6 ms·

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, regardle

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.

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.