Ask HN: Would you sign up for a "Hire-a-HN-Hacker" board?
HN has monthly "Who's hiring" posts, but not "Who wants to be poached into a better job" posts.
So, I want to ask: Would you like such a service? Are there any comfortably-employed hackers hanging out at HN who would like something better -- new challenges, work-life balance, kegerator, whatever?
We created this page to test the idea: http://blog.fiveyearitch.com/2013/05/show-hn-unofficial-hire-hn-hacker-board.html (Clickable link below.)
It uses the same embeddable FiveYearItch widget which learning sites use to get better jobs for their students.
Do you like it? Tell me in the comment below and vote in the quiz at the widget page.
If enough HN people sign up, our next step is finding a permanent high-profile home for an unofficial "Hire a HN News Hacker" page.
27 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] threadWe need a way for GOOD employers, the ones who grok hacking, to poach us out of the corporate jobs.
We all got what it takes to hunt up a job, but if employers can find me with other HNers, all the better!
I wish I could say "Job's not so awful I gotta move, but I want to hack for real, please, and not just on my GitHub at night."
Song-and-dance definitely not required.
And even after employers contact you, we have optimized to make it easy to ignore them. No chit-chat, you can just click "no thanks."
The employer can ask for some quick qualifiers, FizzBuzz-style questions, to separate the sheep from the goats.
They should take two minutes each to answer and are not intended as an in-depth test or interview.
Afterwards, the employer can move into further discussions and the regular interview process.
So far, FiveYearItch supports the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, Israel, and India.
You can register at our user-feedback page http://fiveyearitch.uservoice.com/ to get updates.
Why is supporting the EU more difficult than supporting any of those countries?
This isn't a technology problem ("add EU to line 284 of config.yml"). It's a regulatory problem, a cultural problem, a sales/support staffing problem, a marketing problem. There's nothing wrong with not half-assing it.
On the registration page at http://fiveyearitch.com/register just start typing in the "wanted position" field and you'll see that "system administrator" is already an option.
Neat idea, but probably not. The problem with job boards is that they all turn into ghettos. The technology is fine. The material (sometimes on both sides, but almost always in terms of employers) usually ain't.
I was talking to an investor, years ago, about a dating site and he pointed out a mistake I was making. He said, "you think the problem with these other sites is technology, but that's wrong. The sites are fine; the people are broken."
We think that the recruiters peddling horrible subordinate corporate jobs are somehow unaware of HN and how geeks really think; but reality doesn't bear that out. We're damn easy to fool. If a sociopath can hoodwink a venture capitalist, then he can pretty easily hire nerds.
I don't want to get into a long-running HN thread (I have good reason for my month-long break that I just now broke from) but if you'd like to talk offline about some thoughts I've had about fixing the job market, I'm michael.o.church at gmail.
Thanks for that comment, you've hit it spot on. The focus at FiveYearItch is not the technology, it's the workflow for connecting the two sides.
> recruiters peddling horrible subordinate corporate jobs
That's exactly who we are keeping out.
We work with employers, preferably technically savvy hiring managers, and they have to be smart enough to reach out to developers rather than assuming developers will come begging for a job to them.
They have to be willing to commit to what developers require, which is often not salary or health plans but "ace colleagues" and "flat hierarchy."
And as to finding the folks to bring together: That's the key, we're finding various ways to do it -- and note where we're chatting right now :-)
How does it scale if employers and candidates are rigorously screened (assuming that they are rigorously screened) since conventional full-service match making is built upon individual relationships and meaningful conversations?
This is not to say that there isn't a need for an HN full-service executive search firm. But rather that I don't see how the objectives are satisfied without a conventional labor intensive model.
First, it's for developers and other IT pros, not executives.
It's for introducing people, not a full-service search firm. Employers send quick screening question to candidates.
The workflow is designed to be very quick, easy, and easy to drop at any time. At the early stage of communication, both sites should be able to click a "No thanks" button and leave it at that.
Once the candidate has passed initial screening, employers continue in their normal interview process.
Hmmm... should I feel guilty about that or good ;-)
...Glad to be so good that it's worth breaking the ban!
we're lucky as engineers...tradionally employers have had an abundance of candidates to filter, but with programming skills in such demand, developers now have an abundance of oppourtunities...it's not that we need more job oppourtunities, we need a way to filter the bad ones out.
disclaimer, I run trypitchbox.com - which operates in a similar space
>it could be a bump in pay but it usually also means a new challenge like working on a particular tech, type of product, domain, etc
Sure, that's _exactly_ what FiveYearItch is all about.
When you register ( http://www.fiveyearitch.com/register?publisher=e0e3f1 ), you will say "what you need in your next job," whether it is learning opportunities, ace colleagues, stock options, a flat hierarchy, or anything else you'd like.
Employers have to commit to provide these if a deal goes through.
The "Hire-a-HN-Hacker" widget has limited space, and so it highlights skills that would interest an employer, but when the employer clicks to search, they'll see the developer's requirements as well.