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Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

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Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#361

Post by derektank »

hollerith wrote: post #298
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence H1B workers in tech have lowered wages? I have only seen anecdotes while the law explicitly states H1Bs should be paid the prevailing wage or above.

It's what I would naturally expect to happen in the absence of consistent heroic efforts by the authorities to prevent it.

This is the lump of labor fallacy. People are both consumers and laborers; by bringing someone new into a labor market you marginally decrease demand for their skill set but you also marginally increase demand for all other labor. If H1-B visa holders all worked in the same industry, it could conceivably lower wages in that industry but they don't. They work in everything from healthcare, to IT, to education.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#362

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

Lammy wrote: post #131
oriel wrote: post #17

A question I've had on my mind for a while now, watching this progression of fake or poisoned jobs, and miles of automatic systems to navigate: At what point do people consider the well poisoned? Where they just check out and stop applying, to specific companies or in general, because its very very obvious that there isnt actually a valid hiring market at all. I ask this question, because I've already passed this thr…

I'm already there with the monthly HN hiring threads. Not one of those companies over several years ever responded to me, even the ones where the listing felt tailor made for me, even the ones that literally said they respond to all applicants. They're a total waste of time lol

The HN hiring thread is seemingly used by people to promote their company / org more than to actually hire people.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#363

Post by nerdponx »

bradley13 wrote: post #59

I once applied for a job that precisely matched my qualifications. It was crazy - the job description could have been written by someone looking at my CV. I didn't even get an interview. Likely no one did. It wasn't a ghost job, though. It was a position created for a someone they wanted to hire. Being a public institution, they were required to advertise positions. That didn't mean that they actually wanted any of t…

A lot of institutions have to do this even for internal hires. It's an astonishing waste of everyone's time and resources, not only the candidates'.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#364

Post by kazinator »

tossandthrow wrote: post #250
kazinator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where the ghosting comes in. If you're always ghosting, then you always have recent people to get back to, not months old. The pipeline isn't a lossless FIFO queue, in other words. People go in one end and are dropped out the other. In between are the recents you can call if a spot actually opens up.

Exactly, you don't build up a catalogue of people you can get back to. Ie. this technique does not make sense - search for people on demand instead.

Searching for people from scratch in reaction to a sudden demand will have much more latency than having someone you can pull from a recent roster of validated candidates.

It's exactly the same like how an integrated circuit can pull a sudden power demand from a capacitor placed next to it (often required by the datasheet), rather than from the power supply upstream, so there is no voltage sag affecting it and nearby components.

Or, in computing, prefetch and speculative execution, and such.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#365

Post by dilyevsky »

gadders wrote: post #357
dilyevsky wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like a case of “perhaps dont make judgements if your knowledge on the subject is aprox zero”. Again, same question as upthread - show me how prevailing wage is suppressing the market. The h1b could also been issued years ago like in 2021 for example

Have you heard of "Supply and Demand"?

Ah yes, if only we could mint experienced devs from thin air, your model would be perfectly sound!

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#366

Post by UncleOxidant »

oriel wrote: post #17

A question I've had on my mind for a while now, watching this progression of fake or poisoned jobs, and miles of automatic systems to navigate: At what point do people consider the well poisoned? Where they just check out and stop applying, to specific companies or in general, because its very very obvious that there isnt actually a valid hiring market at all. I ask this question, because I've already passed this thr…

Yep. I just decided to stop playing the game. I looked for about the first 6 months (a requirement for unemployment) but after that I decided to just retire. I was planning to work a few years more, but it's just not worth it. It's not only the ghost jobs, it's the whole interview process where you could spend days on interviews and take home tests and you still don't get the job. And then there's the ageism. No thanks. I'm out. Fortunately I can afford to be (frugally) retired.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#367

Post by nerdponx »

duxup wrote: post #100
lumost wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why many job seekers are perpetually passive/work through recruiters. An in-house recruiter may be there to perpetually screen for purple unicorn candidates that bend the CEO's hiring freeze - a contract recruiter won't work with a firm that can't actually hire.

I wish I could say I have a better experience with recruiters but I haven't. I've heard there are good recruiters, I don't doubt it, but it doesn't seem easy to find anymore than the next job is.

The good recruiters are the ones who won't put you forward for a job that you're not qualified for, and will advocate for you during the hiring process in a job that you are qualified for. I have worked with recruiters like this before. But you need to screen the recruiter a bit, at least make sure that the jobs they are proposing for you actually make sense for you. If you are asking for SRE jobs in New York and they send you a DB Admin job req in New Haven, don't waste your time with that recruiter or that job.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#368

Post by calculatte »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #294
ndiddy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad our government has introduced the H1B program to help out employers like you who are dealing with a shortage of tech workers (who will work for 2/3 market and will do anything you say because if they get fired they'll be deported).

Is there any evidence H1B workers in tech have lowered wages? I have only seen anecdotes while the law explicitly states H1Bs should be paid the prevailing wage or above.

Look up that "prevailing wage". It's a deep discount compared to the real world.

Minimum for a Software Developer in SF: $113,444 https://h1bgrader.com/

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#369

Post by Dylan16807 »

newaccount74 wrote: post #343
gigel82 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop it, no one "values things besides salary", and you know it.

I hired a developer who just wanted a cushy job and I offered him a cushy job. I offered 4 day work week, no on-call, no overtime, but paid less than their previous employer (because I couldn't afford it). I am sure lots of people value things besides salary.

Changing the work hours doesn't technically affect "salary" but it's a change in wages. I think your example mostly reinforces the point, but we should be using the word "wages" to be clearer.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#370

Post by diego_moita »

mdaniel wrote: post #311
diego_moita wrote: post #232

This is the reason I no longer bother with HN's "Who's Hiring" posts. They're all Ghost Jobs and we can't even complain there about it.

Why can't you complain? I see reply links under all the listings and you certainly have enough karma to do anything here (AFAIK)

Look at the comments at the top of the thread:

> Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to complain about something. It's off topic here.

Complain and it will be removed.

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