Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers • Hacker News Board

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#11

Post by pchristensen » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 5:47 PM UTC

dschobel wrote: post #10

pchristensen wrote: post #7

Paying to post your CV is a fantastic filtering service to provide to companies looking to hire. Resume spam is even worse than email spam. See also Local Bacon for more evidence on this approach. While they will make money from the people that post CVs, much, much more money will come from the companies that pay to search those resumes. I'm sure they set the price at wherever they expect the best filtering to be. If…

Sure, it's great for companies filtering out resume spam but how about individuals trying to avoid recruiter spam? And beside, really good engineers are never short of good offers. It's standard operating procedure in our industry that when a manager or even a dev leaves, they always try to take the best engineers from their past job with them. If it's not your first job out of school and you have to rely on throwing…

See another comment of mine on this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=933490

Plus, if you're resume isn't remarkable, you might have to do some crappy work to build it up. Life's rough, but if you want something, there's no better way to get it than to earn it.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#12

Post by dschobel » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 5:47 PM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #9

coriander wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. StackOverflow provides tremendous value to the tech community. However, the idea of charging participants in that community $100 per year for the privilege of having their resumes searchable by employers seems like a bit of a slap in the face. Especially since the Careers site doesn't even seem to try to distinguish between employers and recruiters.

Spolsky has said that every job that gets posted requires the company name, ditto for companies using Careers. Ergo, it's no use to recruiters because they can go around the posting straight to the company. He (correctly) believes that recruiters destroy value for job seekers and companies and keep markets from working. About the slap in the face, it's necessary to filter out bad developers who won't get value from p…

How exactly does willingness to pay $100 correlate to developer ability?

Edit: and it's funny that Spolsky would complain about recruiters when that's exactly when he's trying to become on a larger scale.

A middleman by another name would smell so foul...

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#13

Post by coriander » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 5:51 PM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #9

coriander wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. StackOverflow provides tremendous value to the tech community. However, the idea of charging participants in that community $100 per year for the privilege of having their resumes searchable by employers seems like a bit of a slap in the face. Especially since the Careers site doesn't even seem to try to distinguish between employers and recruiters.

Spolsky has said that every job that gets posted requires the company name, ditto for companies using Careers. Ergo, it's no use to recruiters because they can go around the posting straight to the company. He (correctly) believes that recruiters destroy value for job seekers and companies and keep markets from working. About the slap in the face, it's necessary to filter out bad developers who won't get value from p…

->"About the slap in the face, it's necessary to filter out bad developers who won't get value from posting their CV."

The willingness to pay $100 to post your resume could just as easily correlate to lower ability since someone who can't find a job through any other avenue might be willing to pay for additional exposure to employers.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#14

Post by coriander » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 6:05 PM UTC

dschobel wrote: post #10

pchristensen wrote: post #7

Paying to post your CV is a fantastic filtering service to provide to companies looking to hire. Resume spam is even worse than email spam. See also Local Bacon for more evidence on this approach. While they will make money from the people that post CVs, much, much more money will come from the companies that pay to search those resumes. I'm sure they set the price at wherever they expect the best filtering to be. If…

Sure, it's great for companies filtering out resume spam but how about individuals trying to avoid recruiter spam? And beside, really good engineers are never short of good offers. It's standard operating procedure in our industry that when a manager or even a dev leaves, they always try to take the best engineers from their past job with them. If it's not your first job out of school and you have to rely on throwing…

good engineers are never short of good offers

Actually a lot of programmers suck at networking and are terrible at job hunting.

This is a myth perpetuated by the you-get-what-you-deserve crowd who also believe that the homeless deserve to be where they are because they didn't play by the rules.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#15

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 6:06 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #2

From the comments: > Stack Overflow will make both Spolsky and Atwood enormously wealthy, based upon the volunteer efforts of others. Who will get nothing. The others won't get nothing. They'll get whatever rewards go along with participating in a forum: the opportunity to demonstrate prowess and be recognized for it, the chance to have specific questions answered in a peer-reviewed medium, and so on. Don't discount…

That's a very good point.

I hang out on few online electronics forums ( http://forum.sparkfun.com for example) and answer a fair amount of questions, help people with electronics problems, and provide simple designs. Occasionally I think about how much value I'm giving away (even here in the Midwest, EE consulting rates are around $100/hr) for free and how much value the site owners get from having others like me on their board.

Then I remember that it's really fun and that I enjoy helping people and seeing what creations their minds come up with. Once in a while someone pays me to design/build something, but most of the benefit I get from it is in no way financial.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#16

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 6:12 PM UTC

dschobel wrote: post #10

pchristensen wrote: post #7

Paying to post your CV is a fantastic filtering service to provide to companies looking to hire. Resume spam is even worse than email spam. See also Local Bacon for more evidence on this approach. While they will make money from the people that post CVs, much, much more money will come from the companies that pay to search those resumes. I'm sure they set the price at wherever they expect the best filtering to be. If…

Sure, it's great for companies filtering out resume spam but how about individuals trying to avoid recruiter spam? And beside, really good engineers are never short of good offers. It's standard operating procedure in our industry that when a manager or even a dev leaves, they always try to take the best engineers from their past job with them. If it's not your first job out of school and you have to rely on throwing…

This assumes that the place they're going to has openings for more than one person, or that the person they would take has the job requirements. Honestly, I have never seen what you describe in my 20 years in this industry.

The only times anyone has tried to "poach" me has been when a new company was starting up.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#17

Post by jswinghammer » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 6:55 PM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #9

coriander wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. StackOverflow provides tremendous value to the tech community. However, the idea of charging participants in that community $100 per year for the privilege of having their resumes searchable by employers seems like a bit of a slap in the face. Especially since the Careers site doesn't even seem to try to distinguish between employers and recruiters.

Spolsky has said that every job that gets posted requires the company name, ditto for companies using Careers. Ergo, it's no use to recruiters because they can go around the posting straight to the company. He (correctly) believes that recruiters destroy value for job seekers and companies and keep markets from working. About the slap in the face, it's necessary to filter out bad developers who won't get value from p…

I'm not sure why recruiters prevent markets from working. In my experience they link up programmers and companies that aren't good about getting their name out there find one each other. It's sometimes a bit weird but under the right conditions it benefits both parties.

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#18

Post by jrockway » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 9:07 PM UTC

coriander wrote: post #5

jrockway wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there was value in Stack Overflow until I accidentally visited the site with Adblock turned off. Now I don't answer questions there anymore.

You could always turn Adblock back on. I think it's fair for them to make some money to support the site.

It's OK to charge people money to answer questions for free? OK, sure...

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#19

Post by djb_hackernews » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #3

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #2

From the comments: > Stack Overflow will make both Spolsky and Atwood enormously wealthy, based upon the volunteer efforts of others. Who will get nothing. The others won't get nothing. They'll get whatever rewards go along with participating in a forum: the opportunity to demonstrate prowess and be recognized for it, the chance to have specific questions answered in a peer-reviewed medium, and so on. Don't discount…

I thought there was value in Stack Overflow until I accidentally visited the site with Adblock turned off. Now I don't answer questions there anymore.

I believe once you reach a certain point threshold, the ads disappear. So, answer more questions!

Re: Predictably Irrational and StackOverflow Careers

#20

Post by dusklight » Tue, Nov 10, 2009, 9:28 PM UTC

It is perhaps more accurate to say that the inflating prices are being used to artificially create scarcity, manipulating you into wanting to "get in" with a membership before the deadline.

As for the given reason for charging, "serious" job seekers will pay... Seriously desperate ones, who haven't been able to get jobs anywhere else. The best candidates often don't use job boards at all, because they don't need to, the companies look for them, but by charging, you are guaranteeing that the top quality candidates will not be participating.