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Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

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Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#81

Post by pavel_lishin »

kdamica wrote: post #54
caminante wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the vast majority of startup hires are referrals. > Find ways to hustle to get a warm intro. OP's process is actually that of a spring chicken by not realizing this reality. I still don't understand why people, especially "experienced hires," expect more from passive applications.

I also think people don't appreciate the sheer volume of online applications that a desirable startup gets. There have been times were I would literally get hundreds of applications per week, with none of them standing out in any way. You want to give unknowns a chance but when it's a waste of time 99% of the time, you learn to reject quickly.

Desirable? Every employer is being flooded with applications.

You could list perks of employment as a four-hour commute (one-way), a liberal bring-rabid-dog-to-work policy (mandatory; if you don't have a dog with rabies, one will be provided), and a salary that can best be described as "rounding error", and you'd still get 100 applicants.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#82

Post by logotype »

georgeecollins wrote: post #5
alberth wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, why do you say that - given that many job board cost money to post on.

Many do, but not all. Also the cost to post a job is trivial compared to the cost of filling the role. I don't know what the OP was thinking but it is very common for companies to say they are hiring when they don't have a specific position to fill at the time. First, because it is a sign of health, particularly if you want to position yourself as growing. Second, a lot of HR people want to have a pool of people to c…

The “marketing” aspect of a job posting is bad because it’s not genuine. And a large proportion of applicants are using automated tools which is adding to the problem. The people who are actually looking for a matching role and who actually write their application themselves are simply lost in the noise.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#83

Post by kdamica »

bambax wrote: post #80
kdamica wrote: post #24

The reality is that the vast majority of startup hires are referrals. For hiring managers, having someone you trust tell you that they've worked with a candidate and vouch for them is invaluable, especially when the company is at a stage that you don't have good performance oversight. The cost of a bad hire is immense. My advice: never do a cold application. Find ways to hustle to get a warm intro.

Yeah ok sure, this is common sense. But then what's really the point of advertising open positions? The only certain result for companies who do this, is they'll be inundated with pointless random candidacies...?

One reason is to have a public URL that your employees can share to their network to pull referrals.

Also the success rate is not zero. I've hired great people from cold applications, it's just very rare.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#84

Post by busterarm »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #60
themanmaran wrote: post #42

As a YC company that is currently hiring, yes! And all of the YC companies I know are also struggling to find engineers. But the job listings (HN, WorkAtAStartup) practically never bring in good candidates. A few big problems: 1. AI Spam. I categorized the inbound we got the other day from a job post. Out of 172 daily applicants, we got 22 that looked reasonably like a person, and 150 that were primarily AI generated…

The unspoken problem is that most people want way too much fucking money.

I have seen some YC startups offer absurdly low "fucking money" for the ask.

If you want a founding engineer for on-site only full-time work in the Bay Area at 50-80K and a fraction of a percent of equity, you deserve every volley of AI shitspam resume dumping that awaits your inbox.

And I think it was only two or three months ago that I saw a hiring post offering exactly that.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#85

Post by scarface_74 »

LittleTimothy wrote: post #37
aimazon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some companies are just very selective, i.e: they're hiring the right people not the best candidate. Most of us get jobs because companies need to fill a role and we're the best candidate of a bad bunch... most of us (whether we have 22 years and a fancy title or not) would not get a job at a company that hires carefully because we're probably not a good fit for their very niche view of what a good hire is.

It makes total sense for a startup to be highly selective. But being overly selective at the CV/application stage is dumb. If they really do have some really highly specialized requirement that should be on the advert. If they don't then being having a high rejection rate at the CV screen stage is going to be easy - it's easy to reject people, but you're overwhelmingly likely to screen out the few candidates that are…

If you are getting thousands of applications, you have to be selective at the application stage.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#86

Post by IshKebab »

jjice wrote: post #51

I work for a small YC startup and we have recently wanted to hire another engineer. Our CTO posted a listing on WorkAtAStartup and within two or so days, got over 200 applicants. Apparently, WorkAtAStartup (which I've used successfully in the past) allows you to bulk send applications. He went through and found that almost all the applications he was able to go through were absolute nonsense. He then screened some pe…

If you got no viable candidates presumably you aren't offering enough money, or are offering "competitive salaries"?

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#87

Post by scarface_74 »

themanmaran wrote: post #67
doctorpangloss wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unspoken problem is that most people want way too much fucking money.

So far we haven't had a candidate pass because of salary yet. Typically candidates looking for that stable $400k salary never even talk with startups, because they know that's only a FAANG position.

Out of curiosity, I looked at how much your company pays.

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/omniai/jobs

This doesn’t come close to what a mid level enterprise CRUD developer could make in Atlanta.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#88

Post by scarface_74 »

kdamica wrote: post #24

The reality is that the vast majority of startup hires are referrals. For hiring managers, having someone you trust tell you that they've worked with a candidate and vouch for them is invaluable, especially when the company is at a stage that you don't have good performance oversight. The cost of a bad hire is immense. My advice: never do a cold application. Find ways to hustle to get a warm intro.

Hypothetical candidate: “Hi, my name is John and I’m a ‘full stack developer’ interested in working at your company”

Me: “Okay submit your resume to our job board and someone will get back to you”.

Doing a “warm introduction” isn’t enough.

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#89

Post by themanmaran »

scarface_74 wrote: post #87
themanmaran wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far we haven't had a candidate pass because of salary yet. Typically candidates looking for that stable $400k salary never even talk with startups, because they know that's only a FAANG position.

Out of curiosity, I looked at how much your company pays. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/omniai/jobs This doesn’t come close to what a mid level enterprise CRUD developer could make in Atlanta.

I'm from Atlanta, and $175k is pretty square with ATL ranges[1]. It's not a Google salary, but startup comp is always more equity weighted.

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/atlanta...

Re: Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring?

#90

Post by AznHisoka »

themanmaran wrote: post #42

As a YC company that is currently hiring, yes! And all of the YC companies I know are also struggling to find engineers. But the job listings (HN, WorkAtAStartup) practically never bring in good candidates. A few big problems: 1. AI Spam. I categorized the inbound we got the other day from a job post. Out of 172 daily applicants, we got 22 that looked reasonably like a person, and 150 that were primarily AI generated…

It begs the question: why not just post your job in your website and nowhere else (ie LinkedIn/Indeed)? That reduces the spam AND gives you a link to point people to.

I hear these complaints all the time from companies. To me if you’re leaving your jobs up at aggregators like LinkedIn, you have no right to complain (not singling you out btw, just a general thought)

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