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Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

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Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#31

Post by aero142 »

hkmurakami wrote: post #20

Thought experiment: does applying a "price" to applying to a position make sense? Legitimate & qualified applicants get lost in the noise because unqualified candidates send hundreds of resumes on sites like Monster and Craigslist. While this would open up possible fraud with disingenuous job postings with no intent of being filled, would something like charging $1 to apply to a position improve the situation? After…

I've seen a number of posts on HN from developers saying, "I won't apply for a job if they require a {cover letter, resume, code sample}." Depending on your point of view, adding hurdles could either remove self entitled prima donnas or all of the code ninjas. The risk is that you create a selection bias the wrong direction.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#32

Post by rizzom5000 »

Why would the author believe 600+ applicants for a semi-skilled entry-level job posting in NYC is an unusual number? How does that number compare to a similar job posting in London, Tokyo or Shanghai? This experiment is silly, contrived and unscientific. The data is without context, and essentially meaningless.

Also, while I wouldn't exactly call it unethical to do something like this - it is dishonest, and something about it feels slimy to me.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#33

Post by sskates »

GregBuchholz wrote: post #15
jdoody wrote: post #2

Interesting article. Time to make your own job.

Better yet. How can I make a job for these people? Think of all of the millions of man years that have gone to waste during this economic downturn. Surely there are a lot of unemployed people who could be adding value to something. I wish I was smart enough to figure out a way to harness the value of these people who are hungry for work.

This is what the "learn programming in X weeks and we'll hook you up with a job at the end of it" programs are about (ex http://devbootcamp.com/). Definitely a huge opportunity there, as companies are desperate for programmers but don't have time to train them, there are a lot of people unemployed and desperate for work, and it's possible to teach someone enough programming in a few months that they can begin contributing at one of these jobs. If you can execute correctly, it's an arbitrage opportunity, which is what all good businesses are built around.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#34

Post by Retric »

hkmurakami wrote: post #14
johnobrien1232 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people who don't have personal or professional connections, sometimes applying to job postings is the only route. I'd also note that to get above the other 626 resumes, you need to use other avenues of attack (like phone calls, etc.). Probably relevant to mention job-buddy.com here, a site I manage to help people track this kind of activity, and keep on keeping on with this arduous cycle.

If you happen to have a Resume/Cover Letter that when read, has a high chance of making inroads at a company, then snail mail works surprisingly well. (obvious downside is that it takes a very long time to research companies and tailor the documents to each one) Snail mail is the route I took back in the Fall of 2010. The response rate was roughly 20% for me.

That's rather high, I once had a 3 hours of interviews and then zero contact after that.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#35

Post by pyre »

wcchandler wrote: post #21

I attempted something similar during my last year of college. I made a posting at my closest large city, detailing my ideal job. I also laid out what seemed to be good requirements that I would have satisfied for the position. I was astounded by the results. I quickly had to remove the ad, too. The messages were heart wrenching to read. One man was unemployed after being discharged from the military. Another man had…

  > My skillset was expendable and I needed to realize that.
  > I lost my sense of entitlement. I used to think my
  > $100,000 piece of paper meant something.
  > 
  > Then I realized it did.
I feel like this part is going over my head if the 'did' isn't a typo (meant "didn't).

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#36

Post by Wilya »

rizzom5000 wrote: post #32

Why would the author believe 600+ applicants for a semi-skilled entry-level job posting in NYC is an unusual number? How does that number compare to a similar job posting in London, Tokyo or Shanghai? This experiment is silly, contrived and unscientific. The data is without context, and essentially meaningless. Also, while I wouldn't exactly call it unethical to do something like this - it is dishonest, and something…

I don't think the point is to show that the job market is hard in NYC. The point is to try to understand the problem (finding a job) by putting oneself in the other side.

Regarding the ethical part, one application is a rounding error for most seekers. Either you send hundreds of applications, either you send a dozen or two of highly researched ones (and you would have avoided this one anyway).

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#37

Post by eru »

wcchandler wrote: post #21

I attempted something similar during my last year of college. I made a posting at my closest large city, detailing my ideal job. I also laid out what seemed to be good requirements that I would have satisfied for the position. I was astounded by the results. I quickly had to remove the ad, too. The messages were heart wrenching to read. One man was unemployed after being discharged from the military. Another man had…

> Then I realized it did.

What did it mean?

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#38

Post by l3amm »

aero142 wrote: post #31
hkmurakami wrote: post #20

Thought experiment: does applying a "price" to applying to a position make sense? Legitimate & qualified applicants get lost in the noise because unqualified candidates send hundreds of resumes on sites like Monster and Craigslist. While this would open up possible fraud with disingenuous job postings with no intent of being filled, would something like charging $1 to apply to a position improve the situation? After…

I've seen a number of posts on HN from developers saying, "I won't apply for a job if they require a {cover letter, resume, code sample}." Depending on your point of view, adding hurdles could either remove self entitled prima donnas or all of the code ninjas. The risk is that you create a selection bias the wrong direction.

Adding hurdles will definitely reduce the number of applicants, but what you'll find is that if you ask for X, Y, Z in the ad most people will still send you whatever they were going to send you before (most likely a resume and coverletter). You then know they didn't read the ad and thus should probably be deleted.

This is why lots of job ads on craigslist say: "write XYZ in the email title" buried in the text to filter for those people who aren't even reading the ad.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#39

Post by rorrr »

wcchandler wrote: post #21

I attempted something similar during my last year of college. I made a posting at my closest large city, detailing my ideal job. I also laid out what seemed to be good requirements that I would have satisfied for the position. I was astounded by the results. I quickly had to remove the ad, too. The messages were heart wrenching to read. One man was unemployed after being discharged from the military. Another man had…

> I had broad competition

Maybe it's mostly the bottom 10% who are permanently unemployed / between jobs, no education.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#40

Post by l3amm »

The much sadder reality is what actually happens in a company that posts that ad:

1) Optimistically post the job ad.

2) Receive hundreds of responses within hours of posting it.

3) Begin going through those hundreds of responses, reading cover letters and resumes. At first you're pumped then you realize very few people here are qualified for the position/read the post.

4) After ~20 resumes, you close your email for the day. If you made the mistake of using your personal email address, I'm sorry.

5) Despair. Pick and choose random emails (maybe filter by email, are there any harvard.edu's in there?) and immediately call the first person who seems remotely OK. Iterate step 5 until you find 'the one.'

I've worked with/observed dozens of employers in this process, a tiny fraction of resumes actually get read, and frankly it's impossible to stay focused through the experience. A "fun" experiment is to print out 40 resumes in a pile, write a job description for those resumes and then try to find the most qualified one in that bunch. Free-text association with often poorly-articulated job requisitions is a nearly impossible proposition. Add in the step where you have to download and track those applicants, and it's damn near impossible to use Craigslist to find the best candidate.

This was the original inspiration for our company, Foundry Hiring (www.foundryhiring.com). We're trying to build tools to make this process as painless as possible. In this instance we will give you a free link to post in your CL ad which has an application form in front of it, so that emails don't hit your inbox, the applicant's are stored directly in our database. We then give you tracking tools on top of it to make the process better. We're still in beta, but I would love user feedback.

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