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Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

cnbc.com

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Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#201

Post by MichaelRo »

neonrider wrote: post #90
tptacek wrote: post #53

The controls summarized in the CNBC piece seem reasonable, or, if not that, then at least not all that onerous. The controls in the actual proposal are less reasonable: they create finable infractions for any claim in a job ad deemed "misleading" or "inaccurate" (findings of fact that requires a an expensive trial to solve) and prohibit "perpetual postings" or postings made 90 days in advance of hiring dates. The con…

I'm not familiar with the process of passing a law. Is it one of those situations where the ask is open to negotiation? Like, if I want to be given a finger I first need to ask for the whole arm kinda deal? If it's the case, then as you said, perhaps the real ask is what's in the summary.

The devil is in the details. There is one interview process that is bulletproof but it's NEVER going to be adopted in mass by private companies: university / police academy admission exams.

Basically you have a set number of places, say 50 jobs and accept candidacies up to a certain date, when ALL candidates (say 1000 candidates) take the SAME exam, under the SAME conditions. They all get marked from 0 to 100% and top 50 of them get the job. If anyone of them drops out, the next in line is admitted. There can be litigations filed to dispute the mark and it's objective because the criteria is the same for everyone.

The perfect system already exists, and it's used here and there. My first intern job,out of the university, was such an exam at a small business. We were some 10 candidates, 5 or so were hired. My current big corporation employer uses the exact same approach for hiring interns, only now in today's shit market it's still some 5 jobs but 500 candidates.

The real problem is that the IT domain got filled and every year the universities and bootcamps and all churn more candidates. Gotta face the fact that most people who want to become cops, who compete at the cop entry exam, will never become cops. IT is the same now.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#202

Post by marcus_holmes »

em-bee wrote: post #198
marcus_holmes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ideal business is one where you take in money and have no expenditures. This isn't a business. And if you found a way to do this, you'd be subject to endless audits and AML/CTF suspicions because actual businesses don't look like this. Business owners come in a range of personalities, just like everyone else. Some are selfish and unreasonable. Some are altruistic and generous. Some are purely in it for the mone…

as a freelance software developer working from home my expenses are practically zero.

Then you're not doing your tax returns properly.

You can claim depreciation on all your hardware (including your desk and chair).

You should be claiming some of your rent/mortgage as office expenses. And, obviously, your broadband cost, your electricity bill, your heating bill (if different), etc.

You can claim all the coffees you buy potential clients.

Having zero expenses is absolutely not what you want to efficiently run your business.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#203

Post by platevoltage »

ng12 wrote: post #72
tptacek wrote: post #53

The controls summarized in the CNBC piece seem reasonable, or, if not that, then at least not all that onerous. The controls in the actual proposal are less reasonable: they create finable infractions for any claim in a job ad deemed "misleading" or "inaccurate" (findings of fact that requires a an expensive trial to solve) and prohibit "perpetual postings" or postings made 90 days in advance of hiring dates. The con…

Maybe it would be simpler to just impose a nominal tax on the total number of job openings a company creates throughout the year. Maybe as a % of the role's salary. You could even rebate it against employer payroll taxes so they get the money back when they actually hire someone.

Instead of taxing good behavior, we could just criminalize bad behavior. Besides, companies spend billions on advertising. In a weird indirect way, "ghost jobs" are advertising.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#204

Post by ungreased0675 »

guywithahat wrote: post #155
Zigurd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "a senior engineer with direct experience for <140k" is a fake job.

For the last few months when I go on linkedin I'm spammed with a position out of CA who wants someone with 8+ years experience, in a C-tier CA desert city, for 80-110k. They've had it listed as "urgently hiring" for about 3 months now We pay junior engineers more than 80k, and that's to live in a nicer, lower tax area. I hope they don't find someone and have to urgently hire a contractor with a clearance for $300 an…

I’ve seen similar listings. Urgently hiring [long list of specific skills, experience, and certifications] for in-person work only in [high cost area].

If it was really urgent, there would be some flexibility in the requirements.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#205

Post by friendzis »

tptacek wrote: post #129
catigula wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's unreasonable or onerous to shift the burden of hiring onto companies well-suited and minimally impacted by this process compared to individuals. The fines should definitely be proportional though, with larger companies facing very severe infractions.

There are rules like this in other countries around the world, and the impact is that it's much harder to change full-time jobs, because companies work around them by replacing full-time roles with contract positions, something that's much harder to regulate. But the big thing here is: obviously there's a cheering section for any rules that make things harder for hiring managers, because most people here are on the o…

> because companies work around them by replacing full-time roles with contract positions, something that's much harder to regulate.

Yes, then a regulator sniffs on that, company is unable to prove absence of employment-like relationship, then is fined and owes backpay on all the unpaid taxes with interest.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#206

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

People are too eager to tackle problems using regulation. Taxes are often preferable, because they're simpler to administer and they generate revenue for the state.

Here's one way to address the problem of ghost jobs using taxes:

Force every job post to include a salary range. Make companies pay a small "job posting tax" for every listing, which is proportional to the product of the job's stated salary, and the number of views or applications it gets.

Including a salary range in every job will improve gender equality and help jobseekers save time.

The nominal "job posting tax" should aim to be a small fraction of the actual cost of making a new hire (say 1-5% of the equivalent labor cost for all the work that goes into filling a role). The tax needs to stay small, so companies aren't seriously discouraged from hiring. (Heck, you could even have the tax automatically get reduced a little bit if the economy is in a recession -- or automatically go up if data analysis determines there are too many ghost jobs. Or even refund some taxes once a hire actually gets made!)

The goal is just to apply some financial drag to companies that spam job listings. If you're inconveniencing jobseekers, you've got to pay a little tax for it. Identify the right tax scheme and everything should sort itself out.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#207

Post by [deleted] »

TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #195
Workaccount2 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically small businesses tend to be the most egregious violators of labor laws and humanity in general. Mega-corp isn't typically evil, it just wins a lot by being incredibly advantaged in whatever it pursues. Teams of lawyers, armies of engineers, rows of consultants. Small businesses on the other hand tend to be the ones dumping oil in the river, firing employees that they don't want to back pay, bankrolling fam…

As a small business owner, I spend a lot of my time doing things by the book. I get confused by other small business owners who complain about this because it’s all stuff you’d need to do anyway. I use a double entry accounting system in an ERP. This isn’t terribly complicated. I took courses on corporate accounting in college and I took the ERP training. Even if I didn’t have all of that, I’d still have to actually…

[deleted]

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#208

Post by jiggawatts »

ng12 wrote: post #72
tptacek wrote: post #53

The controls summarized in the CNBC piece seem reasonable, or, if not that, then at least not all that onerous. The controls in the actual proposal are less reasonable: they create finable infractions for any claim in a job ad deemed "misleading" or "inaccurate" (findings of fact that requires a an expensive trial to solve) and prohibit "perpetual postings" or postings made 90 days in advance of hiring dates. The con…

Maybe it would be simpler to just impose a nominal tax on the total number of job openings a company creates throughout the year. Maybe as a % of the role's salary. You could even rebate it against employer payroll taxes so they get the money back when they actually hire someone.

A simple tweak here is that the tax refund can be larger than the deposit.

If you post a fake job and hire a H1B, you get automatically and inescapably slugged with a huge tax.

If you post a real job and hire someone, you get a tax refund.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#209

Post by novok »

WalterBright wrote: post #186
novok wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being skilled at programming, it's being skilled at interview programming, which is very different. Also ringers are black market, so you can be hired everywhere and not blocked by not being in the USA in the first place. You can pass the interview, but you can't find a job that hires you in the USA because of non-interview reasons or market conditions. Anybody could become a ringer because it's a purely ski…

> It's not being skilled at programming, it's being skilled at interview programming, which is very different. I'm not so sure about that. I'm suspicious of the existence of skilled programmers who cannot handle writing small programs, and vice versa.

The topic set is very different and the conditions are very artificial. There are many engineers who are amazing, but are absolute shit about writing code, under pressure, while someone is looking over their shoulder, to a leetcode medium that they haven't practiced for. Their brains go blank.

Like seriously, go to leetcode, pick a random medium+ problem and solve it within 15-30m without bugs under pressure, on coderpad, without code execution or being allowed to look up syntax. Make sure you've never seen or been asked the question before. Now do 10 more. You'll see it's something you need to practice for specifically. Make sure you throw in a few binary search questions while you do it.

Re: Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

#210

Post by WalterBright »

novok wrote: post #209
WalterBright wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not being skilled at programming, it's being skilled at interview programming, which is very different. I'm not so sure about that. I'm suspicious of the existence of skilled programmers who cannot handle writing small programs, and vice versa.

The topic set is very different and the conditions are very artificial. There are many engineers who are amazing, but are absolute shit about writing code, under pressure, while someone is looking over their shoulder, to a leetcode medium that they haven't practiced for. Their brains go blank. Like seriously, go to leetcode, pick a random medium+ problem and solve it within 15-30m without bugs under pressure, on code…

Anybody going for a leetcode interview without doing prep work first is not a good candidate to start with.

I coached a newly minted PhD engineer into spending 3 weeks studying leetcode prep materials before the interview, telling him that per-hour it would be the best investment of his career. Shockingly, he listened, studied for 3 weeks, and absolutely nailed it. And landed the big bucks job, too.

> Their brains go blank

Anyone with a degree has undergone exams that were critical to graduation. I know all about time pressure, high stakes exams. After all, I attended Caltech. I learned how to deal with them. Study the material beforehand, work all the problem sets beforehand, make sure you have it cold backwards and forwards. That's the cure for brain freeze.

Going in without prep for a $250,000 job interview is just lazy, no matter how smart or capable you are.

A crackerjack programmer that cannot learn leetcode is not a crackerjack programmer.

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