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It's a pretty bad strategy for hiring great programmers. Given how many cool, interesting, VC-funded startups are hiring, good developers can work literally any

by spolsky 16y ago

It's a pretty bad strategy for hiring great programmers. Given how many cool, interesting, VC-funded startups are hiring, good developers can work literally anywhere they want. A job description that doesn't reveal the company or at least the general domain is likely to just be ignored. When I started my job board, I had a rule that the company name had to be on the posting. When I let one company avoid this rule by posting as a "stealth startup" I got tons of email complaints and the stealth startup got no applicants.

swombat 16y ago
Actually, if I wasn't busy and on another continent, I would apply based on this ad. I don't think it's a bad strategy at all, given the cachet of YC. Also, it's likely that they are doing other things too to look for great hires, not just this HN posting. Edit: Not trying to imply that I am a "great programmer"... just providing a data counterpoint that they will probably get people who have other options too applying to this to at least check it out.
pg 16y ago
When startups that have launched in the press post jobs, they invariably do include their names: http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs It's only the unlaunched ones that don't. Those have to weigh the benefits of launching vs the costs. Usually they launch soon anyway (we encourage startups to launch quickly) and can then give their names in jobs posts. So a post like this is not the last chance a startup will have to hire people; it's just a chance for them to attract a few adventurous ones a month early. Empirically, they are in fact able to attract good people, which is why they continue to do it. A posting by an unnamed startup may not work on a job board where anyone can post, but here it has worked well for years.
- gcheong 16y ago
  Why are comments disabled on job postings?
  - pg 16y ago
    As I've explained before, jobs aren't stories. Though jobs get displayed like stories and get inserted into the frontpage feed along with them, they're a different type of object. The reason I didn't give them comments was that I thought of them as ads, not content.
    - hasenj 16y ago
      What fundamental property of ads makes them different from content? Maybe ads are a type of content. http://www.baekdal.com/publishing/why-traditional-ads-work-and-digital-ads-dont http://www.baekdal.com/publishing/why-traditional-ads-work-a...
    - xenophanes 16y ago
      What makes you think people don't want to comment on ads? People are happy to talk about ads IRL.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        Kuro5hin has long had comments on its ads, as if they were stories, though ad buyers can choose to disable that if they don't want them.
    - diego 16y ago
      I would like to see comments on job postings. I don't consider them ads, to me they are interesting content. Even if they were ads, what's intrinsically wrong about enabling comments in ads? There's already a system in place for dealing with inappropriate comments and it works well.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        If HN allowed comments on YC job posts, people would use the comments to post job ads for their own companies ("we're doing something similar, &c &c, contact us at &c &c"). This would significantly dilute the value of the YC job ads. The inevitable discussion about how we could just have an etiquette of not doing that, or a guideline for not doing that, or a new kind of flag button for that, or or or, will just serve to illustrate how much simpler a solution just not allowing comments on those posts is. These posts aren't hurting you. My bet is most HN people actully think they're a benefit of HN --- early access to YC jobs! This is a fake controversy. Can we think about tolerating the YC job ads in terms of "least we can do for running HN"?
- crocowhile 16y ago
  Well, you may be getting good programmers but you don't know if you are getting the best candidates of course. Spolsky's argument makes a lot of sense. [edit: PG edited after I posted this]

by spolsky 16y ago

swombat 16y ago

Actually, if I wasn't busy and on another continent, I would apply based on this ad. I don't think it's a bad strategy at all, given the cachet of YC. Also, it's likely that they are doing other things too to look for great hires, not just this HN posting. Edit: Not trying to imply that I am a "great programmer"... just providing a data counterpoint that they will probably get people who have other options too applying to this to at least check it out.

pg 16y ago

When startups that have launched in the press post jobs, they invariably do include their names: http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs It's only the unlaunched ones that don't. Those have to weigh the benefits of launching vs the costs. Usually they launch soon anyway (we encourage startups to launch quickly) and can then give their names in jobs posts. So a post like this is not the last chance a startup will have to hire people; it's just a chance for them to attract a few adventurous ones a month early. Empirically, they are in fact able to attract good people, which is why they continue to do it. A posting by an unnamed startup may not work on a job board where anyone can post, but here it has worked well for years.

gcheong 16y ago
Why are comments disabled on job postings?
- pg 16y ago
  As I've explained before, jobs aren't stories. Though jobs get displayed like stories and get inserted into the frontpage feed along with them, they're a different type of object. The reason I didn't give them comments was that I thought of them as ads, not content.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    What fundamental property of ads makes them different from content? Maybe ads are a type of content. http://www.baekdal.com/publishing/why-traditional-ads-work-and-digital-ads-dont http://www.baekdal.com/publishing/why-traditional-ads-work-a...
  - xenophanes 16y ago
    What makes you think people don't want to comment on ads? People are happy to talk about ads IRL.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      Kuro5hin has long had comments on its ads, as if they were stories, though ad buyers can choose to disable that if they don't want them.
  - diego 16y ago
    I would like to see comments on job postings. I don't consider them ads, to me they are interesting content. Even if they were ads, what's intrinsically wrong about enabling comments in ads? There's already a system in place for dealing with inappropriate comments and it works well.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      If HN allowed comments on YC job posts, people would use the comments to post job ads for their own companies ("we're doing something similar, &c &c, contact us at &c &c"). This would significantly dilute the value of the YC job ads. The inevitable discussion about how we could just have an etiquette of not doing that, or a guideline for not doing that, or a new kind of flag button for that, or or or, will just serve to illustrate how much simpler a solution just not allowing comments on those posts is. These posts aren't hurting you. My bet is most HN people actully think they're a benefit of HN --- early access to YC jobs! This is a fake controversy. Can we think about tolerating the YC job ads in terms of "least we can do for running HN"?
crocowhile 16y ago
Well, you may be getting good programmers but you don't know if you are getting the best candidates of course. Spolsky's argument makes a lot of sense. [edit: PG edited after I posted this]