Rental property management companies do this with little issue. Is it possible that this is the way the hiring market moves? Would that be a net positive or negative for employees?
Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
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Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#2In the UK, most letting fees charged to tenants were banned a few years ago, because it was felt that letting agents were acting abusively. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tenant-fees-act
If I had to pay a fee to apply for a job, I’d assume that it was a scam and that there was no job on offer.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#3> Would that be a net positive or negative for employees?
In what world would this be a net positive for employees?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#4Well isn’t part of the issue that people are using automation to mass apply? If so, they’ll just redirect their money from compute cycles toward application fees and we’ll be in the same situation.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#5Well isn’t part of the issue that people are using automation to mass apply? If so, they’ll just redirect their money from compute cycles toward application fees and we’ll be in the same situation.
$50 is a common application fee for a rental apartment in a city in the US. I would imagine no one would be interested in paying $5k to apply to 100 jobs.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#6> Would that be a net positive or negative for employees? In what world would this be a net positive for employees?
If it guaranteed that you got a phone screen, I imagine a lot of SWEs would take that deal.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#7[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#8So how would you ensure that companies don't just make this revenue generator? As to me that would be very effective way. Get people apply string them around a bit with LLM. And then collect the fee. Have some actual hires bypass the whole thing.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#9Maybe because they'd receive few, if any, job applications?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't companies make applicants pay a fee to apply to a job?
#10> Would that be a net positive or negative for employees? In what world would this be a net positive for employees?
If it guaranteed that you got a phone screen, I imagine a lot of SWEs would take that deal.
But then it means the only people who apply will be the sort of people who tend not to even get phone screens… is that really who you want to be spending your time interviewing?