Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 264 posts

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#51

Post by Eumenes »

thrw42A8N wrote: post #41
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.

Not really. You can't get an expert in most recent European or Asian technology (for example 5G mobile network backbone) in the US.

H1b isn't about "experts", there are other visas for that (eb1 or o1). H1b's purpose it to find talent after search has been "exhausted" locally. That is rarely done in good faith.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#52

Post by lurking15 »

KerrAvon wrote: post #38
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'…

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.

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.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

FredPret wrote: post #47
toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, this is the problem. We are doing a Kabuki dance where there is an illusion of good faith and meritocracy, when really, it's just a brutalist labor order book between employers and employees, unless you have a network (which takes years to build and might still prove useless if you can't refer someone into your org because blah blah hiring pipeline that is really just garbage anyway). For example, someone at the…

There is a cost to the employer. Any smallish 1-2 hour meeting with a couple of people on it can easily cost thousands if you work out people’s hourly wage. Add on the context-switching costs impacting the rest of their workdays. Then add the reputational damage among jobseekers - when word gets out that a company is a timewaster, qualified people will be less likely to apply.

Talent acquisition is the cost of being in business. Hiring is hard, I admit. Being efficient while remaining within legal and regulatory frameworks is fine and expected, fraud and misrepresentation through job postings with no intent to hire is not.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#54

Post by dang »

evilfred wrote: post #31
Buttons840 wrote: post #7

On this topic, do y'all think the HN Who's Hiring thread has ghost jobs? I know I've applied to one and never had back (a few years ago).

lol and all those endless "we're hiring" Flexport ads, even after they did layoffs

It wasn't just them, but another dozen or so YC startups who've been around for many years and always keep a job ad in the queue. It's not their fault for doing that—it's my fault for neglecting the HN job ad system for too long. I get that the community doesn't like seeing the same ads over and over for the same few, long-established companies.

We recently changed the HN /jobs page to gradually reduce the frequency of those. Newer startups, who by definition haven't been around long enough to have had many posts, should be significantly better represented. The system has been designed to favor them for a long time, but it's favoring them more now.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#55

Post by Eumenes »

itqwertz wrote: post #6

Don’t use LinkedIn or Monster or Indeed. You’re better off searching on Google with “ inurl:careers” and finding positions these companies are directly hiring for.

You can use the common applicant tracking system URLs as well - like Lever, Greenhouse, or Ashby - if you are targeting startups/tech companies.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#56

Post by nsxwolf »

vosper wrote: post #42
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'…

> 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.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#57

Post by evoke4908 »

nickff wrote: post #12
ryanmcbride wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the reason I can think of off the top of my head is that one is wasting the time of people who are looking for a job so they can continue to live, and the other is wasting the time of a person who's job is reviewing resumes?

I don't agree with the attitude of the grandparent poster either, but work at a small company where I've been on the receiving end of many extremely low-effort applications from ineligible individuals, so it definitely goes both ways. Companies are also bombarded with spam from recruiters, just as candidates are.

There would be less application spam if there were fewer spam job postings.

Because only one in a hundred postings is real, we have to send out hundreds of applications before even getting a rejection. There's no way to tell if a posting is real or if anyone will ever read your application, so the only option available is to apply to everything.

A lot of people pose this as a prisoner's dilemma, but it really is not. This problem is not mutual, it's entirely one sided. If companies would only post jobs they intended to hire for, there would be exponentially fewer spam applications. They've fucked around by posting spam and now they're finding out by receiving even more spam.

When the average applicant has to send literally hundreds of applications to get any response at all, absolutely nobody is going to handcraft a thought out application to any one posting. There's literally not enough hours in the day. Because we don't even get rejection letters back, the only way forward is to firehose as many applications as possible and just hope you win the lottery by getting your resume in front of a human.

It's absolutely terrible for everyone involved and the only ones who can stop it want to act victimized by the problem they created

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#58

Post by hannob »

The article doesn't really discuss the legality of this, which I'd be curious to hear the opinion of a lawyer.

In other cases, it's considered criminal if a company deliberately puts out false information about itself. E.g., if you lie about your companies products (like Theranos), it's pretty clear that this is not legal.

I don't see why it should be legal to lie about your job opportunities.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#59

Post by dang »

FireBeyond wrote: post #15
Buttons840 wrote: post #7

On this topic, do y'all think the HN Who's Hiring thread has ghost jobs? I know I've applied to one and never had back (a few years ago).

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 responding to every applicant. Other suggestions for addressing this issue are welcome!

Edit: since the next Who Is Hiring day is tomorrow, let's get precise. I'm including this text at the top of the thread:

NEW RULE: Please only post a job in this thread if you are committed to responding to everyone who applies.

Thoughts?

Edit per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011360: "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

#60

Post by orwin »

thrw42A8N wrote: post #36
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'…

In Europe jobs have to be published. Even if there is no intention of filling it from the public. And companies also publish bullshit jobs which are used to manipulate regulatory requirements if needed (eg. if you want to hire a foreigner, you must prove you couldn't fill the position locally - by publishing it for 3 months).

> In Europe jobs have to be published

No. If you publish it, you have to give an estimation of the salary, but that's the only limitation, at least in my country. Companies have internal guidelines, like in mine, you can't hire a relative to your own department, but the job i got wasn't on a public listing, it's my agent who gave my CV to my current team leader, he was interested, organized an itw, then 3 month later i hoped to my current job (and i am way better for it).

Post reply on HN