Dear HN "Who's hiring" posters - Why my job search on HN sucked big-time

I found this post really really good. I've been hiring for a few months and obviously want to treat candidates well. A lot of the points you made are things I had realized by myself, some were new and interesting, but there are a few things I disagreed with.<p>&#62; If your contact is jobs@foo.bar...<p>I'm unclear what you'd prefer. I man the jobs@circleci.com mailing list, and while I agree it's impersonal, I don't think there's a better alternative. Should I use paul@circleci.com? What if someone else needs to take over for a few days? What about when we've grown too big for me to personally respond to every applicant, and we have dozens of HN posts (or other places with similar content) pointing to an email which is no longer useful.<p>I think jobs@circleci.com is the best approach, but welcome better suggestions. It also has the advantage that everyone in the company gets it, so we can all look them over if needs be.<p>&#62; If I respond to your post 3 days after the posting date. [...] I obviously know the job is still available, I'm looking for a 2-line reply so I know you actually give a damn.<p>Don't do this. Put yourself in my shoes. Do you think I know you're looking to see if I give a damn? Which I don't, because I get dozens of job emails a day, and most of them don't come across as stupid (which that does).<p>&#62; Acknowledge my application.<p>Totally agree. I respond to all applicants, even if that response is a polite rejection. The only things I ignore (actually, I mark them as spam) are recruiters and outsourcers.<p>&#62; If you have "We get sooooo many applications, we'll only contact those we're interested in" I go "Bullshit!".<p>I think you'd be surprised. Dozens a day. And I have another job - actually running a company.<p>&#62; Optional: This might not be for everyone, but I personally think it is a good approach. Whenever you send a rejection, state why you're rejecting the candidate<p>Warning for others: DO NOT DO THIS. I did this for the first 3 people who ever applied. It took me 30 minutes to compose those emails, and I went into considerable detail. Oh, and it was really harrowing to write negative things about another human being, especially one who hadn't asked for it.<p>One replied, and was very thankful for the feedback and promised to work on it. He replied a few months later thanking me again. Two didn't reply, which means my hour was not only wasted, but I actually sent feedback that they didn't want or appreciate (which means they now think I'm an asshole).<p>Now, I send feedback to anyone who asks for it, and sometimes will have a back-and-forth about it.<p>&#62; Instead, put in as much effort as I do.<p>In this, and the other things which others have described as "a sense of entitlement", you're committing the same crime as the employers: only caring about and seeing your side of the story. I've been on both sides in recent history, and both sides (and both "Dear HN" pieces) suffer from not looking at the other person's position (something which is useful in nearly all walks of business, as well as life).

Honestly what is the purpose of this post?<p>Its not a big surprise that start ups dont do the things you say because you're not their target demographic.<p>If the servers are catching fire and you only have 2-3 people then replying to inane emails may not be important to them. For instance you say you send people emails to ask if its still open even though the job description has the date on it. You are looking for them to reply to you but they're probably thinking that your comprehension is bad. You're really talking about start ups that have a full time HR person and I would hazard a guess that by that stage (ie 10-20ish employees) that the company isn't really in start up mode anymore.<p>If you want to get a job in a start up then i would recommend: - Contact the Founders personally. This is generally really easy to find out in a start up. - Ask your friends if they know any founders and ask for an intro. - Find a start up that you may actually be passionate about and apply there. - Take the job offers you have and found your own start up later down the track.<p>Start ups are not for everyone, it seems quite glamorous but it takes certain personalities to be involved as a founder and/or staff member. That's not a positive or negative either way but figure out what works for you. I notice quite a bit of tension on HN these days that is internal tension that comes out anti/pro start-ups and venture capital.

You went on too long to fit in a comment, so you made an "Ask HN" post that consists of just a link to a pastebin. That makes little to no sense.<p>Also, because I was surprised to hear people were posting such nonsense in Ask HN, I went and looked through this month's for some of the things you complain about. There are zero requests for "rock star interns" and nobody I could find asking you to be passionate about their company. So this whole post is just mystifying to me.

This post went in a completely different direction than I expected. I expected a lament about the difficulty in obtaining interviews or a lack of response from prospective employers but this blew my mind.<p>While I actually agreed with a number of your points, I found the theme a little disconcerting as it seemed to convey an attitude of entitlement and a lack of humility. You aren't owed an ideal environment for your internship hunt simply because you exist, moreover having created your account <i>literally</i> one hour ago makes me question if you have any non-lurking history with the community.<p>Maybe I'm off base with this post but IMO this attitude isn't one to cultivate and it's a pretty negative first post.

'I understand there's a lot of poor applicants for jobs out there. However, believe it or not, there's just as many poor employers in the "start-up scene".'<p>The problem is that the poor employers think they are the next google/amazon and the poor applicants think they are the next kernighan/carmack

&#62;If you have "We get sooooo many applications, we'll only contact those we're interested in" I go "Bullshit!".<p>Is it too naive to think that people who are interested in building their brand and developing goodwill in this <i>small</i> community would take the time to respond to anyone who would take the time to send along a cover letter/resume?<p>The other thing that I really don't get is when people are using a platform like Jobvite, Simply Hired, or Resumator to process applicants while still failing to notify applicants of a) the reciept the application, b) an approximate timeline for response or c) the dismissal of applicants at each stage of screening. Shouldn't these platforms make mass notification a simple matter?

&#62; DO NOT make first contact with me two months later asking me if I'm interested in the job. I'm not. I was interested two months ago.<p>I get that you're talking about an internship here, so response time can be hugely relevant (although you were looking in advance), but you don't have any idea what is going on with this company. If they had chosen a candidate and that candidate was unable to fulfill the role at the last minute or they were really unable to get to the internship emails until then, they're doing you a favor reaching back out to you. When you're looking for work, it's a <i>blessing</i> to hear back from someone other than an automated response, no matter how late it is.

My issue with both this and the post it's replying to is the underlying sense of entitlement. The "who is hiring process" is great for reducing friction in matching good employers with good employees. All the pride (in the deadly sin way) I see from both sides does nothing but add friction. "You didn't send a timely response" is no better than "this applicant's reply is terse". And in both cases neither makes any attempt at determining how good the employer matches the employee.

Thankyou for posting this. I'm graduating this year and I just find the lack of response from startups frustrating.

It's understandable to want acknowledgement when you apply for a position, but when you're doing the hiring for a small team that doesn't have automated processes to handle all of that yet, you'll understand why so many people don't send you anything unless they want to interview you.

As a co-founder of a startup that is about to begin the recruiting process, I think you have a lot of valid points. Sometimes we do get swamped but I personally try to reply to all queries within at least 7 days. This may seem long but its really a function of wanting to give thoughtful replies when possible. It would be good if there was a way to anonymously call out companies with such crappy processes. Both because applicants deserve transparency but also because founders should always want to know if they or their staff are mistreating applicants.<p>-max cantor co founder, docmunch.com

Having spent many moons looking for work in the _rest_ of the tech industry, I find this post spot on. The startup world is strange, and not the real work in my humble opinion. On the other hand it shares some sucks with the real world.<p>Cover Letters - This seems to be an excuse for me to gargle something unmentionable, and speak the great praises of myself and my often feigned interest in your company.<p>Keyword Matching - How I hate thee, so much hate. On the other hand now fully 1/3 of my resume is a skills matrix, which helps the folks in HR who often cant tell a fax machine from a switch.<p>References - I have an extensive collection of these, please do not ask me for them before you interview me. They could just as easily be bullshit and are not really a guarantee of anything, also, anyone who wants more than two of these should really go away.<p>Land of Unrealistic expectations: I know I live in Seattle, but there is no way you will find a desktop support person for 13 an hour with 2+ years experience, the last time I made that little money was 8 years ago.<p>Recruiters - Please read my resume before calling me. Clearly you have it, PLEASE read it. I dont even know what half of the roles are I get sent.<p>Recruiters from India - See above; please improve your conversational english skills, and or just EMAIL me, also, I dont know what an E-Mail ID is - but I do have an email address.<p>Online application systems - please dont make me fill out a profile in your system, just let me send a resume, I have no less than 100 of these accounts for one employer or another.<p>I think thats all of my rant for now.

I find that posts like these send their message better when formatted with "Here is an awesome example of what I like, DO THIS!!! (and casually mention how you feel when you get the opposite treatment).<p>"Company Foo made it optional for me to list my GPA, I liked that!" vs "Never have I ever, or will, apply to anyone asks for GPA. Make it optional."<p>Which feels more likely to be taken seriously?

I agree. If you're posting on HN, you can do a lot better then what you typically see in the ""Who Hiring" every month. There is a larger issue outside of HN with recruiters and the hiring process at most companies, including startups. That could be thread of its own.