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Show HN: Never Apply Again

5 points by jessehorne ↗ HN
Hello,

I have decided to run with an idea and see where it goes. I'm an engineer and this year has been awful for job-seekers. To pay my bills, I'm offering a simple, informal, no-catch service to help other people in the same position. The website will explain in more detail.

Would absolutely love any and all feedback. :-)

https://neverapplyagain.com/

17 comments

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pestatije
Application delegation is not "not application"
jessehorne
If I understand correctly, you mean by applying to this, it's not "not applying" or that me applying for you is not "not applying"?

Will take your confusion and my new confusion into account. Thx

syndicatedjelly
So...you're a recruiter, except the applicant pays you instead of the company. And you're less well-connected than a company-paid recruiter. And you're not getting paid by anyone to find candidates for them.

Sorry if that's a bit blunt, but just trying to understand the service you're offering.

jessehorne
I'm a resume submitter with technical knowledge and the applicant pays what they want. I'm okay with you assuming I'm less well-connected BUT it's in my best interest to get you offers. It's in their best interest to get someone offers. That's the big distinction. And no, no one else would be paying me. Maybe that's something to pursue? Who knows. YC talks about doing the manual stuff to validate and to learn and to research. So that's what I'm doing.

You're not being blunt. You're asking questions. That's ok. :-)

jessehorne
Also, If you aren't willing yet to pay someone to apply to jobs for you, then you are not the target audience. But let me know if there's anything related you'd pay for. That's how the idea came up for me. I was like "damn I wish I could just pay someone to do this".
syndicatedjelly
For me, the value of a recruiter is that they're well-connected and can help with negotiations. It's icing on the cake that the company is paying them, not me. I would consider paying for this service if you were able to negotiate for me, and then I'd pay a percentage of the negotiated increase to you.

I don't really place much value on someone just applying to jobs for me - that part isn't hard. Now if you could do interviews for me...

jessehorne
That's a great idea. Thank you! I'll take it into account with the next iteration. The interviews part is going to be hard though. I don't know if that's allowed. :-)
iandanforth
So you'll be an agent? I think this is a great idea. My major concern is this, " you'll pay me whatever you want when you accept an offer." There's nothing worse for a business relationship than unspecified financial terms. It will be bad for you and your clients. Pick a number, a percentage, something, and put it in writing up front.
jessehorne
Exactly! That's my problem with recruiters. They get paid to place "someone", not "you".

As far as me not really expecting to get paid is that I'm hoping to try this for a little while and see what the right business model is. I'm hoping it will be easier to get some tests done if it's at no cost/risk to the client.

I definitely plan on being clear with numbers/pricing once the service is more defined.

Thank you a ton for your input :-)

gregjor
> That's my problem with recruiters. They get paid to place "someone", not "you".

That sounds good as a sales pitch for your service but I don't think it's accurate.

While true that recruiters get paid by the employer to place the right candidate, reputable recruiters generally do not submit multiple candidates for the same position at the same time. In other words, the recruiter is working to place you if you look like the best candidate.

If a recruiter "spams" their customer (the employer) with unqualified candidates their customers will stop using them. Employers who use recruiters expect the recruiter to screen and qualify applicants, separate the wheat from the chaff, then put their best candidate forward. Good recruiters will bypass the application and HR steps and get their candidate in front of the hiring manager. That's why employers use recruiters -- they're outsourcing the resume scanning and initial screening process.

People who have had bad experiences with recruiters often blame the recruiter and that whole industry when they should reflect on their own shortcomings. If multiple recruiters aren't putting a candidate into interviews that may indicate the recruiters are incompetent or that whole industry is parasitical and useless, or it could indicate that the candidate is not attractive or competitive for the available positions. I think it's obvious that recruiters will focus their efforts on the best candidates they can find because those people will most likely result in a successful placement. That's the only way recruiters get paid. They don't make any money submitting applications for candidates who don't stand out or get through a phone screen, or who can't write a competent resume tailored to the job. We have job coaches and counselors for that.

jessehorne
The more I think about it the more I agree that what I said isn't accurate, actually. Agents can spam too and get paid for placing "someone", not one person. Also, if everyone had an agent, we're basically at the same place. So I don't think this is the solution.

Also I generally agree with what you're saying about recruiters. Still trying to think of solutions. The problem needing to be solved is it's very hard for lots of engineers at various points in time to find work. It's a real problem because of how it affects those people in that situation.

I didn't see the problem until I decided to quit my job this year, at the height of the layoffs. I used to be able to get offers for every one out of three interviews.

That isn't the case anymore. At all. Farrrr from it.

There IS indeed a problem but I don't think the solution is becoming an agent. I'm still going to keep it open to get more inspiration and testing.

gregjor
I understand in some sense that the job market really tightened up. I've survived a few downturns in my long programming career (40 years now). I have a son facing a terrible job market. By "in some sense" I mean that senior people with lots of experience and professional contacts aren't having the same problems finding jobs.

Recruiters and agents will only take on candidates they believe they can place. If they can't put a candidate (or freelancer) into a job quickly they lose money. That means recruiters will focus their efforts on the highest-quality candidates they can find (which individual candidates will perceive as "ghosting"), and agents will only represent people they can consistently keep busy. Analogously, Hollywood and sports agents don't represent everyone who wants to act or play basketball, they represent people who already have careers, and a few people who look very likely to succeed.

In this market that means, unfortunately, that people with less experience and fewer marketable skills, fewer professional contacts, will struggle to get jobs. And those same junior people got laid off at higher rates. That increases competition for fewer jobs (for the time being, anyway, mainly because of interest rates), which will affect both the juniors and the people a little farther along who have to compete with a large number of less senior people looking for jobs who may cost less.

Disclaimer: 10X Management, an agency for tech freelancers, represents me. My opinions, not theirs.

bmelton
It might be a lot quicker to find your model through cost exploration.

  1. Put up a landing page that talks about your service, and has a 'buy now' link at the bottom

  2. The 'buy now' price should be a price that you think is fair

  3. Clone that page and play with prices. One page could be priced half of what you thought was fair. Another page might be double. 

  4. Load balance those pages. If you see an even amount of people willing to pay $100 as $20, then you KNOW $20 is priced too low. Your optimal price point is after the point you start losing customers. If you can sell it for $500 to 10 customers or $50 to 100 customers, you will have made the same amount of gross revenue, but it is much easier to deliver service to 10 customers than 100 customers.
Your best price point may be 10 times (or more) what you think is fair. It may be 10 times less. If more, well then you have opportunities for establishing an agency, as there's overhead to delegate the work and still make profit. Or you can discount it to those who need some help. Or you can play with different cost models (e.g., "I will get you hired in exchange for 10% of your first 10 paychecks" type of arrangements).
gregjor
I think that if your job search strategy begins with submitting applications -- so many applications that outsourcing that task makes sense -- you have the wrong strategy. This seems like polishing a turd, in other words.

A good recruiter (paid for by the employer) or agent (paid with a percentage of my gross) will have contacts and inside tracks (unadvertised positions) and reputation in the business domain or geographic area. A good recruiter or agent will bypass the "submit an application" online step altogether and get your resume/CV in front of the hiring manager and line up interviews.

Job seekers shouldn't have to pay to apply for jobs. I think most adults with some work experience understand that, and view any supposed agency or recruiter who does charge for applying as a scam. I'm not saying you're running a scam with neverapplyagain.com, but you're getting into a disreputable niche full of scammers.

jessehorne
Good points. I agree that employees shouldn't need to pay to find work but I feel it's more competitive than you think for a lot of people out there right now. Just looking for solutions.

Also, it's one of those things where you don't have to do anything. If you want to pay to get some advantage, then you can.

Thx for the feedback. I'm going to have to think on all of this a bit. Perhaps the "agent" route isn't the best solution.

gregjor
My advice: You need to clearly spell out the value you bring to the candidate. If you're going to ask for payment, what would I, as an applicant looking for a job, get from you that I can't do myself? Or I can't pay someone overseas $4/hr to do for me (submit a lot of applications)? What's your specific value proposition?

Saving time submitting applications for applicants has some value perhaps, but the goal is to get a job, or at least an interview, and that's probably only incidentally correlated to number of applications submitted.

I think there are opportunities in the coaching and resume/cover letter tailoring niches. You can find plenty of people offering that but they mainly come from an HR background, not a tech background (probably because tech jobs pay much better -- those who can, do, and those who can't do, teach, in other words).

If I was looking for a job I might consider paying someone who clearly had great industry/geographic contacts, inside tracks, and advice. But then I wouldn't have to pay for that -- I would try to identify the top recruiters and get them to place me.