8 ms·

Dear YC companies, I responded. You could do the same.

213 points by Mc_Big_G 14y ago

This should be self explanatory, but I'm going to put it out there anyway. If you are going to spam all the freelancers in the "Freelancer" thread each month, asking for a very detailed quote, portfolio examples and an estimate, at least have the courtesy to respond. My time is worth a lot, which is probably why you didn't respond. I don't forget which companies are rude and don't hesitate to tell others about my experience with you. I'm sure the other freelancers feel the same. Thanks

ScottWhigham 14y ago
My first thought was, "Isn't this sort of like job hunting? It's unrealistic to expect a company advertising a job to respond to each and every resume, regardless of how much time the user put into it. For the same reason, I would guess the "Freelancer" threads would be the same way." But the more I think about it, the more I agree with you. The difference here is that these people personally reached out to you, rather than you just sending something to "hr-resumes@intel.com" or whatever. So yeah, makes sense to me.
- nthj 14y ago
  I think more companies could do with having an intern or assistant to help handle these kinds of things. No, you don't want your $1K/hour CEO manually replying to 150 emails, but having someone who represents the company simply acknowledge your existence goes a long way towards good will. It's the same with client relationships: we may be neck-deep in server fires at the moment, and know there's no way we'll be able to fix something today, let alone before the end of the week, but simply having someone reply "Yes, we'll handle this, and I'll take care of following up with the development team for you and get back with you shortly" goes a long, long way to putting a client at ease.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    No, you don't want your $1K/hour CEO manually replying to 150 emails Isn't it a fundamental startup-culture tenet that the CEO should be a "whatever needs to be done" actor within the company?
    - nthj 14y ago
      Yes, in so far as he needs to be that actor -to keep the creatives from having to context switch.- To borrow Spolsky's yacht analogy, the captain has 40 people running around below deck to ensure that the engine keeps running, the beds get made, and the meals show up on time. You don't want your customers (your developers and your designers) to have to think about anything besides where they want to go and what to have for lunch. But it'd be a pretty inefficient boat captain who tried to rebuild the engine and cook a 5-star meal at the same time.
      - rhizome 14y ago
        I don't think rebuilding the engine and 5-star cookery are apt analogies for replying to emails spurred by the company's own inquiries.
    - chollida1 14y ago
      > Isn't it a fundamental startup-culture tenet that the CEO should be a "whatever needs to be done" actor within the company? I think you're taking this too far. your statement is true if they have nothing else to do. However, if the company needs money and the choice is between your CEO fundraising or answering emails then I'd rather have my CEO fundraising. There are only so many hours in a day and you can't expect your CEO to do all tasks that no one else wants to do.
  - namdnay 14y ago
    > I think more companies could do with having an intern Is this allowed in the US? In several European countries, legislation on interns is very strict: they need to have a specific project to work on, that is not part of the day-to-day functions of the host company. This is to stop companies depressing the wage market by using unprotected interns instead of salaried workers. So you can take an intern to design and launch a new recruitment process, or other "project" work, but not just to offload recurring tasks.
    - nicolaus 14y ago
      You can't substitute a cheaper intern for a full time employee in the US for the same reasons you state. It's even questionable to have interns working on anything that adds to the bottom line of your business.
- koopajah 14y ago
  Why is it unrealistic to expect a company to respond to each and every resume? I can understand a "personalized" response to be unrealistic. But at least a simple automatic e-mail saying "Thank you for applying, regretfully the position is now filled" or anything indicating "don't wait for an answer" should be the norm. Especially with a lot of large companies indicating that an answer could take up to 2 months.
  - alecdibble 14y ago
    This. All it takes is an auto-responding filter. It is one of the shittiest feelings to send a resume to a company and get no response. I've done it many times, and I have had many no-responses. The feeling never got less shitty.
  - ScottWhigham 14y ago
    There are tons of reasons. I'm not trying to be rude but, IMO, not being able to see some of the reasons implies to me that you haven't done much interviewing/hiring. The most likely reason is to stay "in charge" of your interviewing process. If Johnny sends in a resume and he is unqualified, what do you say? "Thanks, Johnny, but you are not a fit for our organization. Best of luck!" Form letter. Awesome - that makes someone feel better? Okay... Anyway, here's the problem: Johnny writes back and asks, "What is it that I could have done differently?" Do you respond? If you do, what do you say when he writes back yet again (and again and again)? "Scott - this is the kind of guy you want to hire! He's persistent!" Oh really? So that's all it takes to get the job you are hiring for - persistence? Of course not. "But you can take a guy like that and train him - he'll be great, I bet!" Will he? What's your proof? He's already shown you that he's trying to punch above his weight and that he's okay with that. He's already shown you that he's kind of a PIA. What makes you so optimistic about his ability to learn? The point is that there are lots of reasons that employers don't continue the dialog, but this is a major one. No company wants to pay someone $25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the Johnnys of the world ad infinitum. And as for companies getting interns to reply, that's just ridiculous IMO. What CEO wants interns to be in charge of replying to job applicants? That's awful. At BEST you can train them not to *#$& up a form letter.
alecdibble 14y ago
Frequently, people in a hiring position treat prospective candidates like cattle. They forget there is a human being behind that resume or portfolio. All it takes is a reply like this: "Hello _______, We are very appreciative that you took the time to send us your _______. Once we get a chance to review your ______, we will contact if you we feel like you are a good fit. Best Regards, _____________"
- bfish510 14y ago
  Even just an automated response to know it arrived to the correct place. Treat the application like TCP rather than UDP.
  - madisonmay 14y ago
    Haha, I love the network protocol analogies that crop up here.
- arbuge 14y ago
  Works both ways in my experience. Whenever I was hiring I always got spammed by many candidates who were obviously sending out their resumes to large numbers of jobs without even bothering to read the descriptions or application instructions.
  - alecdibble 14y ago
    That's a fair point. In that case, wouldn't an automated reply be a fair solution?
  - xtracto 14y ago
    This reminded me of the time I got a Resume from someone applying for a software-engineering job. The guy somehow thought that putting "Sandwich Artist" as part of his work experience was valuable for his application. This, on a 2-page resume which could have been easily reduced to 1-page. I got the resume before the first phone screen... he did not do well.
jonathanjaeger 14y ago
I think some people are confusing people who "apply" for jobs vs. startups actually going after a freelancer to help them. If someone applies for a job it would certainly be good business practice to give a personalized or automated response acknowledging receipt of a resume or portfolio. If a startup specifically reaches out to a freelancer, by spamming all the freelancers as OP puts it, then the startups better respond to the people who respond to them!
- maxent 14y ago
  Yes, this. As a group, it's a bad practice that will result in reluctance to respond on the part of the best freelancers.
- alecdibble 14y ago
  I don't feel like people are confusing anything. The issue is being generalized from a specific problem. In either case, it is rude not to respond.
  - jonathanjaeger 14y ago
    I agree in both cases it is rude not to respond. But in one case the potential employer is the one who reached out first. For example, when I got out of college I brushed off the fact that an employer didn't respond to my resume at all. That didn't make me angry. What did make me confused was someone who specifically reached out to me to try to hire me through email and a phone call and then fell off the face of the earth when I followed up via email with a resume and more details. Sure that person might have been busy and had more important hires to make than a post-grad, but it was still rude and I probably won't forget it.
    - DigitalBison 14y ago
      Yup. I had a similar experience in college when I applied for an internship at Facebook, got back an enthusiastic-sounding response asking me for my availability for a phone screen, and then the recruiter dropped off the face of the earth and never responded to me again.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- Mc_Big_G 14y ago
  Actually, asking for my portfolio is one of the most annoying things. The link to my portfolio was in my "Freelancer" post and you could take the domain from my email address and paste that in a browser address bar if you want to know who I am. Also, the request said " It'd be great if in your reply, you could tell me experience / portfolio sites directly relevant to our requirements and setup". That requires thoughtfulness and time.
- dylanhassinger 14y ago
  for realz. blog + portfolio + about page should take like 2 seconds to send
  - Terretta 14y ago
    If you "take like 2 seconds" to prepare and send a detailed quote and estimate, I'm never hiring you.
    - reinhardt 14y ago
      He mentioned (pasting links to) blog/portfolio/about page, not detailed quote and estimate.
      - Terretta 14y ago
        Exactly. That omission costs him the job.
- halfasleep 14y ago
  In both cases, it would depend on the nature of your work and the kind of client. If your work varies, you may want to highlight some areas of your portfolio to be more appropriate for a specific pitch. Similarly, a quote is rarely as simple as "you want a website/design/some sysadmin work, that'll be $price". You need to evaluate the task in order to give a sensible idea of your costs.
bdcravens 14y ago
As a freelancer I understand where you're coming from. On the other hand, we're a business. How many times have we gone into a store, and are "just looking"? Went to a lot, test drove a car, and said we needed to leave and "think about it"? Called prospective businesses for pricing and never followed up with them? Part of doing business is servicing those who may not be paying customers. You must have that time margin built in. Is it rude for potential customers to not follow up, even to let us know nothing's happening? Maybe. I'd never call a lot back to let them know I was just prospecting, either. If your freelance practice can't bear to lose time like this, you need to rethink your pricing or your chosen profession.
- binaryorganic 14y ago
  You're thinking about time spent designing/coding as a commodity, which it isn't. A storefront selling widgets exists explicitly to handle a never-ending stream of potential customers, but the investment per customer is very low. When someone calls and asks for days or weeks of my time to put a quote together (pre-sale & often without pay). And then, if the quote moves forward to billable work, there's an expectation that I'll immediately block off months of my time to hold up my end of the bargain. I think the relationship is quite different than someone merely "selling something", and should be treated as such.
- roland37 14y ago
  I think the analogies you make to other types of sales aren't terribly strong. Walking through a brick and mortar store without buying anything takes effectively no time from the business - they can handle many customers in parallel. By contrast, calling prospective business or test driving a car does involve at least acknowledging the seller. You might not tell them you've bought a different car, but you also don't hear the proposed price and hang up the phone without a word, which is a closer analogy to getting an offer and replying with nothing, not even a form letter.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- kevingadd 14y ago
  I'm not sure you read the OP? He's talking about companies contacting HIM to ask his rates and then not responding once he offers it? Hence the use of the term 'spam'?
- Terretta 14y ago
  Word of advice for responding to OPs: read the post before telling OP they're doing it wrong. OP: "asking for a very detailed quote, portfolio examples and an estimate..." You: "when you send a resume out and don't get a reply" These are not the same. A response to an RFP is not a "cold resume". It's not an application. It's custom, one off, strategic work at the requester's request, and deserves at least an acknowledgement.
- joonix 14y ago
  People who are too busy to handle the hiring process should NOT post job ads. Period. That's what OP is talking about -- disrespect. If you place an ad, with very detailed requirements, and are not prepared to handle the process of application intake and processing, then you are wasting everyone's time and showing blatant disrespect to candidates.
codegeek 14y ago
Why is it so difficult to comprehend that if you contact me first and I write you back, you should write back again even if you don't want me anymore. If I contacted you first, it will still be nice to hear back but I will not lose my sleep over it.
- ritchiea 14y ago
  I agree this is pretty clear. Why is it so difficult?
steven2012 14y ago
I'm not sure at what point the Valley decided that it was okay to not respond back to applicants once they were no longer interested, but it's terribly unprofessional behavior. I had an interview with a very established dotcom in San Jose, and I went through 5 interviews and talked salary with the director of the group, and then they stopped responding to my emails for some unknown reason. I emailed him directly asking for feedback, as well as the recruiters, and it was radio silence. I applied to a bunch of companies last year, and was in the middle of the process with many of them when I decided on the company I was going to work for. I wrote them all an email notifying them, but thanking them for the opportunity to meet with them. A few startups didn't even bother responding back, but I did receive some nice emails back from some companies thanking me for letting them know, and wishing me luck at my job, and if things didn't work out, to contact them again. I'm not saying I needed to be treated like royalty, but basic common courtesy goes a long way. As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are.
- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  >As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are. This is really an underappreciated bit of wisdom here. The true nature of a person is revealed by how they treat those that are "beneath" them (socially) or are otherwise not useful to them. Someone who is rude and demanding to waitstaff, or rude to a stranger passing by is someone who will eventually turn on you once you are no longer beneficial to them. Take these instances as warnings.
  - neilbowers 14y ago
    “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” — Malcolm S. Forbes
  - klaut 14y ago
    Totally agree. Even worse is when a company promotes a certain set of values on their blog and elsewhere but then fails to actually be what they "preach" :|
maxent 14y ago
As a freelancer, you can put a great deal of time into carefully considering the needs of a new/prospective client, developing a preliminary plan for the project and preparing a carefully considered estimate. This is typically done gratis. It is in one's best interest to spend this prospecting time on the highest likelihood/value prospective clients. Behavior like the spam-and-ignore on behalf of some of these companies reflects poorly on the group and will make the best freelancers reluctant to participate. As an aside for freelancers, I recommend following Brennan Dunn's work: http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint He does _so_ much for the freelancer community.
fridek 14y ago
This is why I used to ask some upfront payment for price estimation. Not much but enough to find if someone is serious and targeting me or if it's just a mass email to hundreds of people. In latter case I stood zero chance against students who would quote $100 for virtually anything.
gus_massa 14y ago
Just to clarify a detail: There are like ~500 official YC backed startups, but many also independent companies read the freelance/hiring thread. You are complaining that many of the YC-startups didn't answer or there were generic companies?
- rhizome 14y ago
  I think it's apparent from the post that it's about companies responding to posts in a news.yc thread. It's not a VC thing.
namank 14y ago
I started doing a litmus test with a 1-3 liner where I give them points for professionalism/courteousness. The ones that pass are amazing people to get to know, not just work with. Though I might be generalizing too much, I found it separates the ones with sincerity. It's not just YC, it's founders all over.
shubb 14y ago
Asking for a detailed quote (where the one time effort taken to create the quote is significant compared to the value of the contract) probably isn't reasonable. If you ask 500 freelancers to spend a day making a quote for a months work, you just cost many times your contract value. A suggestion: A better way is to describe the contract, and provide a brief 'pre-qualification questionnaire' where a candidate proves that it is worth both your time proceeding. After that, you invite bids from the top say 6 applicants, and work with them to get the best bid possible.
malachismith 14y ago
Anyone interested in putting something together so that we can start aggregating the worst violators? I know I'd use that list not just to filter out the time-wasters but also to apply pain-pricing.
- usernamepc 14y ago
  May I humbly suggest my site http://www.oncontracting.com http://www.oncontracting.com I'm still testing it in Seattle but would happily work on adding new content from elsewhere.
pc86 14y ago
I sent about half a dozen follow up or introduction emails emails out between April's two threads for contract work. Some were extremely detailed, offering portfolio samples, repository URLs, even contact information of former clients as references. Not a single response, not even to say "no longer looking, but thanks!" I can't think of anything in a professional context that is more rude or disrespectful. If I spent half an hour writing a customized email and giving you 100% of the information you need and you can't spend 30 seconds to tell me you're not interested, you're just a bad person. That's all there is to it.
otikik 14y ago
> I don't forget which companies are rude and don't hesitate to tell others about my experience with you Well, do tell others. Where are the names?
jsavimbi 14y ago
> at least have the courtesy to respond It may occur to someone that the person begging for resumes is nothing other than a low-level gnat who is fishing for applicants in the hopes of landing a scouting fee. After receiving no response from someone listing positions on HN, I worked myself into their company's recruiting workflow and landed an hour-long phone screen with the very same unresponsive individual. Turns out he was a turd and I was overqualified for the job. A simple salary query would've sufficed.
aray 14y ago
Relationships with potential contractors, or anyone, really require the same two things: respect and communication. Replying--even a short message--in this case would satisfy this; you respect them enough to recognize their effort on your behalf, and communicate that this (for the time being) will be the end of your interest.
Udo 14y ago
My experience is similar: From time to time I partake in the HN freelancer thread. Not that I ever got any business out of it. I still think in principle it would be nice to do business with fellow HNers, that's why I keep trying it. Usually, I get about 2-3 inquiries per month from the Freelancer thread - by far most of these from people who apparently came through a search engine and aren't HN users at all. Of these, 2 are general carpet bombing mails, asking me for things that I didn't advertise and can't/won't provide ("would you like to move to Berlin and work as an entry-level tech support person?"). Sometimes, that leaves one real contact. Here's where things start to get on my nerves: there will typically be an exchange of 3 to 4 emails back and forth. It starts with a project introduction (which is often excellently detailed), then we're moving on to references and code samples, then we're talking fees (even though I explicitly state them on my profile website), after which it's all "I'll totally do this project with you", and after that: nothing. In two cases, there were even 30+ minutes Skype conversations, all for nothing of course. Last month I decided to do something different, be more proactive: I sent out emails to people looking for freelancers on HN. Same procedure (see above), same results. But I got something very interesting out of it: a few of them told me they received upwards of 30 applicants! Holy crap, even for the lamer job postings! It's now clear to me why the freelancer thread doesn't work, at least for "normal" HNers like me. As a freelancer, there is so much competition, the chances of success are exceedingly slim. Companies are drowning in applicants. Of course they're going to choose either the cheapest one, or if you're lucky enough to inhabit something of a niche, the most famous one. So why are they not responding? Why are they just breaking off communication after a short exchange? Because they don't have any reason to value our time. There are just so many of us.
- coolsunglasses 14y ago
  Reading this made me despair. Getting contract work online should be a last resort.
  - Udo 14y ago
    I don't really need it, it's just a point of interest. But yeah, I feel bad for people who have to live on this. Especially those with decent skills, it's very hard to compete in an environment that is polluted to the brim. It's the same with commercial freelancer sites, by the way. Tons of lame projects, many of them quite shady or illegal, with absolute rock-bottom budgets and dozens of "developers" fighting over scraps. Experiences like this make me think our profession truly is in the toilet right now. A view weeks ago I chided a commenter on HN for saying the software employment situation is a buyer's market and thus he has trouble treating programmers with respect. I can see why that is, though.
hashtree 14y ago
This is the single most frustrating thing I experience when I freelance from time to time. It is also the reason I don't use that thread. I am often willing to give decent sized discounts for people who communicate well. I'll take the cut in pay for someone who is courteous and responds in a somewhat quickly manner. I should NOT be more excited and engaged about your project than you are. It has gotten to the point lately I will turn down sizable jobs because of their lack of communication. It isn't worth the hassle.
iamjamie 14y ago
There's no excuse for ANY company to totally fail to respond to applicants in the present day. There are so many automated HR and recruitment platforms out there now, it's poor on the part of non-responding companies and illustrates what kind of people are running the ship. This, 'we're a startup and too busy to eat' crap is nothing short of a lame excuse.
orangethirty 14y ago
You are seeing this with an employee mindset. As a freelancer, you are a one man business. Thus, you get treated as such. Businesses don't usually have the common courtesy you described. Let me ask you a question? Have you ever stopped ignoring a sales person? Even after they gave you their time in order to try and close the sale? Did you say "Hmm, I should be courteous and let them know how much I appreciate it"? No, you did not. Because you know that's part of their job. Getting rejected. Getting ignored. Part of being a freelancer is being rejected, and being ignored. No one owes you anything. This is business. Rather than making a fool out of yourself publicly (and reducing any potential client you might have had here), why don't you decide to polish up your sales skills? Maybe improve your marketing?
- caw 14y ago
  I've never ignored a sales person that I initiated contact with, which I believe is the topic of this discussion. If it gets to the point that you're not interested, you tell them as such. It's corteous, and if you want to look at it in the self-serving point of view, you stop the repeat phone calls and emails because you just fell off the face of the earth after asking for information.

213 points by Mc_Big_G 14y ago

ScottWhigham 14y ago

My first thought was, "Isn't this sort of like job hunting? It's unrealistic to expect a company advertising a job to respond to each and every resume, regardless of how much time the user put into it. For the same reason, I would guess the "Freelancer" threads would be the same way." But the more I think about it, the more I agree with you. The difference here is that these people personally reached out to you, rather than you just sending something to "hr-resumes@intel.com" or whatever. So yeah, makes sense to me.

nthj 14y ago
I think more companies could do with having an intern or assistant to help handle these kinds of things. No, you don't want your $1K/hour CEO manually replying to 150 emails, but having someone who represents the company simply acknowledge your existence goes a long way towards good will. It's the same with client relationships: we may be neck-deep in server fires at the moment, and know there's no way we'll be able to fix something today, let alone before the end of the week, but simply having someone reply "Yes, we'll handle this, and I'll take care of following up with the development team for you and get back with you shortly" goes a long, long way to putting a client at ease.
- rhizome 14y ago
  No, you don't want your $1K/hour CEO manually replying to 150 emails Isn't it a fundamental startup-culture tenet that the CEO should be a "whatever needs to be done" actor within the company?
  - nthj 14y ago
    Yes, in so far as he needs to be that actor -to keep the creatives from having to context switch.- To borrow Spolsky's yacht analogy, the captain has 40 people running around below deck to ensure that the engine keeps running, the beds get made, and the meals show up on time. You don't want your customers (your developers and your designers) to have to think about anything besides where they want to go and what to have for lunch. But it'd be a pretty inefficient boat captain who tried to rebuild the engine and cook a 5-star meal at the same time.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      I don't think rebuilding the engine and 5-star cookery are apt analogies for replying to emails spurred by the company's own inquiries.
  - chollida1 14y ago
    > Isn't it a fundamental startup-culture tenet that the CEO should be a "whatever needs to be done" actor within the company? I think you're taking this too far. your statement is true if they have nothing else to do. However, if the company needs money and the choice is between your CEO fundraising or answering emails then I'd rather have my CEO fundraising. There are only so many hours in a day and you can't expect your CEO to do all tasks that no one else wants to do.
- namdnay 14y ago
  > I think more companies could do with having an intern Is this allowed in the US? In several European countries, legislation on interns is very strict: they need to have a specific project to work on, that is not part of the day-to-day functions of the host company. This is to stop companies depressing the wage market by using unprotected interns instead of salaried workers. So you can take an intern to design and launch a new recruitment process, or other "project" work, but not just to offload recurring tasks.
  - nicolaus 14y ago
    You can't substitute a cheaper intern for a full time employee in the US for the same reasons you state. It's even questionable to have interns working on anything that adds to the bottom line of your business.
koopajah 14y ago
Why is it unrealistic to expect a company to respond to each and every resume? I can understand a "personalized" response to be unrealistic. But at least a simple automatic e-mail saying "Thank you for applying, regretfully the position is now filled" or anything indicating "don't wait for an answer" should be the norm. Especially with a lot of large companies indicating that an answer could take up to 2 months.
- alecdibble 14y ago
  This. All it takes is an auto-responding filter. It is one of the shittiest feelings to send a resume to a company and get no response. I've done it many times, and I have had many no-responses. The feeling never got less shitty.
- ScottWhigham 14y ago
  There are tons of reasons. I'm not trying to be rude but, IMO, not being able to see some of the reasons implies to me that you haven't done much interviewing/hiring. The most likely reason is to stay "in charge" of your interviewing process. If Johnny sends in a resume and he is unqualified, what do you say? "Thanks, Johnny, but you are not a fit for our organization. Best of luck!" Form letter. Awesome - that makes someone feel better? Okay... Anyway, here's the problem: Johnny writes back and asks, "What is it that I could have done differently?" Do you respond? If you do, what do you say when he writes back yet again (and again and again)? "Scott - this is the kind of guy you want to hire! He's persistent!" Oh really? So that's all it takes to get the job you are hiring for - persistence? Of course not. "But you can take a guy like that and train him - he'll be great, I bet!" Will he? What's your proof? He's already shown you that he's trying to punch above his weight and that he's okay with that. He's already shown you that he's kind of a PIA. What makes you so optimistic about his ability to learn? The point is that there are lots of reasons that employers don't continue the dialog, but this is a major one. No company wants to pay someone $25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the Johnnys of the world ad infinitum. And as for companies getting interns to reply, that's just ridiculous IMO. What CEO wants interns to be in charge of replying to job applicants? That's awful. At BEST you can train them not to *#$& up a form letter.

alecdibble 14y ago

Frequently, people in a hiring position treat prospective candidates like cattle. They forget there is a human being behind that resume or portfolio. All it takes is a reply like this: "Hello _______, We are very appreciative that you took the time to send us your _______. Once we get a chance to review your ______, we will contact if you we feel like you are a good fit. Best Regards, _____________"

bfish510 14y ago
Even just an automated response to know it arrived to the correct place. Treat the application like TCP rather than UDP.
- madisonmay 14y ago
  Haha, I love the network protocol analogies that crop up here.
arbuge 14y ago
Works both ways in my experience. Whenever I was hiring I always got spammed by many candidates who were obviously sending out their resumes to large numbers of jobs without even bothering to read the descriptions or application instructions.
- alecdibble 14y ago
  That's a fair point. In that case, wouldn't an automated reply be a fair solution?
- xtracto 14y ago
  This reminded me of the time I got a Resume from someone applying for a software-engineering job. The guy somehow thought that putting "Sandwich Artist" as part of his work experience was valuable for his application. This, on a 2-page resume which could have been easily reduced to 1-page. I got the resume before the first phone screen... he did not do well.

jonathanjaeger 14y ago

I think some people are confusing people who "apply" for jobs vs. startups actually going after a freelancer to help them. If someone applies for a job it would certainly be good business practice to give a personalized or automated response acknowledging receipt of a resume or portfolio. If a startup specifically reaches out to a freelancer, by spamming all the freelancers as OP puts it, then the startups better respond to the people who respond to them!

maxent 14y ago
Yes, this. As a group, it's a bad practice that will result in reluctance to respond on the part of the best freelancers.
alecdibble 14y ago
I don't feel like people are confusing anything. The issue is being generalized from a specific problem. In either case, it is rude not to respond.
- jonathanjaeger 14y ago
  I agree in both cases it is rude not to respond. But in one case the potential employer is the one who reached out first. For example, when I got out of college I brushed off the fact that an employer didn't respond to my resume at all. That didn't make me angry. What did make me confused was someone who specifically reached out to me to try to hire me through email and a phone call and then fell off the face of the earth when I followed up via email with a resume and more details. Sure that person might have been busy and had more important hires to make than a post-grad, but it was still rude and I probably won't forget it.
  - DigitalBison 14y ago
    Yup. I had a similar experience in college when I applied for an internship at Facebook, got back an enthusiastic-sounding response asking me for my availability for a phone screen, and then the recruiter dropped off the face of the earth and never responded to me again.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Mc_Big_G 14y ago
Actually, asking for my portfolio is one of the most annoying things. The link to my portfolio was in my "Freelancer" post and you could take the domain from my email address and paste that in a browser address bar if you want to know who I am. Also, the request said " It'd be great if in your reply, you could tell me experience / portfolio sites directly relevant to our requirements and setup". That requires thoughtfulness and time.
dylanhassinger 14y ago
for realz. blog + portfolio + about page should take like 2 seconds to send
- Terretta 14y ago
  If you "take like 2 seconds" to prepare and send a detailed quote and estimate, I'm never hiring you.
  - reinhardt 14y ago
    He mentioned (pasting links to) blog/portfolio/about page, not detailed quote and estimate.
    - Terretta 14y ago
      Exactly. That omission costs him the job.
halfasleep 14y ago
In both cases, it would depend on the nature of your work and the kind of client. If your work varies, you may want to highlight some areas of your portfolio to be more appropriate for a specific pitch. Similarly, a quote is rarely as simple as "you want a website/design/some sysadmin work, that'll be $price". You need to evaluate the task in order to give a sensible idea of your costs.

bdcravens 14y ago

As a freelancer I understand where you're coming from. On the other hand, we're a business. How many times have we gone into a store, and are "just looking"? Went to a lot, test drove a car, and said we needed to leave and "think about it"? Called prospective businesses for pricing and never followed up with them? Part of doing business is servicing those who may not be paying customers. You must have that time margin built in. Is it rude for potential customers to not follow up, even to let us know nothing's happening? Maybe. I'd never call a lot back to let them know I was just prospecting, either. If your freelance practice can't bear to lose time like this, you need to rethink your pricing or your chosen profession.

binaryorganic 14y ago
You're thinking about time spent designing/coding as a commodity, which it isn't. A storefront selling widgets exists explicitly to handle a never-ending stream of potential customers, but the investment per customer is very low. When someone calls and asks for days or weeks of my time to put a quote together (pre-sale & often without pay). And then, if the quote moves forward to billable work, there's an expectation that I'll immediately block off months of my time to hold up my end of the bargain. I think the relationship is quite different than someone merely "selling something", and should be treated as such.
roland37 14y ago
I think the analogies you make to other types of sales aren't terribly strong. Walking through a brick and mortar store without buying anything takes effectively no time from the business - they can handle many customers in parallel. By contrast, calling prospective business or test driving a car does involve at least acknowledging the seller. You might not tell them you've bought a different car, but you also don't hear the proposed price and hang up the phone without a word, which is a closer analogy to getting an offer and replying with nothing, not even a form letter.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

kevingadd 14y ago
I'm not sure you read the OP? He's talking about companies contacting HIM to ask his rates and then not responding once he offers it? Hence the use of the term 'spam'?
Terretta 14y ago
Word of advice for responding to OPs: read the post before telling OP they're doing it wrong. OP: "asking for a very detailed quote, portfolio examples and an estimate..." You: "when you send a resume out and don't get a reply" These are not the same. A response to an RFP is not a "cold resume". It's not an application. It's custom, one off, strategic work at the requester's request, and deserves at least an acknowledgement.
joonix 14y ago
People who are too busy to handle the hiring process should NOT post job ads. Period. That's what OP is talking about -- disrespect. If you place an ad, with very detailed requirements, and are not prepared to handle the process of application intake and processing, then you are wasting everyone's time and showing blatant disrespect to candidates.

codegeek 14y ago

Why is it so difficult to comprehend that if you contact me first and I write you back, you should write back again even if you don't want me anymore. If I contacted you first, it will still be nice to hear back but I will not lose my sleep over it.

ritchiea 14y ago
I agree this is pretty clear. Why is it so difficult?

steven2012 14y ago

I'm not sure at what point the Valley decided that it was okay to not respond back to applicants once they were no longer interested, but it's terribly unprofessional behavior. I had an interview with a very established dotcom in San Jose, and I went through 5 interviews and talked salary with the director of the group, and then they stopped responding to my emails for some unknown reason. I emailed him directly asking for feedback, as well as the recruiters, and it was radio silence. I applied to a bunch of companies last year, and was in the middle of the process with many of them when I decided on the company I was going to work for. I wrote them all an email notifying them, but thanking them for the opportunity to meet with them. A few startups didn't even bother responding back, but I did receive some nice emails back from some companies thanking me for letting them know, and wishing me luck at my job, and if things didn't work out, to contact them again. I'm not saying I needed to be treated like royalty, but basic common courtesy goes a long way. As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are.

hackinthebochs 14y ago
>As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are. This is really an underappreciated bit of wisdom here. The true nature of a person is revealed by how they treat those that are "beneath" them (socially) or are otherwise not useful to them. Someone who is rude and demanding to waitstaff, or rude to a stranger passing by is someone who will eventually turn on you once you are no longer beneficial to them. Take these instances as warnings.
- neilbowers 14y ago
  “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” — Malcolm S. Forbes
- klaut 14y ago
  Totally agree. Even worse is when a company promotes a certain set of values on their blog and elsewhere but then fails to actually be what they "preach" :|

maxent 14y ago

As a freelancer, you can put a great deal of time into carefully considering the needs of a new/prospective client, developing a preliminary plan for the project and preparing a carefully considered estimate. This is typically done gratis. It is in one's best interest to spend this prospecting time on the highest likelihood/value prospective clients. Behavior like the spam-and-ignore on behalf of some of these companies reflects poorly on the group and will make the best freelancers reluctant to participate. As an aside for freelancers, I recommend following Brennan Dunn's work: http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint He does _so_ much for the freelancer community.

fridek 14y ago

This is why I used to ask some upfront payment for price estimation. Not much but enough to find if someone is serious and targeting me or if it's just a mass email to hundreds of people. In latter case I stood zero chance against students who would quote $100 for virtually anything.

gus_massa 14y ago

Just to clarify a detail: There are like ~500 official YC backed startups, but many also independent companies read the freelance/hiring thread. You are complaining that many of the YC-startups didn't answer or there were generic companies?

rhizome 14y ago
I think it's apparent from the post that it's about companies responding to posts in a news.yc thread. It's not a VC thing.

namank 14y ago

I started doing a litmus test with a 1-3 liner where I give them points for professionalism/courteousness. The ones that pass are amazing people to get to know, not just work with. Though I might be generalizing too much, I found it separates the ones with sincerity. It's not just YC, it's founders all over.

shubb 14y ago

Asking for a detailed quote (where the one time effort taken to create the quote is significant compared to the value of the contract) probably isn't reasonable. If you ask 500 freelancers to spend a day making a quote for a months work, you just cost many times your contract value. A suggestion: A better way is to describe the contract, and provide a brief 'pre-qualification questionnaire' where a candidate proves that it is worth both your time proceeding. After that, you invite bids from the top say 6 applicants, and work with them to get the best bid possible.

malachismith 14y ago

Anyone interested in putting something together so that we can start aggregating the worst violators? I know I'd use that list not just to filter out the time-wasters but also to apply pain-pricing.

usernamepc 14y ago
May I humbly suggest my site http://www.oncontracting.com http://www.oncontracting.com I'm still testing it in Seattle but would happily work on adding new content from elsewhere.

pc86 14y ago

I sent about half a dozen follow up or introduction emails emails out between April's two threads for contract work. Some were extremely detailed, offering portfolio samples, repository URLs, even contact information of former clients as references. Not a single response, not even to say "no longer looking, but thanks!" I can't think of anything in a professional context that is more rude or disrespectful. If I spent half an hour writing a customized email and giving you 100% of the information you need and you can't spend 30 seconds to tell me you're not interested, you're just a bad person. That's all there is to it.

otikik 14y ago

> I don't forget which companies are rude and don't hesitate to tell others about my experience with you Well, do tell others. Where are the names?

jsavimbi 14y ago

> at least have the courtesy to respond It may occur to someone that the person begging for resumes is nothing other than a low-level gnat who is fishing for applicants in the hopes of landing a scouting fee. After receiving no response from someone listing positions on HN, I worked myself into their company's recruiting workflow and landed an hour-long phone screen with the very same unresponsive individual. Turns out he was a turd and I was overqualified for the job. A simple salary query would've sufficed.

aray 14y ago

Relationships with potential contractors, or anyone, really require the same two things: respect and communication. Replying--even a short message--in this case would satisfy this; you respect them enough to recognize their effort on your behalf, and communicate that this (for the time being) will be the end of your interest.

Udo 14y ago

My experience is similar: From time to time I partake in the HN freelancer thread. Not that I ever got any business out of it. I still think in principle it would be nice to do business with fellow HNers, that's why I keep trying it. Usually, I get about 2-3 inquiries per month from the Freelancer thread - by far most of these from people who apparently came through a search engine and aren't HN users at all. Of these, 2 are general carpet bombing mails, asking me for things that I didn't advertise and can't/won't provide ("would you like to move to Berlin and work as an entry-level tech support person?"). Sometimes, that leaves one real contact. Here's where things start to get on my nerves: there will typically be an exchange of 3 to 4 emails back and forth. It starts with a project introduction (which is often excellently detailed), then we're moving on to references and code samples, then we're talking fees (even though I explicitly state them on my profile website), after which it's all "I'll totally do this project with you", and after that: nothing. In two cases, there were even 30+ minutes Skype conversations, all for nothing of course. Last month I decided to do something different, be more proactive: I sent out emails to people looking for freelancers on HN. Same procedure (see above), same results. But I got something very interesting out of it: a few of them told me they received upwards of 30 applicants! Holy crap, even for the lamer job postings! It's now clear to me why the freelancer thread doesn't work, at least for "normal" HNers like me. As a freelancer, there is so much competition, the chances of success are exceedingly slim. Companies are drowning in applicants. Of course they're going to choose either the cheapest one, or if you're lucky enough to inhabit something of a niche, the most famous one. So why are they not responding? Why are they just breaking off communication after a short exchange? Because they don't have any reason to value our time. There are just so many of us.

coolsunglasses 14y ago
Reading this made me despair. Getting contract work online should be a last resort.
- Udo 14y ago
  I don't really need it, it's just a point of interest. But yeah, I feel bad for people who have to live on this. Especially those with decent skills, it's very hard to compete in an environment that is polluted to the brim. It's the same with commercial freelancer sites, by the way. Tons of lame projects, many of them quite shady or illegal, with absolute rock-bottom budgets and dozens of "developers" fighting over scraps. Experiences like this make me think our profession truly is in the toilet right now. A view weeks ago I chided a commenter on HN for saying the software employment situation is a buyer's market and thus he has trouble treating programmers with respect. I can see why that is, though.

hashtree 14y ago

This is the single most frustrating thing I experience when I freelance from time to time. It is also the reason I don't use that thread. I am often willing to give decent sized discounts for people who communicate well. I'll take the cut in pay for someone who is courteous and responds in a somewhat quickly manner. I should NOT be more excited and engaged about your project than you are. It has gotten to the point lately I will turn down sizable jobs because of their lack of communication. It isn't worth the hassle.

iamjamie 14y ago

There's no excuse for ANY company to totally fail to respond to applicants in the present day. There are so many automated HR and recruitment platforms out there now, it's poor on the part of non-responding companies and illustrates what kind of people are running the ship. This, 'we're a startup and too busy to eat' crap is nothing short of a lame excuse.

orangethirty 14y ago

You are seeing this with an employee mindset. As a freelancer, you are a one man business. Thus, you get treated as such. Businesses don't usually have the common courtesy you described. Let me ask you a question? Have you ever stopped ignoring a sales person? Even after they gave you their time in order to try and close the sale? Did you say "Hmm, I should be courteous and let them know how much I appreciate it"? No, you did not. Because you know that's part of their job. Getting rejected. Getting ignored. Part of being a freelancer is being rejected, and being ignored. No one owes you anything. This is business. Rather than making a fool out of yourself publicly (and reducing any potential client you might have had here), why don't you decide to polish up your sales skills? Maybe improve your marketing?

caw 14y ago
I've never ignored a sales person that I initiated contact with, which I believe is the topic of this discussion. If it gets to the point that you're not interested, you tell them as such. It's corteous, and if you want to look at it in the self-serving point of view, you stop the repeat phone calls and emails because you just fell off the face of the earth after asking for information.