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

Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 192 posts

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#161

Post by brailsafe »

mythrwy wrote: post #148
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid it's not the only explanation (economy), but it's still a very good reason. Looking at myself, I've been working remotely for the last 7 years and there is just no way back, even if another company would pay me 2x or 3x more. Remote working is a massive perk and thanks (due) to Covid, a lot of people became aware of this.

Yes. Additionally I'm not moving across the country to live in a strange and expensive city to work on your CRUD app. There is no way back, even at 2X or 3x more.

I agree with trivializing the prospect, but for me personally it's less about the nature of the work or the city, but the ludicrous instability that a company would hope you don't think about. It's fine if where you're coming from is a desolate market and you're wanting to seriously improve either your income or location for personal reasons, that's a sensible risk. But doing it for a more lateral move, or for marginal gains, I'd be asking myself how committed this employer is to having me; the answer is usually zero. So I go and get my expensive apartment in a scarce market and start working away on whatever inane problem company x is paying me for, and 2 months in it turns out, "oops, we overhired and have to refocus our energy on digitizing, solutioning, and don't forget problemization and alignment".

One case where this would be worthwhile though would be one where you wanted to move there anyway, and the company is arbitrary

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#162

Post by iLoveOncall »

karaterobot wrote: post #8
iLoveOncall wrote: post #5

There are quite a lot of people hiring which have multiple job postings though. It doesn't invalidate that it is the highest but it doesn't mean that it's almost 1:1. It also doesn't mean that those people are out of a job. My company is mandating RTO 3 days a week, that's a good reason to look for a new position, while still being employed.

I think it might invalidate it. At the very least it points out that this is really measuring the ratio of comments , not jobs and candidates.

I think it doesn't invalidate it because this situation of having multiple job postings for a single comment is not new and I imagine is relatively the same every month.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#163

Post by recfab »

the_af wrote: post #128
arealaccount wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So too thorough is dystopic and depressing, not thorough enough is a garbage offer.

Yes, but if you are interpreting my comment in the best possible light it makes sense, right? - On one extreme, you have employers who are abusive during interviews. They record you, treat you like a cheater, forbid you from alt-tabbing or anything that you would normally do while on the actual job, ask for trivia knowledge you'd normally google, and when reviewing take home challenges they are very strict. I assume…

> ...forbid you from alt-tabbing or anything that you would normally do while on the actual job, ask for trivia knowledge you'd normally google...

I had to fill out a literal IQ test the other day. 15 minutes, for 50 questions, and a note that you probably won't finish them, and not to use calculator. I'm out of practice for arithmetic tricks _because I've been out of school for 20+ years_. What exactly is that supposed to test, especially under such time pressure? This was followed by a personality test (no time limit).

This is all before they even decide whether they even want to interview me.

> - On the other extreme, you have garbage consultancy/software factory work. Low quality, outdated tech, low pay, and they'll hire anybody who can demonstrate minimal expertise since they aren't interested in quality work but in selling billable hours.

I just had to pass on one of these. Not quite desperate enough to take it just yet. Time tracking software was already iffy. Having to interview again for each project was iffy. Basically, glorified contract work, but less stability. Oh, and they wanted me to screen record my tech assessment assignment.

What cinched it for me, though, was the Glassdoor reviews: they boast about their star rating on Glassdoor, but the CEO would passive-aggressively rip into negative reviews, including one that told a former employee they were wrong for having a bad experience.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#164

Post by selimthegrim »

leonidasv wrote: post #158
mortenjorck wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. My WWTBH comment from yesterday shows me a delete link, as well as a non-expiring edit link.

The delete button is time-limited. I think it's about 24~36 hours. After that, you can't delete without emailing the mods.

I just deleted my comment on the last thread from a month ago with the button.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#165

Post by gopher_space »

wyclif wrote: post #137
71a54xd wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also seems like the market has strongly skewed to the senior side of things (8+ yrs exp).

Yep, I'm currently on the market and I'm seeing a lot of requests for impossibly high years of experience if you're a junior.

From my perspective few of the projects asking for this level of experience require it. I have no idea why people aren't recruiting curious randos off the street at $60k a pop, but I'd imagine that onboarding looks complicated if you can't tell the difference between infrastructure jank and your actual job.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#166

Post by carabiner »

colmanhumphrey wrote: post #90

Here is a chart going back to 2014: https://slight.run/graphs/colman/ratio_of_seekers_to_hirers_... Not quite as drastic as yours, but still not ideal. The underlying query and data source: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac... I'm restricting to top-level comments here, because those seem like a better proxy than all comments (excluding some discussion on a given post for example).

Looks like your chart only goes up to 2022 October? Whereas OP's goes up to today.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#167

Post by neffy »

ppaattrriicckk wrote: post #143
colmanhumphrey wrote: post #90

Here is a chart going back to 2014: https://slight.run/graphs/colman/ratio_of_seekers_to_hirers_... Not quite as drastic as yours, but still not ideal. The underlying query and data source: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac... I'm restricting to top-level comments here, because those seem like a better proxy than all comments (excluding some discussion on a given post for example).

If anybody is interested, maybe this should be considered along with the core inflation rates - which is high in the US (peaked at 7% within the last 12 months and currently at 5.5%) and possibly still rising in the EU (12-month peak [now] at 5.7%). If the central banks are going to stick to their declared purpose of keeping this around 2% we're still in for further rate hikes, I would imagine. * https://tradingecono…

Hopefully they are not quite that stupid. Inflation is a lagging indicator, so expect it to start dropping fairly quickly as the -12 months price delta normalises, against the M2 injection 2 years ago.

M2 continues to drop (this is a bad thing for stability, but will feed into prices dropping over time):

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#168

Post by 93po »

mtnGoat wrote: post #134

I’ve always found the who’s hiring threads to be interesting. I don’t think all of those companies are actively hiring, but rather like to look like they are for some reason I don’t understand. My reasoning is two fold: I applied to some a couple years ago while job hunting and got worse response rate than most other sources. And some seem to be hiring for the same position for many months in a row. Though the second…

a few reasons to list job ad when not seriously hiring:

1. collect resumes for when you are hiring

2. to look like a healthy, growing company even if you aren't

3. to find people who are desperate who you can underpay (smaller owner-run companies are more guilty of this)

4. to lure in people with a more interesting job ad than what the company really needs, then try to convince the candidate to fill a position for a less desirable or lower paying job

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#169

Post by em-bee »

matttb wrote: post #139
newbie578 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The few times I posted, my email got scraped and I received some offers which were all not job offers..

This was my experience as well. Not a single real inquiry, just spam. I asked the mods to delete my posts on those threads and the spam email vanished

hiring posts can be edited without timelimit. also i would put the email in the profile, then you can removed it from there any time easily. i also 'obscure the address as name at domain. never got spam despite posting many times.

Re: Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

#170

Post by [deleted] »

prottog wrote: post #16
muzani wrote: post #9

I'd like to see data go all the way back to 2020, which was when some people said had the worst job market, because of the global lockdowns. But thanks for the data anyway. It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers. Another thing to consider is that we've had layoffs recently, i.e. peo…

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers. In my area, many businesses outside of the tech sector is actively hiring and can't find enough people. I think Covid triggered a demographic shift with many Boomers retiring (or dying) and that gap has not been filled.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN