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?

#101

Post by ghaff » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:11 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #56

ryandrake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I like almost all of this, and I think it's far better than the hiring culture than we have now. Especially the part about making it clear that they're not just fishing and intend to let the req sit open for a year, and not making you do 3 or 4 interviews over the course of a month. But I just wanted to add that I don't think your #5 could ever work, because of liability. There's a good reason why companies don't do…

I don't think it's so much legal liability as:

1.) Why go to the trouble? What's in it for us? Yes, we shouldn't leave you hanging and should in general behave professionally but detailed feedback as part of a formal process seems more than one can reasonably expect.

2.) It invites prolonging the process. A lot of people told that they have insufficient experience in X will want to respond that they really do and it must just not have come out in the interview.

3.) This may be truer for non-technical roles, but think of it like dating. A lot of the time people get rejected because the potential hiring company "Just wasn't that into them" or just preferred someone else better.

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

#102

Post by thrillgore » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

I mean, the solution is simple to fix right? Raise the wages for these positions.

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

#103

Post by nathanaldensr » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

logn wrote: post #55

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.

Companies described like that tend to be for underpaid workaholics. Also I think the "work hard play hard" phrase implies an unhealthy culture of excess. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-work-hard-play-hard-code-for-...

When I read "We work hard and play hard," I see a company of extraverts who won't leave each other alone for the entire day. No thanks!

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

#104

Post by fsloth » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

GreenPlastic wrote: post #31

smil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So compensation is not relevant to your point at all since you didn't list it. Or were you looking for mind readers? The low response rate makes sense in that case.

Fair enough, but the information is publicly available on glassdoor. A couple reasons why I didn't list comp: 1. I didn't want to get candidates purely motivated by the high cash comp in the area. 2. Cash comp isn't core to how the company markets itself to employees and its culture. The company prefers to sell itself on being an employee friendly place to work. Like the article hypothesizes, I thought we'd get 50-10…

I am perplexed that while hiring developers you fail to list comp. Being a programmer is a job where one can wield incredible leverage - both positive and negative. People who have at least a tiny bit of experience as developers should realise this. And if they have any competence, expect to be paid accordingly. Cheap developers speak to me of co-workers who are clueless, or, are forces to work in a toxic environment that wrecks their productivity (thus reducing the compensation that is percieved as rational)

If I work for a for-profit I expect to profit as per my market value...

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

#105

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:31 PM 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.

In the bay area at least there is no shortage of fast growing companies with great benefits who allow dogs at work.

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

#106

Post by known » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

interview != quiz

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

#107

Post by Too » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:34 PM 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…

The same is happening with real estate, people have started to post apartments "soon for sale" without any starting price or fixed bidding time, years before they are ready to move, just in case some crazy guy happens to drop by and put a bid that is higher than the actual market value. The cost of advertising to a wide audience has simply dropped so much that you can constantly keep fishing even though you don't have anything actually ready, and to beat the competition everybody has to do it, its just a race to the bottom. MVPs are also a good anlogy to this, present a half working website just to see if people are interested and if enough are you can continue with development.

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

#108

Post by jghn » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #62

logn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies described like that tend to be for underpaid workaholics. Also I think the "work hard play hard" phrase implies an unhealthy culture of excess. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-work-hard-play-hard-code-for-...

Yea, definitely "work hard, play hard" is almost always a red flag for me when I read it. Everyone is expected to work hard. When it's explicitly spelled out in a job description, that is usually code for "long hours, required face time, leading to burnout". And Play hard? What does that even mean in the context of a job? I don't go to the office to play games.

When I see it I read it to mean that they expect folks to socialize outside of work (including at work, e.g. video games, drinking, etc).

Mainly when I see "work hard, play hard" I read "I'm way too old to be working there"

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

#109

Post by mpdehaan2 » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:41 PM 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…

I've seen it happen with some startups that jobs are posted as "open" to attract applicants when they are not really hiring, or not removing those postings once filled to passively collect resumes and make it look like the startup is bigger than it is.

I really don't like this as it hurts the applicants time and distracts them from finding a place that does want to hire them now.

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

#110

Post by mpdehaan2 » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #14

It seems no one is mentoring anyone in professional setting anymore. Stackoverflow.com is nice but sometimes face2face mentoring can't be beat. And no company seems willing to offer 'apprenticeship'. You are working on a hard problem with latest methodologies and tools? Then it's very likely you won't find anyone out there who has the experience in the methodologies and tools. You just can't hold out looking for the…

Pretty much most job positions want a pony. It's the old "10 years experience in J2EE" thing, when a technology doesn't really take that long to learn, or a group of technologies that someone uses, that are impossibly incommon in combination.

People want developers in Foo, not Bar, when Foo and Bar are basically the same.

I prefer hiring smart people that can learn, and that are good to work with, but I do feel people don't believe that as much when there are are a lot of people on the market.

It's somewhat similar to how it's hard to get an employer to fund a conference trip, classes, books, and all of those kinds of things.

And because you can't really move and grow at work, I think that's also why people change jobs more, we're in a very creative professional that desires knowledge - and the system really wants us to hire someone who already knows X or has built X before, and crank out more of the same many times.