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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

#211

Post by shiroiushi »

SoftTalker wrote: post #26

Just my own experience but I have never gotten a job with a cold application on a job board. Always been via a recruiter or even better an inside contact.

My experience is completely the opposite: I've always gotten jobs from job boards. In one case, my resume was posted somewhere (monster.com I think, many years ago) and the hiring manager saw it and liked it and called me. In all other cases, I applied myself.

I've tried working with 3rd-party recruiters, and always found them to be a waste of time, because the companies they worked with weren't good and didn't pay very well.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#212

Post by ivewonyoung »

zero-sharp wrote: post #142
joe_the_user wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

This is another personal anecdote, but I had an interview earlier this year for a database related role. The job ad had a huge salary range and the interview had nothing to do with the role. I wasn't asked any behavioral or technical questions. The two people on the call just wanted to get to know me. We probably spent several minutes talking about sports. A few days later I got rejected. What the hell?

Most likely a green card application related sham job posting where they already have someone working in that position on a work visa for several years with experience with their internals and doing a good job, but the regulations force the company to post their job at several places, interview people and reject them for some plausible reason, while applying for a green card for that person. All this needs to be documented properly.

It's extremely common at most companies, including MFAANG, because it makes zero sense to layoff the incumbent and hire a brand new person.

https://old.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/jy5rcw/lpt_bec...

Facebook got caught.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/03/facebook-...

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#213

Post by volkk »

nickff wrote: post #175
volkk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, but at worst, you waste time on the dime of a company from the recruiter's/hiring manager's POV. on the other side, you're wasting precious capital (time & money) from someone who may instead be hanging out with their kids, or taking care of their sick mother--i understand these are contrived examples. from a pure utalitarian perspective, both are a complete waste of time. but from a moral/ethical perspective,…

I am an individual who works at a small company, and going through ineligible applications takes away from time I could spend with children or family. I am not an HR professional, but we don't have a massive staff to delegate these matters to. The situations are morally equivalent.

do you do this outside of work hours? sounds more like a failure on how the company operates than the nature of the problem. taking a wild guess that if it weren't for combing through through applications, then those extra hours spent on mindless HR stuff would simply be filled with other work.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#214

Post by mythrwy »

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".

If I could make what I make in tech picking fruits I'd be tempted to switch to be honest. At least for awhile. I'm sick of sitting in a chair.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#215

Post by FredPret »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #200
FredPret wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know; I’m saying it bites these companies in the ass when their hiring is broken.

it does, but the damage isn't proportional to job seekers and there can even be malicious incentives to do this. That should be punished and discouraged. We've seen for a long time now that companies will put up with a lot of inefficiencies for various other bottom lines.

That’s true - it’s not in proportion.

But how do you punish this without making it even worse in some other way?

Much of the current situation stems from fairness-minded regulations forcing companies to post jobs they already have a candidate for, wasting everybody’s time.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#216

Post by dang »

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #160
dang wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because of the reasons I already mentioned, which are considerable.

> we don't want off-topic arguments and because it would be too easy to exploit it for shenanigans. Are there any other reasons you mentioned? I only found this one. Thinking about it, people replying to the post stake their reputation too in whatever they post. If we see a throwaway or newish account causing shenanigans, people interested in the job post can form their own opinion of the nature of the comment? (isn'…

That's two reasons! (1) It's offtopic, which is especially bad given that the threads are so comment-heavy; and (2) it's too easy to exploit.

I suppose exploit is not the right word, because a lot of it is people posting their grudges or bad feelings that they probably have perfectly legit reasons for, and yet are not the full story. We're not going to get the full story, or even a fair assessment, from a distracting back-and-forth in the middle of a job ads thread; and that's ignoring the point that most people posting to Who Is Hiring aren't in a position to respond to such complaints in the first place.

It seems to me easy to see that if we allowed it, there would be no limit to it, and the end result would be a bad scene indeed.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#217

Post by dang »

wood_spirit wrote: post #137
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…

This is a bigger, longer term thought, but… perhaps upvotes and downvotes can be subtly weighed by karma? This would give proven contributors more trust. In the case of job posts, it would enlist them in zapping the spam they recognise month after month? And beyond that, beyond applicability to job posts, perhaps voting can be a collaborative filtering bubble instead of absolutes? This makes spammers and voting rings…

We've experimented with vote weighting over the years but the results have been disappointing. It's not easy to come up with criteria for users whose votes are more reliable.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#218

Post by dang »

tdrz wrote: post #135
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 like the idea! Possibly add an additional rule that they should stop advertising the same position if they didn't fill it within, say, 4 months.

That seems too restrictive to me. Some positions don't fill up quickly and some companies are growing and hiring over long stretches. I am completely unqualified to make these calls.

I'm not saying there aren't abuses taking place but in my experience people are far too quick to jump to such conclusions on the internet, and the jumping-to-conclusions is actually the much bigger problem. Just speaking generally here–not about the Who Is Hiring threads.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#219

Post by dang »

matt_heimer wrote: post #131
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…

Everyone? Applicants are using AI to mass apply for jobs. Not everyone deserves a response. Why not: Please only post jobs if you are committed to interviewing and filling the position in the next 3 months. Accounts posting the same job opening for 6 months may be banned. In this market if it takes 6+ months to find someone there is a fundamental problem with the opening. At the very least it should be: "Please only…

You are making good points but now I'm wondering if we should just drop the idea.

Every applicant is going to classify themselves as "qualified"; and every applicant that a company doesn't respond to, they will classify as "unqualified"; so if we modify the rule in this way, we may as well have no rule at all.

(Edit: I just noticed johnnyanmac already made this point in an earlier reply)

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#220

Post by dang »

colechristensen wrote: post #128
dang wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not much—but see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011089
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