Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#71

Post by danieltillett » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #52

GreenPlastic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaned on the company's official materials for this. Employee focused culture where we work hard and play hard. XX on best companies to work for list. Fast growing company with great benefits, dogs allowed at work, etc.

Here are some things I'd LOVE to see on a job posting, but never have: 1. Interview process MAX 1 afternoon. We commit to AFFIRMATIVELY giving you an accept or reject within 2 weeks. (in other words, we respect your time) 2. Need to hire for this position by [DATE]. (this is a real job opportunity and we are not just fishing) 3. We're not going to ask you to spend a weekend on a work sample or to write code for us fo…

This is a great list. I am fine with companies asking for work samples, but these should be paid. The closer you can test candidates for what they will actually do then the better the result for everyone.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#72

Post by logicallee » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:32 AM UTC

GreenPlastic wrote: post #12

alister wrote: post #6

> What's changed over the past fifteen years is that the internet has dramatically decreased the cost of identify in an open job listing and sending in an application. The stack of resumes you need to read through in order to start scheduling interviews has just gotten longer. The easier you make it to apply for jobs, the slower the hiring process becomes. The above explanation of why it now takes employers longer to…

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

How is your interview process? people would rather get a job using their skills within a few days, rather than go through an inappropriate interview process that does not select them

This is just a guess, of course :) Is your HR/interview/hiring process easy for people to go through, who can do and have done the job?

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#73

Post by WWLink » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:41 AM UTC

GreenPlastic wrote: post #12

alister wrote: post #6

> What's changed over the past fifteen years is that the internet has dramatically decreased the cost of identify in an open job listing and sending in an application. The stack of resumes you need to read through in order to start scheduling interviews has just gotten longer. The easier you make it to apply for jobs, the slower the hiring process becomes. The above explanation of why it now takes employers longer to…

Posted a senior iOS dev position to Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor where the company is paying 25%(maybe 40% if you include RSUs) above market here (although we don't put comp in the job listing) and only got 3 applicants in a month.

Some recruiting sites (and recruiters) are pretty careless with the way they contact candidates too, though. I mention having done iOS related stuff on my resume, but I occasionally get an email or call from someone that is looking for a 1 man iOS development team lol. And they usually are offering a short term contract that pays much worse than my full time job does.

It's funny because they get REALLY persistent about it too. Like a pissed off "I've been trying to reach you for the past week!" type of attitude.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#74

Post by WWLink » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:44 AM UTC

GreenPlastic wrote: post #35

ryandrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you have under "here are some great benefits" or "why it's awesome to work here"?

Leaned on the company's official materials for this. Employee focused culture where we work hard and play hard. XX on best companies to work for list. Fast growing company with great benefits, dogs allowed at work, etc.

"We're looking for a devops engineer that lives and breathes code. The best of the best, the cream of the crop. Be prepared to work hard and play hard in our agile environment!"

hrmm there's a million and one good buzzwords that make me lol but I can't remember them all right now.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#75

Post by gizi » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:45 AM UTC

I am busy already. I already have a job that I like. So, I am not even remotely looking at what other jobs are around, because at the moment I consider that to be a distraction, a waste of time. Now you can generalize this: you can safely assume that anybody who is even just remotely good at what he does, is already busy. He already has a job and he is not interested in your job advert. In other words, above a certain treshold of skill level that is not even that high, you must approach the candidate, because the candidate will not approach you. Besides the fact that he considers your approach to be a distraction (he does not need it right now) the most important question on his lips will be: How much more are you offering than I am getting now already?

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#76

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 10:58 AM UTC

memracom wrote: post #47

GreenPlastic wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't post the exact description but the jist of it was: Strong understanding of objective C and iOS SDK Swift experience a plus Passion for design / UX Proven track record of quality apps in app store That's literally all I had under qualifications.

Did you try to get all the Apple details out of your posting and replace them with Android ones? What difference does it make whether they built an iOS app if they are a mobile app developer? Also, why not look for a web app developer specializing in front end. Same skills, just a few minor technical details are different. I think a lot of employers do not understand what the word "skill" actually means. Generally sk…

There are big, big differences between the native iOS programming model, the native Android programming model, and the web programming model.

They're not just "a few minor technical details." The toolchains are different, the UI design details are different, the event model is different, the model/backend details are different, and there are significant conceptual differences.

I would be astonished if someone could move from web dev to iOS dev in a week with no previous experience. A good coder can probably bolt together a twinky do-nothing hello world app that quickly from a cold start, but they'll be a long way short of what's needed for a solid commercial-grade app with useful features.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#77

Post by epc » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:06 AM UTC

GreenPlastic wrote: post #37

xeni wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, why exactly don't you list compensation? Also, I think you should mention some details: The size of the team -- lone iOS developer, small team (2-4 people), or larger? Whether the application is a standalone mobile app (and the business is built around it), or simply a frontend for a pre-existing web application/product. (i.e. Working on Tinder versus working on OKCupid's mobile app) Disregard this if you includ…

See above. Mostly because I thought that listing cash comp was inconsistent with how the company markets itself to employees and the company's culture, which tends to be more on the humble side. I did have some information about the work in there but nothing really about the team size - I'll keep that in mind for future listings. Completely agree on your statement that the type of candidate you'll attract depends on…

Not listing the compensation means that many potential applicants never even saw the role. It's 2015 yet many of these job sites will not display a role if one (as the potential applicant) has specified a salary range but the listing didn't include it.

Another consideration: if there's ten roles I'm considering and yours is the only one which doesn't list compensation, I'm not going to waste my time applying for the role. You're competing in a marketplace for limited resources, failing to say how much you're willing to pay doesn't tell me anything about your company culture, it tells me you're unwilling to say how much you'd pay in compensation.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#78

Post by hebdo » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:07 AM UTC

resoluteteeth wrote: post #18

I think another interpretation is that it's become easier for companies to keep jobs "open" and collecting applicants without really having to put in effort to find people. Or, to put it another way, the idea of an "open job" has become meaningless, if it was ever meaningful in the first place. As a metaphor, we can imagine many people wanting to buy apples, but not being willing to pay the 1$ the supermarket will ch…

A relevant read: Whaddaya Mean, You Can't Find Programmers? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#79

Post by sheepmullet » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:14 AM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #27

ryandrake wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, make sure there are no better offers out there. If you think your employees are going to leave after you train them, that's a problem you can solve.

Yes, but you have already invested money into them by hiring "green" (underproductive) workers. Someone else didn't have that burden so it's easy for them to pay a bit more to get the trained worker. So everyone is trying to get this trained worker "ready to hit the ground running".

That's not really true.

1) Very few candidates would leave a well paying job where they are constantly learning for a bit more money. I wouldn't leave my current company for less than a 20% raise.

2) A well trained productive employee is worth much more than market rate. However, due to information asymmetries the market is rarely going to pay them even 20% more than average.

Combine 1 and 2 and you see that all a company has to do is offer 20% over market rates and offer in depth training etc and they will have great retention.

Re: Why is it taking longer and longer to fill open jobs?

#80

Post by eropple » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:20 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #57

Animats wrote: post #7

How often do you see "Help Wanted - Will Train"?

A lot by smart employers. When I ran a data science team, we hired mostly physicists and math majors who had only secondary knowledge of CS. Best bargains on the market and they don't come with baggage. Now I work in sports science. I try to hire brilliant people who have never played the sports in question. Still very, very hard.

I occasionally, casually interview for sports gigs (NBA, NHL) and I see it the other way - the needs are not that technically difficult, but the folks doing the hiring are rarely qualified to be doing the interviewing and most are very cheap relative to market so an established, skilled person is infeasible for them. Literally everyone I've met in the industry is super nice, though, and I've made many friends in the process.