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Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

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Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#101

Post by kristjansson »

astrange wrote: post #61
lurking15 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an outrage once you work at these companies and behold the sheer dysfunction and they're all getting paid wages native American citizens would take.

The model that Americans would take any job if the wages were high enough is simple but obviously false. For manual labor there's no amount of money you could pay Americans to be farmworkers. For desk jobs there's no amount that'll overcome Americans' cultural belief that you can't do math unless you were born as a special sort of person who is "good at math".

You wildly underestimate American avarice.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#102

Post by [deleted] »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #81
dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against the rules to call out hiring companies in the thread, primarily because we don't want off-topic arguments and because it would be too easy to exploit it for shenanigans. But since people have been increasingly saying that this is a problem, let's do something about it. My current thought is to add a new instruction at the top asking companies to please only post in the thread if they're committed to resp…

> It's against the rules to call out hiring companies in the thread, primarily because we don't want off-topic arguments All due respect: if an employer posts here offering for people to apply, that the employer in question is bad in some way, I don't see why that's considered "off topic." If a company sucks, we owe it to our fellow engineers to get the word out until they improve. A perfect example being the sorts t…

[deleted]

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#103

Post by jajko »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #28

Many companies have policies requiring that all jobs have to be posted both internally and externally before being filled. The intent is to prevent Sam the VP from just slotting his buddy into the job. At the end of the day, Sam the VP is just going to slot his buddy into the job but now you made a whole bunch of people apply for a job that was never available to them. Same thing happens with H1B/PERM, except now it'…

> but legally they have to post the job and interview a certain number of candidates to prove there is no US citizen that can do it

I've got my first job after moving countries in Europe, despite this (very similar but it was 6 weeks IIRC) limitation being in place by law, within a week. Consulting body shop through which I was billing per day, and the umbrella company took 20% cut.

It seems its trivial to circumvent this kind of rule across the globe, and TBH what kind of state employee team would go over every single foreign first hire in given region, all the evidence and check its validity, gather all the details. Heck police ignore smaller crimes below certain threshold, states have no real processing power to handle this well.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#104

Post by gedy »

pharrington wrote: post #90
dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against the rules to call out hiring companies in the thread, primarily because we don't want off-topic arguments and because it would be too easy to exploit it for shenanigans. But since people have been increasingly saying that this is a problem, let's do something about it. My current thought is to add a new instruction at the top asking companies to please only post in the thread if they're committed to resp…

The problem isn't that the rules arent well specified enough. The problem is that too many agents with the most power in this exchange (ie employers) just violate people's trust. Dishonest agents need to be visibly held to account, and right now the only way that happens is by calling them out. But since that's forbidden, there's a conundrum.

I’m not defending companies here, but what I’ve seen happen sometimes is a well-meaning engineering manager will post openings on this or other forums, and then the resumes end up in black holes like Greenhouse where the HR/non-technical types filter out applications without even looking at or responding to many of them.

I wouldn’t always blame the poster, and appreciate them letting us know.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#106

Post by SeattleAltruist »

Post makes errors around what nonprofits are and can do. (IANAL, but I do set up and run nonprofits for a living.)

Error 1: "In the US, non-profits are heavily regulated in their operations..."

Correction: There are no more or less regulations than other sectors, but there is almost ZERO enforcement, so if anything, the nonprofit sector is more accurately described as very lightly regulated.

Error 2: ", and exempt from income tax."

Correction: Nonprofits are NOT exempt from income tax on revenue from earned activity that is not mission related, known as Unrelated Business Income.

Error 3: "Across the many different structures, though, non-profits have one thing in common: They don't have owners."

Correction: Oversimplification - nonprofits are run and functionally owned by a board of directors, people who hire and fire the CEO, decide how revenue is allocated, and approve any merger or dissolution. Nonprofits can also own for-profit subsidiaries (see OpenAI) so there are a lot of gray areas here.

In sum, nonprofit status is far more complex that OP thinks and there are a ton of opportunities for skulduggery - just because Ghost is a nonprofit does NOT mean it is free of conflicts or other bad things than companies do.

If Ghost really wants to demonstrate its transparency, it should publish its tax returns (IRS form 990) and also an itemized P&L -- then they can stake a claim to being holier than the typical business.

People often think that "non-profit" means that the company can't make a profit. It actually means that the company doesn't have any owners who can personally take the profits. Any revenue earned can only be reinvested.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#107

Post by jotux »

dang wrote: post #59
FireBeyond wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. And a lot of spam. A few months ago there was a little flame war between a few people. Company posted an ad and someone replied "this is spam, and you don't respond, just keep posting the same ad", and the company replied "no, I own the company and hand write this job ad every month to fit our future needs" which was patently a lie (exact same headcount, exact same three positions, every month for the las…

It's against the rules to call out hiring companies in the thread, primarily because we don't want off-topic arguments and because it would be too easy to exploit it for shenanigans. But since people have been increasingly saying that this is a problem, let's do something about it. My current thought is to add a new instruction at the top asking companies to please only post in the thread if they're committed to resp…

Tangentially-related: I see postings for jobs specifically in states that require pay transparency (posting the pay range in job announcements), but they do not include a pay range in their announcements. While this is primarily an issue for companies that are illegally posting announcements without the required pay range, it might be helpful to include a statement in the rules at the top of the page. This statement could remind posters that if they are in a state with a pay transparency law, they need to include the pay range in their job postings.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#108

Post by jajko »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #69
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B has evolved into a bizarre collaborative scam between the government and tech corporations; there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has.

> there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has. Right now I suspect you're probably right. But 2 or 3 years ago? If you're right then why would companies want to go through all of the extra paperwork and hoops to hire an H1B right now? Maybe the answer is "they can pay less"? But I'm not sure if it's actually all that much less than they could pay someone who's been look…

You would be surprised how hard can some managers negotiate 10% salary change during hiring, despite the fact its not their own money, or anyhow useful for their work. I talk multinational mega corporations here. People just want to be good employees(TM) or at least seen as such.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#109

Post by PittleyDunkin »

thegrim33 wrote: post #82

Well I opened the article, near the beginning I saw the text: "81% of recruiters admitted to posting ads for positions that were fake or already filled." Instantly that felt completely insane to me, my bullshit detector went off the chart, so since they provided a source, I followed up on the source to see the evidence for myself. What do you know, the source is from a "my perfect resume" website that apparently cond…

> Well I opened the article, near the beginning I saw the text: "81% of recruiters admitted to posting ads for positions that were fake or already filled."

I love San Francisco to death, but there's no reliable local newspaper. It drives me nuts.

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