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Show HN: We tried to build a job board that isn't awful
Hi HN,
We’re definitely not the first to realise there’s something seriously wrong with how hiring and job-seeking works today. Zero-cost communication and LLMs have created so much noise that good candidates can’t get heard, and it becomes all too tempting to game the system with keywords and prompt-hacking.
In fact we discovered that 70% of early stage AI startups don't post their jobs on LinkedIn. Instead, many founders hire exclusively within their network, which works at the start but doesn’t scale.
We thought a lot about this problem, and pivoted through a few ideas including an AI voice agent recruiter. We even spent some time trying to be conventional tech recruiters to better understand the problem space.
And in the end we built...a job board.
But we think there are a few things that make ours different:
- We decided to not put barriers between the user and the data. You can search, filter or browse however you like from the minute you sign up. Zero onboarding
- We wanted to nail one niche, so we focused on surfacing opportunities at early-stage AI companies (over 30,000 jobs at 24,000 companies)
- You can navigate it using keyboard shortcuts!
- We built a voice agent, Nell, who conducts a technical recruiter call with you through your browser and immediately finds matches, the way a well-connected friend who knows you well would
- When you tell us you’re interested in a role, we make a best effort to connect you to founders directly, along with your profile, so no cover letters, no pointless forms
- We enriched jobs data with investor-grade intelligence - you can look at same data that VCs use to decide whether a startup is worth joining or not
Give it a try and let us know what you think: https://teeming.ai https://teeming.ai
- okejminja 1y agoTried it out, honestly works pretty well. The data and filtering feel solid, found navigating the table pretty easy. Not in love with the agent, maybe add multiple threads or preserve context between sessions. Needs a bit of polish here and there with UX still. Definitely gonna take another look when I’m next job-hunting as it looks like it's going to be a time saver. Good job!
- tompccs 1y agoAppreciate the feedback! Agent is definitely an area I'm looking to improve with persistence and make it truly personalised.
- mlangley2010 1y agoI have really enjoyed the experience of searching for roles on Teeming. Additionally I like the concept of cutting through the process of sending mass applications and being able to go directly to founders to make contact. My only feedback is that it would be nice to have a view where you can see more of the job description at a glance. Right now you have to click in to each role to get information about the job.
- tompccs 1y agoMany thanks for your kind words and thoughtful feedback. Which additional pieces of job information do you think we should surface before clicking?
- Grosvenor 1y agoA search in the dropdowns would go a long way. "AI field" has 700+ entries, and aren't in alphabetical order.
- tompccs 1y agoExcellent point - they are sorted by frequency they appear in the data. We have search boxes in the keyword selectors (funding stage, location, etc) but not in tags where arguably it's most useful. Will work this into an upcoming release. Many thanks!
- wizzwizz4 1y agoThe HTML <select> element already has built-in search functionality, in most browsers. Why don't you just use HTML? (I can't provide detailed feedback because of your login-wall: do you have a version with fake data that I could poke around at? You should probably look at getting an accessibility expert involved.)
- tompccs 1y agoTrue! We use a custom element that hides most options by default but this is definitely something we will consider. Thank you for your feedback
- dang 1y ago[stub for offtopicness] (as gus_massa pointed out, it's a no-no on HN to do voting rings or have booster comments - this is in both the guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and the FAQ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html but we do know that in many cases it's unintentional)
- ionutvisan 1y agoI truly appreciate the platform’s design and the logical flow - it feels intuitive and visually pleasant. I also like how the interaction with the company and the role you’re applying for is presented more clearly. The wide range of filters, combined with the option to further personalize with Nell, also gives you extra confidence that all your considerations are being taken into account. Overall, it looks very solid for the stage you’ve reached.
- tompccs 1y agoThank you for your kind words!
- Jay6742319 1y agoLove this approach, the founders really put a lot of time and effort into figuring out what us as users want. Job hunting is a serious chore and having good filtering and UI really matters in such a diverse industry, big love for the platform!
- gus_massa 1y agoFrom https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions. Users should vote and comment when they run across something they personally find interesting—not for promotion.
- fxnel 1y agoA great approach as both applicants and companies are now surrounded by lot of noise. Specially it can be a unique opportunity for early stage startups to present themselves and have a share from the applicant pool.
- java-man 1y ago"Continue with Google" no thanks.
- ipaddr 1y ago"We decided to not put barriers between the user and the data" Aside from requiring a login - Google login no less to see the job description.
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y agoHow else would you farm user data to be sold off later?
- tompccs 1y agoHi, OP here. Perhaps "minimal barriers" would have been more accurate. One of the problems we want to solve is the proliferation of bot traffic on job sites. Requiring a Google login is the simplest way to achieve this for the time being.
- eps 1y agoNo everyone has a Google account. You'd think it'd be a pretty damn obvious factoid.
- pippy360 1y agoSorry to pile on but, the google sign on also turned me away. I have a google account and usually use it to sign up for sites I'm interested in but when it's used to gate content that could be accessible without a login I just feel like my data is being harvested. If you really want to keep the login then maybe a message like we won't spam email you unless asked and only want your to log in to protect against bots would help.
- tompccs 1y agoOP here. Appreciate the honesty. I actually agree - I think the same way and I'm realising now that we don't do a good enough job of communicating the need to the user. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
- pseudalopex 1y ago> If you really want to keep the login then maybe a message like we won't spam email you unless asked and only want your to log in to protect against bots would help. Such messages are lies usually in my experience.
- Gooblebrai 1y agoYou show a frontend engineer role at Gr4vy in the landing page but looking in their careers page and LinkedIn the only role they have currently is Python Engineer. Unless you tell me you have exclusive roles, it doesn't give me much initial trust. Edit: the voting ring of comments / AI comments make the whole thing even more disgusting.
- tompccs 1y agoHi, OP here. One of the things we've discovered is that companies post their jobs in a number of locations but often forgot to take them down when the jobs are filled. Compounding this is the fact that some job sites automatically take down ads after a set number of days (say 30 or 60). Working out whether or not a job is "live" is therefore non-trivial but something we actively want to solve.
- 8organicbits 1y agoThis is a problem I was hoping to see a modern job board solve, stop working on keyboard shortcuts and make sure your AI isn't encouraging people to apply to non-existent jobs.
- 48terry 1y agoYou absolutely need to get an accessibility professional (one you pay, not try to crowdsource free labor) to review your site. Your site excludes disabled people from participating.
- rhetocj23 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Be respectful. [...] Don't be gratuitously negative." https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html (Edit: originally the parent comment just said "Meh I dont see this going very far" without the second sentence.)
- 8organicbits 1y agoThe challenges I've seen with job boards include showing job postings that are no longer open, jobs that are unclear on key factors like pay or location, and especially poor handling of "remote" which means something different to everyone. There's also way too much barrier to entry here, signing up, especially with Google is a big ask. I also bounced at that step. A demo or video of the product could help if you don't want anonymous access.
- tompccs 1y agoOP here. Appreciate the feedback - the login barrier is definitely something we will take on board. I think some level of identity authentication is a must to counter the scourge of bot traffic, but we will think of ways to be cleverer about this. With regard to job posting accuracy - absolutely this is a problem. Normalising what different job descriptions actually _mean_ is one of the key challenges we want to solve.
- ralferoo 1y agoFirst impression - seemingly random jumble of jobs, none of which are interesting to me, but clicking on any of them requires sign in to read. Click "I'm an engineer" to try to search for jobs to see if there's anything interesting. Get a sign up page. Click "I'm hiring". Get presented with an email harvesting page. Yeah no, I won't be looking any further. There's nothing here to suggest this sucks less than any other jobs site, where at least I can peruse the JD before having to give away my personal details.
- tompccs 1y agoHi, OP here. This is the "catch-22" of job sites. If they are open to the web they become swamped with bot traffic. If they are closed then users have to overcome a barrier to use them. We have tried to find a middle ground and use the lowest-effort way (for users) to demonstrate authenticity in the form of a Google login. But we understand this might be putting users off so we are looking at ways we can give away a bit more before requiring a login. Appreciate your feedback.
- AznHisoka 1y agoI tried to build a job board awhile back, and although there was demand in the consumer side, it ended up being a gigantic slog and a waste of time because every company is busy paying the Indeeds/Linkedins of the world. Because they get millions of more users. Unless you intend for this to be free, I don’t see how it could ever be profitable. I ended up pivoting to just having a free daily remote jobs email for engineers (among other roles) https://bloomberry.com/blog/remote-jobs/ https://bloomberry.com/blog/remote-jobs/
- rhetocj23 1y ago"because every company is busy paying the Indeeds/Linkedins of the world" The reason why is because they possess significant competitive advantages. Im actually working on something in this space and am building out competitive advantages with government backing that'll make LinkedIn and Indeed an inferior offering in my country. If youre going to enter a market with established incumbents, you wont go very far without a lot of strategic-thinking.
- tompccs 1y agoHi, OP here. Really like your approach! Like you we want to solve for talent-first. We believe we can add value for hirers beyond just charging to post jobs. Please get in touch if you'd be interested in discussing further (email in bio).
- IAmBroom 11mo agoFree isn't even free to them. If a company is paying their HR staff, the minutes to hours that they spend learning a new interface, and setting it up, and using it, are a real cost. Compare that to an existing service, where they only have to do the last part, and are dividing that cost by the millions of jobseekers that the existing solutions already reach.
- batterystorage 1y ago"DOT AI" ofc...
- philk10 1y agoLooked for a QA remote role and one of the top results was for a Sales Engineer and nearly all the rest were just generic engineer roles
- tompccs 1y agoHi, OP here. Would you be willing to share your query? I will investigate.
- deadbabe 1y agoWhy the hell would this require a google account? I do not have one. Rolling your own user account system is not that hard.
- Animats 1y agoThe trouble is, you don't have enough clout to do a good job on this. Look at Alibaba. Here's a typical Alibaba customer profile: 4.8/5 Satisfied 113 reviews ≤2h average response time 98.7% on-time delivery rate US $470,000+ 474 orders Tracking interactions with employers like that would be a huge help. "Ghosting" should show up in employer stats.
- cmin764 11mo agoGot in no-time an opportunity with a well established start-up, ran quickly through the interview process, almost finished it, and we both decided to pause the process since an offer I was waiting for finally arrived. This is good news, as I wasn't expecting to move so fast via Teeming.ai, and it worked! Too bad that this time I was the one refusing to continue instead, although the platformed proved it's success and I'm going to use it again, even for fractional work opportunities.