Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#61

Post by liberatus » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

Our solution to recruiter spam:

Become a recruiter.

I'm sorry but how is your business model any different from that of a recruiter? (Other than claims of human or AI filtered quality.)

I just don't see how you will not run into the exact same problems that existing recruiters run into.

What makes you different than a normal recruiter building profiles of companies and employers and soliciting both? This just looks very familiar, abeit drop dead gorgeous. :-)

I guess if good design and AI are enough to solve the recruiter problem, then count me in, it's just not clear to me how you are really different from your landing page. (Other than of course it is beautiful, seriously fantastic work.)

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#62

Post by xxpor » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

navyrain wrote: post #59

bitsweet wrote: post #2

Hi HN. We were tired of recruiters so we built this because it was something we wish existed. We had "satisfying" jobs and liked who we worked with but we were not naive and knew there could be a better job out there. Either building a product more aligned with our personal interests, making more doing something we enjoyed even more, or work with a team that challenged us further. It was too time consuming to activel…

Good work! However, there is no mention of telecommuting/remote positions. Even as a US worker, I prefer remote work, and it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office.

> it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office

Have you considered that some of us LIKE working in an office?

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#63

Post by randomdata » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #36

codva wrote: post #4

Interesting - kind of reminds me of a site a friend built a few years ago. It was a resume site with contact info hidden. In order to contact you the recruiter had to pay you - at whatever price you put on a contact (usually a buck or two). If you didn't respond in a reasonable time the money was refunded. But he was trying to solve the same problem - recruiter spam. Unfortunately he launched right in the deepest pit…

If I'm looking for a high paying job, a few dollars isn't going to interest me. Your friend probably had to create a ton of code to allow for the applicant to store and eventually withdraw his few bucks. If I'm really looking for a job, how many recruiters could possibly contact me? 10-15? at $2, that's $30 at the end of the process. Seems more like a distraction from my job hunting. It seems more like a distraction…

I expect the intent was really the other way around. To someone who is truly interested in what you have to offer, a buck or two is just a rounding error on the salary they will eventually pay you. To someone who is harvesting contact information to fire spam your way, $2 * n-number-of-contacts starts to add up very quickly.

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#64

Post by xxpor » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

xauronx wrote: post #53

bitsweet wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll be creating a FAQ from this HN discussion. We intend to be very transparent. It is free for the developer. Even though it is different, we found it easiest when employers pay us similar to how they pay contingency recruiters, placement fees. Typically recruiters charge 25-35% of your first year salary, we charge a flat 25K fee to the employer that hires you. We also have a unique offering for startups where the…

Wow, that's pretty steep. Maybe that's just a west coast thing. Where I live (Ohio) that's 50% of the salary of a developer with 5 years of experience. I signed up for your service but... that seems like a good chunk of change I'd prefer to have in my pocket :)

Yeah, I go to school in Ohio and am going to be working on the west coast. Salaries on the west coast are >2x (close to 3x) what I would have made in Ohio (Cleveland).

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#65

Post by romeonova » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

Just a small ui thing. When the info icon is clicked the layout flicks everytime. Can get annoying for some people.

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#66

Post by mikkom » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #62

navyrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good work! However, there is no mention of telecommuting/remote positions. Even as a US worker, I prefer remote work, and it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office.

> it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office Have you considered that some of us LIKE working in an office?

.. Especially some of us who have children.

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#67

Post by navyrain » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #62

navyrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good work! However, there is no mention of telecommuting/remote positions. Even as a US worker, I prefer remote work, and it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office.

> it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office Have you considered that some of us LIKE working in an office?

Of course, some people like working in offices; that was never disputed. However, there are an increasing number of organizations which have caught on that offices are not "software factories", but rather, an optional luxury.

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#68

Post by arscan » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:48 PM UTC

Recommendation: go niche if you have trouble building a critical mass of employers and prospective employees. Be known as the "go to" place for getting jobs in obscure but important technology/programming language (for example). Brand appropriately, and manually reach out to companies and developers that use those technologies and try to kickstart the process. Get on the first page for "X jobs" in google. Then build out from there.

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#69

Post by bitsweet » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

liberatus wrote: post #61

Our solution to recruiter spam: Become a recruiter. I'm sorry but how is your business model any different from that of a recruiter? (Other than claims of human or AI filtered quality.) I just don't see how you will not run into the exact same problems that existing recruiters run into. What makes you different than a normal recruiter building profiles of companies and employers and soliciting both? This just looks v…

There are a few things I dislike about recruiters that we aim to fix:

* They nearly all are technically incompetent, e.g. thinking Java is the cool word for Javascript and such. We know the difference between interfaces and inheritance, being developers ourselves, we are better at understanding the needs of companies and matching that to the desires of developers.

* Recruiters hide information, almost always. We're fully transparent with each pitch and include details about salary, team, etc upfront.

* Recruiters are about quick turn and will place you at any role that matches their keywords. We're more interested in long term relationships. In Pitchbox, this manifests itself in many ways...for example, just because you signed up today, doesn't mean you'll start getting job pitches tomorrow...instead we focus on relevancy and quality over quantity so you hear from us only when we think its particularly suited for you.

* The recruiting experience is horrible for companies too. The recruiter typically spams that hiring manager with resumes forcing the company to sift through it all. We provide simple useful tools for the companies connecting with Pitchbox members.

* If you liked our homepage for its simplicity and design, then you'll be happy to know we have built our entire product with similar focus. Interacting with it should be easy, purposeful, and enjoyable - pretty much the opposite of every interaction I've had with recruiters.

(BTW - Thanks for the kind words about our design)

Re: Show HN: Our alternative to recruiter spam

#70

Post by earlyriser » Mon, Jan 07, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #62

navyrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good work! However, there is no mention of telecommuting/remote positions. Even as a US worker, I prefer remote work, and it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office.

> it baffles me that us "internet folk" are not working hard to fight the industrial-era assumption that software has to be written in a central office Have you considered that some of us LIKE working in an office?

Some people like to work in the office, other want to work at home. In both cases it would be nice to have a checkbox to indicate our preference.