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

'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 143 posts

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#111

Post by pseudalopex »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #71
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have to start somewhere. Update the law as bad actors operate. Observe, iterate, etc. Failure is not trying, or when you stop attempting to improve. Trying is table stakes. "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." We are aligning incentives, with policy, to encourage desired outcomes.

The general problem with this one is that there are a thousand legitimate reasons not to hire someone that are also infeasible to efficiently establish the veracity of. Suppose you post a job because you'll need to fill that position if you get a contract you expect to get with 85% probability. You legitimately expect to hire someone but can't in good faith make anyone an offer until the contract with the customer is…

The proposed law would require disclosure. Not legal penalty for no hire before the projected date.

Employers can reject candidates for employment gaps. They can do this without allowing candidates to explain. Or they can decide to reject an explanation. Candidates should have equivalent information. And equivalent choice.

> The actual way to improve it is to reform the laws that cause companies to list jobs they have no true intention of filling as a requirement for complying with some other law.

The evidence this is the real problem is what?

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#112

Post by pseudalopex »

chaosharmonic wrote: post #53
woah wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... are you saying that talking about an ex-colleague with anyone (without filing a bunch of paperwork or something) is a "giant loophole in the Fair Credit Reporting Act"?

Yes. But to be clear, since "anyone" is vague: I specifically mean talking to hiring teams, about ex-colleagues who haven't given them permission to ask around in the first place. Because the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs background checks. It isn't limited to money, or to scoring -- it covers any third party that reports data about you, for the sake of determining if you're eligible for anything from a loan to a…

Part of the law was broad. Part of the law was narrow. How did you establish the broad part was intended broad and the narrow part was not intended narrow?

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#113

Post by grimcompanion »

FireBeyond wrote: post #80
danielvaughn wrote: post #13

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.

Don't even start me on what I think is the next big issue, "ghost application harvesting": I think Wellfound (f/k/a AngelList) is doing this. The jobs advertised on there are real... I'd been on the job market four months. Every day I did the rounds: Levels, Wellfound, YC/jobs, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn. It is what it is, as a crappy jobs market. Wellfound? I didn't ever hear from anything from their job ads. And I…

Totally agree. I actually got a job off of AngelList back in the day, when I was fairly junior. Was getting messages from hiring managers, founders, and in-house recruiters almost daily. 5 years later, I updated my profile with a much more legit background than before, messaged a few places - it's been 100% crickets.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#114

Post by aakresearch »

thewebguyd wrote: post #83
sib wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but why is that a problem? If they didn't find someone, they closed the posting, then reopened it later, what is the issue? Or, as in some cases, perhaps they did find someone? I've been at companies where we hired many engineers sequentially over time using the same job description. Should we just have arbitrarily changed the JD?

> Should we just have arbitrarily changed the JD? No, but unique IDs for postings could help in that situation. If you want to hire, say, 10 engineers, you have 10 separate job postings with their own unique ID, they get taken down as each position gets filled. Gives candidates visibility into how many positions the company is hiring (am I competing against 1,000 for 1 position or for 10 positions?), and clear visibi…

In trading (of securities) posting an order without intent to execute is considered market manipulation, which is illegal and harshly prosecuted. There is a consideration that change of mind is possible, but you'll have a hell of a lot to prove in such case before authorities let you off.

I agree with many, pointing that companies will (try) find ways to fleece any regulation imposed. And I am not a fan of regulations myself, at all. But I think it is fair to hold businesses to some standard in many aspects, including hiring. It is already being done in regards to some, like discrimination and equality. Un- and under-employment is a matter, dealt with by society through institutions and funded by taxpayers. The "clearance rate" of job applications (from both "buy" and "sell" sides) is, therefore, a state concern. I do not think extending requirements of "business license" to demonstrate "genuine intent" would place insurmountable burden on HRs or CEOs. But of course, such extension must have some teeth.

To be clear, the current situation with excessive ghosting is not helped by decades-old push to "commoditize" jobs, particularly IT jobs. And the regulations we discuss will be a not very well-veiled recognition of its de-facto success. Which I am also not a fan of. But flip side seems worse, when companies are allowed to pretend they'd only settle for unicorn while not demonstrating a "unicorn-shaped sieve" at all.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#115

Post by aakresearch »

snapcaster wrote: post #52
ryandrake wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We shouldn't treat corporate regulation as something you try all at once to get the wording, incentives, and disincentives exactly right and then you're stuck with it for 20 years. It should be a living document. Put something into force today. See what companies do to try to avoid/skirt the regulation-- then immediately close those doors and re-run the experiment. See what they try next and close those door…

you're not engaging with all the political and game theory issues that make that difficult to do in practice. Let alone the uncertainty that impacts businesses (even ones that are acting in good faith)

Ghosting does much more harm to candidates than the burden to not-ghost does to companies. I'm not going to cry over all "talent acquisition experts" having to do some actual work. Uncertainty that businesses face does not compare to uncertainty that a candidate face after 18 months of unemployment. Ask me how I know.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#116

Post by wtfwhateven »

engineer_22 wrote: post #94
danielvaughn wrote: post #13

I'd support it at the federal level. It's cruel towards people looking for work, and it costs them real time at a point in their lives when time is such a critical factor.

What is cruel about having a public mailbox for stuffing job applications?

Terrible, perhaps even knowingly dishonest, analogy.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#117

Post by rapidaneurism »

RandallBrown wrote: post #98
engineer_22 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is cruel about having a public mailbox for stuffing job applications?

It's cruel to have people spend time and energy applying for a job that doesn't actually exist and they have no chance of being hired for, despite their qualifications.

I suspect they would hire a Nobel laureate that was willing to work as an unpaid intern.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#118

Post by jamesfinlayson »

palinnilap wrote: post #36

What if online job applications were illegal, and you signed up for interviews in person with a resume after seeing the ad online.

Somewhat related but I remember an old boss telling me that some government departments weren't allowed to specify Australian companies only when tendering for a work, but they were perfectly within their rights to ask for tender applications to be hand-delivered to their head office, thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#119

Post by defrost »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #118
palinnilap wrote: post #36

What if online job applications were illegal, and you signed up for interviews in person with a resume after seeing the ad online.

Somewhat related but I remember an old boss telling me that some government departments weren't allowed to specify Australian companies only when tendering for a work, but they were perfectly within their rights to ask for tender applications to be hand-delivered to their head office, thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother.

> thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother.

It's a good story .. but somewhat silly, Australia is riddled with outposts of offshore foreign companies here to exploit resources, and / or rig the books for others.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#120

Post by happymellon »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #95
ryandrake wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Analyze the ways companies already get around laws and shore them up with a patch. Do something! We've t…

> I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Unfortunately, that is exactly how you end up with legalese and laws that are hard for normal people to underst…

> declare that a mattress on its own does not constitute a bed.

And so you remove the mattress from their possession, because they obviously don't need the mattress to sleep.

Make it painful for those companies that want to fight the rules.

Post reply on HN