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But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untru

But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untrue. Besides, I don't know about others, but I've recently put out multiple job ads for one vacancy. Our app, Noctacam, uses computational photography to take great photos at night. I was looking for someone with computational photography knowledge and/or iOS. And/or Android, since we plan to make an Android app in the future. I found it convenient to post three job ads, so that I can clearly organise the dozens of applicants based on their skills. Two of them went unfulfilled. Which is exactly as was intended. Someone who doesn't understand the background may say, "Oh, no, tons of positions aren't being filled." In other ways, it may a counting problem, not a real problem.

notyourday 9y ago
If they need to fill this job and it is not worth the higher salary and it cannot be filled at this salary or lower then this job should not exist as a job: the owner of the company, the manager of the company, the HR person of the company can either do that job themselves or that job should be eliminated.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 9y ago
  But why? Does having the position open harm anyone?
  - notyourday 9y ago
    As long as they don't bitch about being unable to buy a Porsche 911 for $100, they are welcome to advertise it.
  - thatcat 9y ago
    It needlessly wastes peoples time.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      If employers were required to pay for someone's time for an interview, you would see this fixed right quick. But because an employer can leave an unreasonable job req out there and interview as many candidates as they want, with the only cost being their own time, this continues.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Sorting resumes and conducting interviews is not free. So, you still need a cost benefit analysis.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Cost of doing business.
        Retric 9y ago
        Wasting resources for zero gain is never just a cost of doing business. Yes, not all jobs will be filled quickly. But, unreasonable salary expectations cause needless waste.
        HarryHirsch 9y ago
        In sufficiently large bureaucracies the departmental budget is someone else's money, but meanwhile the departmental middle manager has to prove his need for existence, so why not advertise for a position. You see this often in universities: someone leaves, the duties are distributed amongst those that are still there, a job is advertised and goes unfilled for several terms because none of the applicants are to the taste of the committee.
      - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
        Here's something I wrote on a different discussion about hiring: Imagine I cost my company $50 an hour in salary, and earn them $150 an hour (revenue of 3-5x salary is ballpark for most companies, we'll go for the low end for some perspective). As a senior dev, I have to sit in all the interviews of people potentially joining my team. Imagine we have 10 people that make it through the HR round. I have to participate in 10 interviews, and then likely 3 more for the final round. My cost for round 2 is: 10 people x 2 hours x (150 lost revenue + 50 salary paid) = $4k My cost for round 3 is: 3 x 8 x (150 + 50) = $4.8k My company has already dropped $8.8k on my involvement solely in the interview room for your typical entry level position. This doesn't even include my involvement in onboarding, training, pre-interview prep, post-interview review, etc. This is also JUST ME, and a very lowball figure at that. Now factor in the cost of the HR round, recruiters, background checks, the other devs in the interviews with me, etc. It adds up very, very quickly. The "costs of doing business" can easily be reduced by not interviewing for shits and giggles.
- kartickv 9y ago
  There's a range of salaries for a given level of competence. I found one candidate earning ₹4 lac a year who was way more competent than another earning ₹14 lac a year. That's a 3x variation. So, no harm keeping it open for a while to see if it can be filled.
notalaser 9y ago
> But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? As in, their business doesn't even generate enough revenue to afford hiring the kind of people who can keep it running?
- havetocharge 9y ago
  The task that they are hiring for does not generate enough revenue to be worth at price X. The business may not stop from operating if these tasks are not done, or not done on a priority basis.
  - RobertoG 9y ago
    But, in the standard perfect markets interpretation, that would mean that the task shouldn’t be done. Right?
    - havetocharge 9y ago
      If there are no takers, then the task should not be done, yes. What a lot if people seem to imply is that these jobs should not be advertised in the first place, which I disagree with.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Advertising is not free. Having a few unfilled jobs is natural but it's wasteful to have significant market disconnects. That said, a lot of 'jobs' are simply H1B fodder or resume bait etc.
        kazagistar 9y ago
        Unless they people causing them waste incur costs greater then they benefits, it won't change. Hiring has gone digital, reducing costs, so of course garbage job postings have increased.
  - notalaser 9y ago
havetocharge 9y ago
This is a great point. One can think of a job posting as a bid on the market. Not every bid results in trade. Similarly, not every job posting is a job, like your example demonstrated.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  But I don't think that's how job openings are calculated - they're mostly derived by asking employers, not just counting up postings.
- WalterSear 9y ago
  How many market bid values are covered until you go through a vetting process so extended that you can realistically only look at a relatively tiny number bids before making a decision?
- humanrebar 9y ago
  So what's the job-market-equivalent of a HFT or broker to reconcile the bids and asks?
maxsilver 9y ago
> I found it convenient to post three job ads, so that I can clearly organise the dozens of applicants based on their skills. Two of them went unfulfilled. Which is exactly as was intended. I always wondered why 50% of job listings were totally fake. "Selfish hiring practices" being the reason makes a lot more sense than "appearance of growth" that usually gets stated.
- ghaff 9y ago
  It's also pretty common that the job is already basically filled internally or (less commonly at the moment) by H1B but for various legal or procedural reasons there has to be a job posting.
owebmaster 9y ago
> But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? That would means the company is dysfunctional and only desperate people are going to join this wagon.
- icebraining 9y ago
  How does that follow? You seem to be assuming a lot. If they're peripheral, optional tasks, like an extra service you could upsell to your clients for a small margin, it may not provide enough income for a market-level salary.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    So you are incapable of hiring. When you don't have the money for a ferrari, you don't buy a toyota because of the lack of available ferraris.
    - havetocharge 9y ago
      People are not objects, and your analogy is not accurate (or maybe just unclear). People (at least in our industry) are free not to accept jobs with low pay. You are also free to seek clients rather than employers.
  - learc83 9y ago
    In most cases, you don't want to take a job that's worth say $100k, but not $150k to an employer. Either the value you're bringing to the company is somewhere less than $50k, or the company is irrationally tied to not paying more than $100k.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      So what if the value is less than $50k?
      - learc83 9y ago
jdhn 9y ago
>But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untrue. In that case, something's got to give. Either the wage has to go up, or they'll have to accept the fact that they won't find anybody who's willing to work for that wage and the job will remain unfilled.
corporateslave3 9y ago
If the job isnt worth the salary, then the business isnt fungible

notyourday 9y ago

If they need to fill this job and it is not worth the higher salary and it cannot be filled at this salary or lower then this job should not exist as a job: the owner of the company, the manager of the company, the HR person of the company can either do that job themselves or that job should be eliminated.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
icebraining 9y ago
But why? Does having the position open harm anyone?
- notyourday 9y ago
  As long as they don't bitch about being unable to buy a Porsche 911 for $100, they are welcome to advertise it.
- thatcat 9y ago
  It needlessly wastes peoples time.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    If employers were required to pay for someone's time for an interview, you would see this fixed right quick. But because an employer can leave an unreasonable job req out there and interview as many candidates as they want, with the only cost being their own time, this continues.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Sorting resumes and conducting interviews is not free. So, you still need a cost benefit analysis.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Cost of doing business.
        Retric 9y ago
        Wasting resources for zero gain is never just a cost of doing business. Yes, not all jobs will be filled quickly. But, unreasonable salary expectations cause needless waste.
      - HarryHirsch 9y ago
        In sufficiently large bureaucracies the departmental budget is someone else's money, but meanwhile the departmental middle manager has to prove his need for existence, so why not advertise for a position. You see this often in universities: someone leaves, the duties are distributed amongst those that are still there, a job is advertised and goes unfilled for several terms because none of the applicants are to the taste of the committee.
    - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
      Here's something I wrote on a different discussion about hiring: Imagine I cost my company $50 an hour in salary, and earn them $150 an hour (revenue of 3-5x salary is ballpark for most companies, we'll go for the low end for some perspective). As a senior dev, I have to sit in all the interviews of people potentially joining my team. Imagine we have 10 people that make it through the HR round. I have to participate in 10 interviews, and then likely 3 more for the final round. My cost for round 2 is: 10 people x 2 hours x (150 lost revenue + 50 salary paid) = $4k My cost for round 3 is: 3 x 8 x (150 + 50) = $4.8k My company has already dropped $8.8k on my involvement solely in the interview room for your typical entry level position. This doesn't even include my involvement in onboarding, training, pre-interview prep, post-interview review, etc. This is also JUST ME, and a very lowball figure at that. Now factor in the cost of the HR round, recruiters, background checks, the other devs in the interviews with me, etc. It adds up very, very quickly. The "costs of doing business" can easily be reduced by not interviewing for shits and giggles.
kartickv 9y ago
There's a range of salaries for a given level of competence. I found one candidate earning ₹4 lac a year who was way more competent than another earning ₹14 lac a year. That's a 3x variation. So, no harm keeping it open for a while to see if it can be filled.

notalaser 9y ago

> But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? As in, their business doesn't even generate enough revenue to afford hiring the kind of people who can keep it running?

havetocharge 9y ago
The task that they are hiring for does not generate enough revenue to be worth at price X. The business may not stop from operating if these tasks are not done, or not done on a priority basis.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  But, in the standard perfect markets interpretation, that would mean that the task shouldn’t be done. Right?
  - havetocharge 9y ago
    If there are no takers, then the task should not be done, yes. What a lot if people seem to imply is that these jobs should not be advertised in the first place, which I disagree with.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Advertising is not free. Having a few unfilled jobs is natural but it's wasteful to have significant market disconnects. That said, a lot of 'jobs' are simply H1B fodder or resume bait etc.
      - kazagistar 9y ago
        Unless they people causing them waste incur costs greater then they benefits, it won't change. Hiring has gone digital, reducing costs, so of course garbage job postings have increased.
- notalaser 9y ago

havetocharge 9y ago

This is a great point. One can think of a job posting as a bid on the market. Not every bid results in trade. Similarly, not every job posting is a job, like your example demonstrated.

Bartweiss 9y ago
But I don't think that's how job openings are calculated - they're mostly derived by asking employers, not just counting up postings.
WalterSear 9y ago
How many market bid values are covered until you go through a vetting process so extended that you can realistically only look at a relatively tiny number bids before making a decision?
humanrebar 9y ago
So what's the job-market-equivalent of a HFT or broker to reconcile the bids and asks?

maxsilver 9y ago

> I found it convenient to post three job ads, so that I can clearly organise the dozens of applicants based on their skills. Two of them went unfulfilled. Which is exactly as was intended. I always wondered why 50% of job listings were totally fake. "Selfish hiring practices" being the reason makes a lot more sense than "appearance of growth" that usually gets stated.

ghaff 9y ago
It's also pretty common that the job is already basically filled internally or (less commonly at the moment) by H1B but for various legal or procedural reasons there has to be a job posting.

owebmaster 9y ago

> But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? That would means the company is dysfunctional and only desperate people are going to join this wagon.

icebraining 9y ago
How does that follow? You seem to be assuming a lot. If they're peripheral, optional tasks, like an extra service you could upsell to your clients for a small margin, it may not provide enough income for a market-level salary.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  So you are incapable of hiring. When you don't have the money for a ferrari, you don't buy a toyota because of the lack of available ferraris.
  - havetocharge 9y ago
    People are not objects, and your analogy is not accurate (or maybe just unclear). People (at least in our industry) are free not to accept jobs with low pay. You are also free to seek clients rather than employers.
- learc83 9y ago
  In most cases, you don't want to take a job that's worth say $100k, but not $150k to an employer. Either the value you're bringing to the company is somewhere less than $50k, or the company is irrationally tied to not paying more than $100k.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    So what if the value is less than $50k?
    - learc83 9y ago

jdhn 9y ago

>But maybe the job isn't economically worth it at the higher salary? You seem to be assuming it's worth doing at any price, as does the article, and that's untrue. In that case, something's got to give. Either the wage has to go up, or they'll have to accept the fact that they won't find anybody who's willing to work for that wage and the job will remain unfilled.

corporateslave3 9y ago

If the job isnt worth the salary, then the business isnt fungible