only for my reward to be "We're hiring! Apply at jobs.example.com!" Real "be sure to drink your Ovaltine" moment.

Why do they call it Ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it Roundtine.

That's gold, cerved! Gold!

Re: Next dream job can be in an HTTP header

#80

Just telling people to apply to domain.com/jobs is pretty lame. So, basically the same door that anyone else goes through when they click the "Careers" link in your site's footer? Reminds me of when I solved one of the CTF challenges for a website only for my reward to be "We're hiring! Apply at jobs.example.com!" Real "be sure to drink your Ovaltine" moment.

Google Foobar does it right and lets you skip to actually be considered, which is nice.

Has Google even bothered with Foobar for like past 2-3 years? It appears so frequently on non-incognito searches that surely every developer must have seen it by now.
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