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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

#121

Post by dang »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #117
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…

I think the rule should be something kind of like, do not post a job ad unless you actually intend to fill the position. And then if a company posts the exact same ad for an excessive number of months and their headcount hasn't changed, they're clearly breaking the rule.

Ok, we can make it like this:

NEW RULE: Please only post a job if you intend to fill a position and are committed to responding to everyone who applies.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#122

Post by singlepaynews »

dang wrote: post #115
mmarian wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about mentioning in the who's hiring post that people can email HN if they think someone posted in bad faith. The slight inconvenience should turn off people who complain just for the sake of it, and other readers won't be discouraged by seeing the complaints. The downside is extra admin for you, of course.

I don't think I can handle many more emails*. But beyond that—what would we do? We don't have the cycles to arbitrate these things; nor the skill; nor the interest. * was going to make a Mr. Creosote reference but thought better of it

Hn/jobs may not have the interest, sure. Job posters in general may not have an interest. I think monetization here comes from candidates. As a job seeker I would be willing to pay for access to a job board where listings/posters are somehow vetted to protect me from filling out ghost applications.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#123

Post by la64710 »

rightbyte wrote: post #39
jgwil2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I think the person quoted is suggesting you work on your network now, presumably before you are looking for a job. But I could see an argument that even going to meetups and just talking to people while you're actively looking is more likely to be successful than emailing resumes. That is to say, even the act of building a network from the ground up could be highly effective.

Sure, ye I guess you are right. "Knowing people" seem to have become even more important. But I feel that is a really long term thing. It is really hard to get into a position where you get valuable contacts or do interesting stuff. And your contacts more or less need some power. It is just that, I feel it is like telling some lonely child "so get friends". For most programmers trying to get a job, I think "just keep…

Not sure why this was downvoted. Obviously it is by people like who will keep bending over until they become a circle.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#124

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

I've done tech interviewing for years. Job listing that are to various degree fake are quite common. Of course, fakeness comes in many flavor, from listings posted just to "see if there's anyone out there" (I had a boss who did this regularly) to jobs a supervisor really does want to fill but which they know they won't because the bureaucracy has forced impossible requirements on them. An example: "Junior programmer, 10 years experience in language X" (that's existed for five years).

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#125

Post by maples37 »

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…

What if the new rule required a company to link to their last "who's hiring" posting if it was within, say, the last 3 months?

That makes it easy, within HN, to see if a company is just doing copy/paste spam, or if they're posting new/updated info each month. It also has the advantage of being easily verifiable (and enforceable? not sure what the enforcement actions would be...) here on HN versus random anecdotes of "I applied but never heard back", which I doubt would have enough weight for anyone to do anything about.

Users here could help police/moderate by simply replying with a link to last month's posting if there is one and the posting omitted it. That would somewhat-gently "call out" the company for not reading/following the rules, without users leaving negative comments on the thread.

(Just thoughts from a user skimming by, I'm not in the market for a new job at the moment so I have little skin in the game)

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#126

Post by FreezerburnV »

dang wrote: post #85
airstrike wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's going to be hard to enforce that, unless you go through ycombinator.com/jobs But I agree that's fair to expect from companies. Yes, they have potentially hundreds of applicants, but writing "We're sorry to inform that you have not been selected to interview" probably takes less than a minute, so spending less than an hour rejecting every applicant seems in line with the time I'd expect each candidate to…

There's little enforcement happening in those threads anyway—they're too free-form, and manual intervention is too expensive. But adding a rule should hopefully still make a difference.

Would you be open to having people email if they send an application and get ghosted so that you can potentially take action on future hiring threads? (or stuff like the mentioned copy-pasted job posting that got caught in an argument) Since I know that emailing you is already the best way to ask for moderation help.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#128

Post by colechristensen »

dang wrote: post #121
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rule should be something kind of like, do not post a job ad unless you actually intend to fill the position. And then if a company posts the exact same ad for an excessive number of months and their headcount hasn't changed, they're clearly breaking the rule.

Ok, we can make it like this: NEW RULE: Please only post a job if you intend to fill a position and are committed to responding to everyone who applies.

That's a good rule, the followup question is what does feedback for and enforcement of this rule look like?

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#129

Post by drawnwren »

gaws wrote: post #80
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'…

> 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. Nowadays, in tech, it's all about who you know rather than what you know.

This is all a function of interviews sucking right? Leet code is essentially completely independent from dev skill. Projects take too much commitment and time from the team and devs.

So, what option do teams have? Just hire the people that your good devs say are good is honestly the most effective practice that I've seen.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#130

Post by hn72774 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #56
vosper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The company already has someone doing the job today, 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. Posted obscurely in a corner of the cafeteria, but exposing my salary to anyone who cared to look. They were never going to hire someone else, and we all knew it, but the charade had to be played.

Written with incredibly specific requirements that might as well have the name of the person they're retaining as one of them.

The ones at Amazon were super generic. SDE skills were supposedly "fungible."
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