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I think it's going to be hard to enforce that, unless you go through ycombinator.com/jobs But I agree that's fair to expect from companies. Yes, they have pote

I think it's going to be hard to enforce that, unless you go through ycombinator.com/jobs But I agree that's fair to expect from companies. Yes, they have potentially hundreds of applicants, but writing "We're sorry to inform that you have not been selected to interview" probably takes less than a minute, so spending less than an hour rejecting every applicant seems in line with the time I'd expect each candidate to spend preparing and submitting their application. Plus you can always automate a list of emails to send rejection messages to... It's also a nice way to differentiate the Who's hiring? from all other job boards out there Maybe make the "flag" feature work for users to "report" non-responsive employers. On repeat offenses, reach out to them saying they've been repeatedly reported? Just brainstorming Perhaps the monthly postings should be handled via ycombinator.com/jobs and the thread here is just a dump of this month's new openings with links to applications there but not direct posts by companies?

dang 2y ago
There's little enforcement happening in those threads anyway—they're too free-form, and manual intervention is too expensive. But adding a rule should hopefully still make a difference.
- airstrike 2y ago
  Good luck! I still wonder if you can't you sidestep the free-form and manual intervention stuff by giving those threads some shape via a monthly posting feature on ycombinator.com/jobs? At the end of the day the challenges likely stem from "Who's hiring?" being just a thread with comments on a very spartan message board. I would have said you can solve these issues with an app or website, but you already have one, so it would be easier to just leverage that and then the sky is the limit–add any features you want!
  - dang 2y ago
    ycombinator/jobs would presumably not be the right venue for an open job board but yes we could build software to better support Who Is Hiring threads. I've always resisted doing so but maybe we eventually will. I'm not sure how that would help with the ghosting problem though...
- FreezerburnV 2y ago
  Would you be open to having people email if they send an application and get ghosted so that you can potentially take action on future hiring threads? (or stuff like the mentioned copy-pasted job posting that got caught in an argument) Since I know that emailing you is already the best way to ask for moderation help.
  - dang 2y ago
    In principle yes, but I just can't handle many more emails. Also, it's not clear how we would respond. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011354.
- 1659447091 2y ago
  Maybe add the flag|vouch to the comments for those threads? Not entirely sure how it works (or if its possible), but it seems to work pretty well. I am guessing there is a filter for bad actors, even if not, the few that would be affected would maybe end up with positive comments from long aged accounts. Thats a lot of maybes, but my impression of the flag|vouch feature is as a first step community moderation and guessing it works well? The job thread being jobs targeting the community, I would think it would as well, or at a minimum help.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    I had a little side project I was working on a while ago that would ingest "Who's Hiring" posts every month through the HN API and analyze month to month when each one came and went, in order to call out the companies posting the (according to some heuristic) same ad for months and months, never actually hiring anyone. I was going to snarkily call the tool "Who's Not Hiring?" Obviously a company -actually- hiring the same kind of person month after month would be a false positive, but I thought it might help to catch some of these companies abusing "Who's Hiring"
singlepaynews 2y ago
I like your suggesting actual features/systems, and the idea that we can make hn/jobs the better job board, but I think this targets the wrong problem: I don’t care if a company ghosts me b/c they hired someone else—I care that/if I spent the time applying to a role for which there was no intent to hire. How can we mandate that only roles that are actually open get posted? Does hn/jobs require confirmation that a hire was made within a certain timeframe? (say, 3-6 months?). It may be non-solvable as you obviously can’t mandate that a company hires, but if we can mandate that a company not advertise unless they’re going to hire it is certainly non-solved.

dang 2y ago

There's little enforcement happening in those threads anyway—they're too free-form, and manual intervention is too expensive. But adding a rule should hopefully still make a difference.

airstrike 2y ago
Good luck! I still wonder if you can't you sidestep the free-form and manual intervention stuff by giving those threads some shape via a monthly posting feature on ycombinator.com/jobs? At the end of the day the challenges likely stem from "Who's hiring?" being just a thread with comments on a very spartan message board. I would have said you can solve these issues with an app or website, but you already have one, so it would be easier to just leverage that and then the sky is the limit–add any features you want!
- dang 2y ago
  ycombinator/jobs would presumably not be the right venue for an open job board but yes we could build software to better support Who Is Hiring threads. I've always resisted doing so but maybe we eventually will. I'm not sure how that would help with the ghosting problem though...
FreezerburnV 2y ago
Would you be open to having people email if they send an application and get ghosted so that you can potentially take action on future hiring threads? (or stuff like the mentioned copy-pasted job posting that got caught in an argument) Since I know that emailing you is already the best way to ask for moderation help.
- dang 2y ago
  In principle yes, but I just can't handle many more emails. Also, it's not clear how we would respond. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42011354.
1659447091 2y ago
Maybe add the flag|vouch to the comments for those threads? Not entirely sure how it works (or if its possible), but it seems to work pretty well. I am guessing there is a filter for bad actors, even if not, the few that would be affected would maybe end up with positive comments from long aged accounts. Thats a lot of maybes, but my impression of the flag|vouch feature is as a first step community moderation and guessing it works well? The job thread being jobs targeting the community, I would think it would as well, or at a minimum help.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  I had a little side project I was working on a while ago that would ingest "Who's Hiring" posts every month through the HN API and analyze month to month when each one came and went, in order to call out the companies posting the (according to some heuristic) same ad for months and months, never actually hiring anyone. I was going to snarkily call the tool "Who's Not Hiring?" Obviously a company -actually- hiring the same kind of person month after month would be a false positive, but I thought it might help to catch some of these companies abusing "Who's Hiring"

singlepaynews 2y ago

I like your suggesting actual features/systems, and the idea that we can make hn/jobs the better job board, but I think this targets the wrong problem: I don’t care if a company ghosts me b/c they hired someone else—I care that/if I spent the time applying to a role for which there was no intent to hire. How can we mandate that only roles that are actually open get posted? Does hn/jobs require confirmation that a hire was made within a certain timeframe? (say, 3-6 months?). It may be non-solvable as you obviously can’t mandate that a company hires, but if we can mandate that a company not advertise unless they’re going to hire it is certainly non-solved.