8 ms·
Employers, please use postmarked letters for job applications (2025)
- wavemode 8mo agoFor every 1 LLM applicant that this idea would deter, you would also deter 50 humans who simply don't feel like having to send a letter to apply to a job.
- Zanni 8mo agoValid point if your ratio is correct, but I suspect it's the other way around.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- wat10000 8mo agoBut surely there’s also a downside somewhere.
- mckn1ght 8mo agoAt least for me, I'd still rather mail a letter versus input all my personal details and job experience into yet another CRM with a crappy data entry interface.
- 1970-01-01 8mo agoAt this rate we just need the entire system to breakdown so we can rebuild it with some hard standards. I shouldn't need to reenter my information. Period.
- ralph84 8mo agoThey already do this, listen to the radio at off hours and there will be many job ads with instructions to apply via postal mail. Of course the reason isn't to deter LLMs it's to deter Americans so the employer can claim no Americans applied in their visa and green card filings.
- mckn1ght 8mo agoDo FAANG, FAANG wannabes, or startups do this for software development roles? I've never heard of that.
- toast0 8mo agoTake a look at the job ads in your local paper's classified section. You'll have to search as classifieds don't have their own section anymore, but it'll be in somewhere. You'll likely see some listings with very specific and odd instructions to apply. I seem to recall there was a ruling/advisory that requiring application on paper doesn't actually meet the requirements for immigration, but it used to. You would see very detailed and specific requirements, and it would be cumbersome to apply, and the hiring company would be hoping that only the candidate they already knew would apply.
- mejutoco 8mo agoRemember when they would put some minor text in the dev console with some sort of challenge? That was an interesting approach.
- mckn1ght 8mo agoThe one where the google results page would open up and show an application to apply was cool.
- Amezarak 8mo agoYes. https://www.newsweek.com/h1b-job-ads-green-cards-targeted-immigrant-workers-2113714 https://www.newsweek.com/h1b-job-ads-green-cards-targeted-im... https://www.jobs.now/ https://www.jobs.now/
- stackskipton 8mo agoAfter seeing the flood of resumes for application, I do think a small cost to apply wouldn't be a bad thing for either applicants or companies. I also realize that if someone is unemployed, getting them to pay money they don't have to find a new job is counterproductive. However, when we wanted to hire a new Ops person at work, the flood of obviously not qualified at all applicants we got was insane.
- PolygonSheep 8mo agoI'd gladly pay the 78 cents for a stamp if it meant my application was opened and read by an actual human.
- ryandrake 8mo agoIf I were a job applicant, I don't know how much I'd pay for an ironclad guarantee that the human hiring manager for the role would open and read my resume. $100? Multiple hundreds? Sad that things have gotten to this point.
- htrp 8mo agoThats when you work with the a 3P recruiter that has a vested interest in putting you in front of the hiring manager
- vulcan01 8mo ago> the flood of obviously not qualified at all applicants we got was insane From speaking to folks looking for jobs in tech over the past few years, this is a natural result. 1. Companies write requirements on the job posting that are a little beyond reasonable for the role and salary. 2. Applicants learn over time, and start applying to jobs for which they only meet most of the qualifications. 3. Companies adjust and write even more ridiculous requirements. 4. Applicants start applying to jobs for which they only meet some requirements. 5. Repeat. As evidence that the applicants are, at every stage, correctly reacting to the situation: I have received positive responses (and, later, job offers) by applying to roles for which I am only mostly qualified, and I know many people for whom this is true of jobs they are only barely qualified for.
- zabzonk 8mo agoSurely few people have a printer these days? I do (a color laser printer) but I'm a bit old school. And yes, my handwriting is, and always has been, dreadful.
- slaymaker1907 8mo agoAs long as you have a FedEx or library nearby, you can print things there
- isodev 8mo agoAnd maybe employers/recruiters should be required to include a template (but .doc is not allowed) of what format they expect, disclose if they will be OCR-ing it and with which tool/LLM, will they read it or feed it to an AI etc.
- Arch485 8mo agoAs someone who is currently looking for a job, I don't like this idea. All this does is increase the effort and barrier to entry to apply for a job. This is not a good thing. Applying to jobs is already time consuming as it is; nobody wants more hoops to jump through. I understand that recruiters/hiring managers/whatever get a lot of junk applications, but frankly, it is your job to sort through them. You are paid to do this. Could the hiring/job seeking process be better? Yes, absolutely. Currently, it's terrible, and almost everyone involved is making it worse. But the solution is not mailing job applications.
- wat10000 8mo agoApplying by mail sounds easier than the usual online form nonsense.
- drdec 8mo agoI think you are ignoring the advantage for the applicant. The reduction in what are essentially spam applications means your genuine application will stand out and be more likely to be considered. Things that help employers find qualified candidates also help those qualified candidates.
- verzali 8mo agoThat never seems to happen in practice. The number of jobs I have applied to that required additional effort and that never bothered to reply is just too high.
- antasvara 8mo agoI like this as an optional "this will be read and considered by a human" guarantee added to a job posting. That way, you can still get the reach of digital submissions but the benefits of this approach.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- ksenzee 8mo agoHas anyone tried this from the applicant side? Just send in a cover letter and resume, old-school?
- malfist 8mo agoThat used the be the trick FAANG used to justify H1B visas. Onerous application requirements like mailed applications to prove there's no Americans wanting the job
- personjerry 8mo agoThis does nothing. I'll just start a business that mails letters to companies for you. Now, an APPLICATION FEE, that's interesting. Hmm.
- mccraveiro 8mo agoSo www.postgrid.com?
- jaredklewis 8mo agoWell, presumably your business charges something to mail out job applications to companies? Like an application fee, that charge incurs a cost to applicant which will do something (presumably reduce applicant volume).
- eightys3v3n 8mo agoPlus by making that fee optionally replaced with time spent writing the letter, people who don't have the finances to pay a whole bunch of application fees can still apply for as many jobs as they're willing to put in the time.
- postalcoder 8mo agoThis does nothing. I'll just start a business that lends money to job applicants. Apply now, pay later (ANPL).
- bloppe 8mo agoIf you continue to get mountains of slop applications after introducing an application fee, then at least you have a new revenue stream.
- postalcoder 8mo agoOn the company side, you have a new revenue stream. On the ANPL side, you have another product you can securitize. Revenue generation and risk transfer, a win-win!
- stevage 8mo agoReminds me of how it was common in France until pretty recently for employers to use graphology (pseudoscience) analysis of candidate's handwritten letters to assess personality traits etc. When I was looking for work there I was lucky that the tech sector was already a abandoning the practice.
- BobbyTables2 8mo agoKids today barely even learn how to write!
- elgertam 8mo agoIntroducing JobbyPasta, the service that will hand-complete and mail in job applications for a small fee of $9.99 per application. Add on a transcription of your cover letter for an additional $4.99, or have us generate one (with your approval) and transcribe it for $7.99. Have a lot of applications to send out? Subscribe to us monthly for $34.99/mo (billed annually).
- budududuroiu 8mo agoWe just found ourselves a new industry to contribute to GDP growth
- jaredklewis 8mo agoI mean if people had to pay $9.99 per application that would drastically reduce spam applications. So the mail proposal still has a good effect here.
- ghusto 8mo agoI feel like this is already addressed in the "Aha! But you see..." section. There is nothing that one can't poke holes in, but if the holes are not big enough, the proposal is still sound.
- malfist 8mo ago2D plotters are what, $100? That's basically no cost for someone wanting to spam "handwritten" letters
- aitchnyu 8mo agoTwo students built their own https://makezine.com/article/technology/robotics/homework-machine-saves-time-possibly/ https://makezine.com/article/technology/robotics/homework-ma...
- eichin 8mo agoThe EMSL Axidraw launched in 2016...
- ghusto 8mo agoRead the whole thing.
- pavel_lishin 8mo agoThat's not what OP is suggesting we defend against.
- softgrow 8mo agoI'd really like a rejection physical letter back saying thankyou for application but no thanks signed by a human. I put some effort in to applying, they could at least exert some effort coming back, rather than simply ghosting. A reasonable barrier to bots collecting CV's.
- eslaught 8mo agoNot the same industry but at least one literary agent does this: if you physically print and mail your book proposal, they will respond with a short but polite, physical rejection letter if they reject you. But I think it's a generational thing. The younger agents I know of just shut down all their submissions when they get overwhelmed, or they start requiring everyone to physically meet them at a conference first.
- pjmlp 8mo agoIn Germany it used to be that in some places, not only you were expected to have a proper application folder with various sections for the various kinds of material (CV, application letter, recomendantions, certificates, photo), they would post it back if refused. This stopped being a thing about 15 years ago though. I still have some of those applications in a box somewhere.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago>I'd really like a rejection physical letter back saying thankyou for application but no thanks signed by a human If you want personalized human rejection letters to come back to you, then the hiring process would have to be equally friction based: i.e. mailing in notarized copies of documents and interviewing in person, for it to scale and not overwhelm a company's resources. >I put some effort in to applying Yeah but so did hundreds of other people. This worked in the world of 20+ years ago, but it doesn't scale anymore in the era of online applications where every job posting gets hundreds of applications within a week. It doesn't matter if you put in more work in your application than the other 200 candidates who are doing "spray and pray", it's too much noise for humans to swift through with without some automated screening that might just as well drop you through the net because it can't tell the amount of work you put in, you're just a number in a queue.
- siliconc0w 8mo agoI think something like an escrowed fee that both the applicant and the employer pay would be a reasonable way to solve the spam and keep both parties honest. If either the applicant or the employer are unhappy with the process (resume doesn't match, employer ghosts) - the fee is sent to charity, otherwise the fee is returned to both parties.
- boogrpants 8mo ago[dead]
- Leynos 8mo agoBrought to you by the same people who think that it should be possible to sack an employee without cause and without notice.
- oojuliuso 8mo agoAnd before the in-person interview, the applicant is required to produce a handwriting sample in front of the interviewer of random text, which is then compared against the mailed documents.
- voxelghost 8mo agoPerhaps we just need Tinder for employee-employer relationships? Its all in the profile - and we can all just swipe left/right instead. Dysfunctional FAANG seeks 10X prompt engineer in hyderabad
- staticshock 8mo agoInstead, the approach that will continue increasing in dominance is hiring referrals and finding jobs through personal networks. In a world that increasingly resembles The Library of Babel, - the main way to know what's true is to tune into news sources you trust (monolithic old school media, or personality driven new-school media, social media, etc.), - the main way to learn what to watch/listen/read is to take recommendations from people you trust, or received through channels you trust, - the main way to hire or get hired is, increasingly, by exploiting a network of people you trust. All of this compensates for ambient oversaturation by using the best available (and tunable!) desaturation filter: your trust network.
- the_snooze 8mo agoSocial affinity and reputation represent winning strategies that have served humans very well since the dawn of time. It shouldn't be surprising that they continue to be extremely effective even (or perhaps especially) in the age of AI.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago>that have served humans very well since the dawn of time. Except none of this scales in the modern world beyond flat small orgs in homogenous high trust cultures, basically modern tribes. If you're a large org with diverse people from everywhere and you empower everyone down the ladder to hire the people they trust, they'll just end up gaming the system or hiring their friends and family and the org fails from nepotism, corruption and cronyism. It's not like we don't have enough examples of this happening everywhere in the world, and why most places have official hiring policies against this behavior, or policies to obfuscate connections from the hiring pipeline to make sure people get in exclusively on merit. It's also why socialism is only financially viable in small homogeneous communities (like the Amish for example) where everyone adheres to the social contract of contributing to society more than they take out, and is kept accountable by the ingroup to be honest, but fails at a nation level where everyone including the government in charge of managing it tries to defraud it or game the system in their favor taking out more than they contribute, leading to constant budget deficit and ultimately collapse (see EU state pension systems) But yes, fully eliminating nepotism and cronyism via rules and laws is nearly impossible due to human own-group bias, so networking will always be a huge asset. Although I might know a solution, hear me out. I have fond memories of being part of this amazing private torrent tracker back in the day, that was 100% invite only, and the way the community was kept honest and accountable to the spirit and the rules, was that every person was responsible for the people they invite, so if their invites would commit a bannable offense, their parent who invited them would also got banned, meaning people would be very selective with their invites, biasing more towards meritocracy rather than nepotism or selling their invites online for cash which was common back then. Feels like something that could scale IRL as well. You hire your friend that turns out to be a shit employee, you're out the door along with him.
- kittikitti 8mo agoIn my last job search, I sent out a few dozen resumes utilizing snail mail. It was from a job board that searched for job descriptions that only accepted applications through physical mail. There were some big tech companies I was able to apply to. Ultimately, I didn't get a role from snail mail but it was an interesting process. I would probably expose myself if I detailed the specific service I used, but you can lookup online tools where you upload a PDF and they print it out and send it to an address for like $1 each (more for certified, priority, etc.) and I confirmed it worked. I even had companies mail me back rejection letters, so that was a first.
- ewuhic 8mo agoWhen was it?
- midnitewarrior 8mo agoYou can submit an application online, and require a printed QR code be mailed via post with a handwritten cover letter, achieving the personal intent, inconvenience tax, and cost, while still providing the convenience of digital resumes and applications. The mailed QR serves as a CAPTCHA.
- msten 8mo agoLast job I hired for I required short video submission answering some basic questions. If you didn't submit a video you were automatically disqualified. The previous position we hired for had over 1,000 applicants this last position around 500.
- aitchnyu 8mo agoI did this once for an AI training data management company in 2022. I assumed I just generated training data.
- rapidaneurism 8mo agoDoesn't that open the door to discrimination? At least now you have to guess the sex and ethnicity from the name.
- musicale 8mo agoIt selects for the most telegenic applicants with the best video production (and best coaching, etc.) In-person interviews have analogous issues but are less susceptible to cheating on the questions.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- ottah 8mo agoRubut will write you letter https://shop.elephantrobotics.com/collections/ultraarm/products/ultraarm?variant=44295517864248 https://shop.elephantrobotics.com/collections/ultraarm/produ...
- lanthade 8mo agoSite appears to have been hugged to death. Here's a link to an archived version: https://archive.ph/iTJTI https://archive.ph/iTJTI
- bigpeopleareold 8mo agoWhile time consuming, I would gladly use my otherwise underused but decent enough handwriting to carefully write out job applications. Can get really good pens to do it too. However, given my own network, that's probably not necessary anymore either way. My mother had insanely superb handwriting, in part because her mother pushed good penmanship on her. While I can be sloppy, it was for me a challenge when I was young to copy her perfect handwriting (not for forging signatures though!) Handwriting is influenced by which hand is dominant. I am left, she was right handed... so not exactly close :)
- Mountain_Skies 8mo agoWhat about doing more to retain employees? Maybe don't layoff employees each time someone on CNBC makes a comment about the company's overhead looking a fraction of a percent too high? Perhaps even train people? Instead, everyone expects there to be a magical unicorn out there who has decades of experience as a senior at multiple FAANGs but lives in Warm Spit, Missouri and is willing to work for the average Walmart wage in Warm Spit (locality adjustment, surely you understand why we must do this). Shrink your pool to your local area. Even if you allow remote work, require a physical interview at your office. Stop screwing up the process by worrying about edge cases involving unicorns flying across the globe to meet you. Once you stop chasing unicorns, most of the fraud goes away because it's the unicorn chute that's letting the fraudsters into the process. But seriously, stop getting rid of good employees and stop refusing to build up employees from within. Very few are going to get hired away if you treat them well. The few who do leave will either be treated poorly at their new employer and want to return or be treated well, which means that employer isn't gaining some advantage over you by treating their employees lesser. Of course, if you're just trying to get a bonus for cutting labor expenses a few percentage points before you parachute off to somewhere else, then you and the company that tolerates this both deserve to suffer. No doubt you'll both be at your congress critter's door to demand access to the global market because you believe skill is based on how little an employee is willing to accept in compensation. In a labor pool of over 150 million, no doubt it's true that you can't find anyone who knows React or Spring Boot.
- amadeuspagel 8mo ago> Requiring a handwritten cover-letter greatly raises cost for poor/fraudulent submissions, imposes a comparitively smaller cost for genuine ones I find handwriting physically painful and people feel the same about reading it.
- pavel_lishin 8mo ago> Handwriting is unique- if you're skeptical that an applicant wrote/sent the original letter, witness them write something else and compare I like this suggestion, but please don't practice some equivalent of phrenology to deny me a job.