9 ms·

Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret: AngelList is disrupting the hiring industry

68 points by durga 12y ago

sundvor 12y ago
If anyone else finds the poor contrast / thin fonts hard to read, ctrl+a to select all text is as always a neat trick.
- durga 12y ago
  Didn't realize that. What machine are you reading it on? Looked ok on my Mac.
  - raquo 12y ago
    It's too light for me too. Mac, Firefox. It's probably readable in perfect conditions (indoors, low ambient light), but if you're tired or it's sunny it becomes uncomfortable.
    - durga 12y ago
      We tested on chrome. That's a lesson.
      - durga 12y ago
        Fixed.
  - WildUtah 12y ago
    Still tiny, moire pattern painful to read on non-retina Mac w/ Safari. I checked Chrome, too; it's clearly less awful but not good.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  I do the same thing to read heavily down voted posts on FR. (Morbid curiosity.)
- durga 12y ago
  Fixed now.
  - sundvor 12y ago
    Thanks, huge improvement! Was using Chrome in Windows 7, on a rather old Dell monitor at work. After working on WCAG 2.0 compliance on my own sites I have ironically gotten more sensitive to poor contrast ratios everywhere.
falsestprophet 12y ago
"Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret: AngelList is disrupting the hiring industry", or "AngelList is useful for hiring people (as just about everyone already knows)" Is AngelList Jobs unknown (never mind a secret!) amongst start up founders (who generally have AngelList profile for both themselves and their companies)? Is this job board "disrupting" the hiring industry which is composed of other job boards and recruiters that post to other job boards?
- durga 12y ago
  You're right. It's very useful for hiring. But that's not really well known.
- durga 12y ago
  Very much so. Getting so many high quality applications in such a short time is not disruptive to the recruiting industry. Then what is? If you're familiar with how recruiters work or the general quality and response on job boards, it's hard to characterize it as anything short of disruptive.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Did any of your applicants explain why they listed on AngelList instead of other sites?
    - durga 12y ago
      I'll aks them for you :)
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    Then what is it? It's every job board at this stage of the hype curve. It's got critical mass among it's niche and it's not yet hit the big numbers and experienced the inevitable regression to the mean.
    - durga 12y ago
simi_ 12y ago
I got my current job in Germany via AngelList, although I was living in UK at the time. I got several other interesting options in Europe too. It's definitely a great tool in my book.
- durga 12y ago
  Congrats
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
The last time I looked at them, the salaries and equity shares advertised on many of their job listings were mostly chuckle-worthy at best. Some were appallingly lowball. If they're truly "disrupting" the hiring industry, it certainly isn't to the benefit of the labor pool.
- durga 12y ago
  AL doesn't really have any control on that. But they could suggest best practices. One reason we got so many applicants is maybe because our compensation feels fair.
  - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    Certainly AL doesn't control what companies offer. I can't comment on "so many applicants". It is entirely subjective and without context (e.g. for quality of applicant, on any scale you choose). All I can say about it is this: when I narrow the region to my region and the compensation range so that my current compensation is the low end of the bar, the pickings are very, very thin (and I'm pretty sure I'm being paid less than similarly experienced and capable engineers can command, for a variety of reasons). I have a hard time picturing anybody but a desperate or naive person taking most of the listings seriously.
    - durga 12y ago
      If you are saying that density of jobs posted varies by region I totally agree - that sounds reasonable. I don't want to defend other companies postings but that's a somewhat weak generalization to make, esp for Silicon Valley.
      - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
        No, I'm saying that when I add a compensation bracket with the low end matching (slightly below, actually) my current compensation, the number of listings in my region/role specification falls substantially. This has nothing to do with the absolute density of jobs in the region. And, by the way, the salaries attached to over 90% of the listings I see (by region/role only--no filter for compensation or anything else) are a joke especially in Silicon Valley, even for startups (which typically offer low salary to begin with), although the equities are, sadly, not terribly out of line.
mc32 12y ago
I imagine if it become mainstream, it'll not have the same level of talent and it'd become just another board. It will remain special so long as it does not broaden. So long as it focuses on the creme, then it'll disrupt that 'market' but it cannot disrupt the 'hiring industry' because at that point, it would become diluted and another 'disruptor' would cater to the 'cream'.
- durga 12y ago
  You could say that about discussion forums too. But reddit and HN would disagree. Quality has to be managed and maintained. It's plausible to me that by designing the right mechanisms you could scale AL and maintain quality.
  - EarthLaunch 12y ago
    HN and Reddit have not maintained quality, particularly Reddit. They might disagree, yes; for that very reason.
    - durga 12y ago
      It's somewhat hard to argue with a generalization like this. It's like saying: you give loans to 100 people meeting some very specific criteria, and the return rate is great. When you scale it to a million, the return rate isn't the same any more. Of course the return rate won't be the same with 1 million people. But if you are grameen bank (http://www.grameen-info.org/ http://www.grameen-info.org/), you institute mechanisms so keep the return rates high. That doesn't mean that there are no defaulters at grameen bank. It just means they were able to work creatively on a problem and actually meet their metrics (maybe sligtly relaxed) at very high scales. It's non-trivial, but not impossible. I think a measure of low quality is: do users/participants actually stop using it because of bad quality? It's a point of debate, but for me HN's quality is as good (probably better) that it was several years ago. Just my opinion.
  - mc32 12y ago
    HN is very industry specific. It would be like saying HN is disrupting forums. It's not. It has a very specific audience. Reddit has lots of above average and also has below average forums too. So, yes, the AL jobs board could become the board for all jobs, but then, it'd hardly be better than job boards now. Seen another way, let's say the top talent is 10,000 individuals. There are way more positions and candidates than that out there. So if they became the Reddit of job boards, they'd have tens (dom)/hundreds (int'l) of millions of applicants in search of tens (dom)/hundreds (int'l) of millions of jobs. Neither the applicants nor jobs are going to become "great" just because they are on the Angellist board.
ericdykstra 12y ago
It's great on the applicant side, too. I got my last job from AngelList, and they have gotten me the best-quality leads (apart from referrals from friends) this time around as well. The profile has most of the relevant information for job-seekers that you would never get from an intro from a recruiter (investors, total investment, etc). Salaries are always negotiable, but seeing them up-front gives you a good idea of what the company is looking at paying.
- durga 12y ago
  Yes, some of that company information is written with investors in mind, but AL allows you to share that with job candidates. Since that doesn't really contain super-sentitive info, it's almost a no-brainer to share with candidates (at least for us).
- johan_larson 12y ago
  It would be nice to have a bit more transparency on salaries. Yes, they are negotiable, but only within narrow bands. And if you ask for anything outside of those bands, the result is often not a counteroffer, but dropping the discussion entirely. That makes it time-consuming to determine what the market rate for your skill-set actually is, particularly since the "no"s don't typically come with reasons attached.
amorphid 12y ago
AngelList is acting as a niche job board. It's definitely cool, but I wouldn't call it disruptive or revolutionary. As soon as people figure out how to use it as an efficient hiring channel, AngelList will become saturated with companies hiring & candidates looking, just like every other formerly disruptive hiring channel.
shaunrussell 12y ago
We've had great success hiring from AngelList. More than half of our team at this point.
- durga 12y ago
  Congratulations. Can you share some insights into what works well for attractive engineers, esp on AL?
Animats 12y ago
I dunno. I tried advertising on AngelList for someone to make big-ticket sales to big companies. I keep getting responses from people who claim to be able to grow website traffic.
- durga 12y ago
  Having worked in enterprise companies, I'd conjecture that enterprise sales guys are not using AL much yet. Just a matter of time though..
CalRobert 12y ago
I propose we change every occurrence of "disrupt" to "perturb". Or better yet: "Angellist is promoting perturbations" Seems more appropriate, and I'm sick of seeing "disrupt" everywhere.
OpenDrapery 12y ago
This is my favorite bit: "I emailed everyone I knew, posted the job on LinkedIn, got it posted to the jobs list at several universities, and also posted on some paid sites. End result: nothing very good to show for all the effort." Exactly how much effort was 'all the effort'? Did it take you all of 2 hours to post the job on several sites?

68 points by durga 12y ago

sundvor 12y ago

If anyone else finds the poor contrast / thin fonts hard to read, ctrl+a to select all text is as always a neat trick.

durga 12y ago
Didn't realize that. What machine are you reading it on? Looked ok on my Mac.
- raquo 12y ago
  It's too light for me too. Mac, Firefox. It's probably readable in perfect conditions (indoors, low ambient light), but if you're tired or it's sunny it becomes uncomfortable.
  - durga 12y ago
    We tested on chrome. That's a lesson.
    - durga 12y ago
      Fixed.
- WildUtah 12y ago
  Still tiny, moire pattern painful to read on non-retina Mac w/ Safari. I checked Chrome, too; it's clearly less awful but not good.
ctdonath 12y ago
I do the same thing to read heavily down voted posts on FR. (Morbid curiosity.)
durga 12y ago
Fixed now.
- sundvor 12y ago
  Thanks, huge improvement! Was using Chrome in Windows 7, on a rather old Dell monitor at work. After working on WCAG 2.0 compliance on my own sites I have ironically gotten more sensitive to poor contrast ratios everywhere.

falsestprophet 12y ago

"Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret: AngelList is disrupting the hiring industry", or "AngelList is useful for hiring people (as just about everyone already knows)" Is AngelList Jobs unknown (never mind a secret!) amongst start up founders (who generally have AngelList profile for both themselves and their companies)? Is this job board "disrupting" the hiring industry which is composed of other job boards and recruiters that post to other job boards?

durga 12y ago
You're right. It's very useful for hiring. But that's not really well known.
durga 12y ago
Very much so. Getting so many high quality applications in such a short time is not disruptive to the recruiting industry. Then what is? If you're familiar with how recruiters work or the general quality and response on job boards, it's hard to characterize it as anything short of disruptive.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Did any of your applicants explain why they listed on AngelList instead of other sites?
  - durga 12y ago
    I'll aks them for you :)
- freshhawk 12y ago
  Then what is it? It's every job board at this stage of the hype curve. It's got critical mass among it's niche and it's not yet hit the big numbers and experienced the inevitable regression to the mean.
  - durga 12y ago

simi_ 12y ago

I got my current job in Germany via AngelList, although I was living in UK at the time. I got several other interesting options in Europe too. It's definitely a great tool in my book.

durga 12y ago
Congrats

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

The last time I looked at them, the salaries and equity shares advertised on many of their job listings were mostly chuckle-worthy at best. Some were appallingly lowball. If they're truly "disrupting" the hiring industry, it certainly isn't to the benefit of the labor pool.

durga 12y ago
AL doesn't really have any control on that. But they could suggest best practices. One reason we got so many applicants is maybe because our compensation feels fair.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Certainly AL doesn't control what companies offer. I can't comment on "so many applicants". It is entirely subjective and without context (e.g. for quality of applicant, on any scale you choose). All I can say about it is this: when I narrow the region to my region and the compensation range so that my current compensation is the low end of the bar, the pickings are very, very thin (and I'm pretty sure I'm being paid less than similarly experienced and capable engineers can command, for a variety of reasons). I have a hard time picturing anybody but a desperate or naive person taking most of the listings seriously.
  - durga 12y ago
    If you are saying that density of jobs posted varies by region I totally agree - that sounds reasonable. I don't want to defend other companies postings but that's a somewhat weak generalization to make, esp for Silicon Valley.
    - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
      No, I'm saying that when I add a compensation bracket with the low end matching (slightly below, actually) my current compensation, the number of listings in my region/role specification falls substantially. This has nothing to do with the absolute density of jobs in the region. And, by the way, the salaries attached to over 90% of the listings I see (by region/role only--no filter for compensation or anything else) are a joke especially in Silicon Valley, even for startups (which typically offer low salary to begin with), although the equities are, sadly, not terribly out of line.

mc32 12y ago

I imagine if it become mainstream, it'll not have the same level of talent and it'd become just another board. It will remain special so long as it does not broaden. So long as it focuses on the creme, then it'll disrupt that 'market' but it cannot disrupt the 'hiring industry' because at that point, it would become diluted and another 'disruptor' would cater to the 'cream'.

durga 12y ago
You could say that about discussion forums too. But reddit and HN would disagree. Quality has to be managed and maintained. It's plausible to me that by designing the right mechanisms you could scale AL and maintain quality.
- EarthLaunch 12y ago
  HN and Reddit have not maintained quality, particularly Reddit. They might disagree, yes; for that very reason.
  - durga 12y ago
    It's somewhat hard to argue with a generalization like this. It's like saying: you give loans to 100 people meeting some very specific criteria, and the return rate is great. When you scale it to a million, the return rate isn't the same any more. Of course the return rate won't be the same with 1 million people. But if you are grameen bank (http://www.grameen-info.org/ http://www.grameen-info.org/), you institute mechanisms so keep the return rates high. That doesn't mean that there are no defaulters at grameen bank. It just means they were able to work creatively on a problem and actually meet their metrics (maybe sligtly relaxed) at very high scales. It's non-trivial, but not impossible. I think a measure of low quality is: do users/participants actually stop using it because of bad quality? It's a point of debate, but for me HN's quality is as good (probably better) that it was several years ago. Just my opinion.
- mc32 12y ago
  HN is very industry specific. It would be like saying HN is disrupting forums. It's not. It has a very specific audience. Reddit has lots of above average and also has below average forums too. So, yes, the AL jobs board could become the board for all jobs, but then, it'd hardly be better than job boards now. Seen another way, let's say the top talent is 10,000 individuals. There are way more positions and candidates than that out there. So if they became the Reddit of job boards, they'd have tens (dom)/hundreds (int'l) of millions of applicants in search of tens (dom)/hundreds (int'l) of millions of jobs. Neither the applicants nor jobs are going to become "great" just because they are on the Angellist board.

ericdykstra 12y ago

It's great on the applicant side, too. I got my last job from AngelList, and they have gotten me the best-quality leads (apart from referrals from friends) this time around as well. The profile has most of the relevant information for job-seekers that you would never get from an intro from a recruiter (investors, total investment, etc). Salaries are always negotiable, but seeing them up-front gives you a good idea of what the company is looking at paying.

durga 12y ago
Yes, some of that company information is written with investors in mind, but AL allows you to share that with job candidates. Since that doesn't really contain super-sentitive info, it's almost a no-brainer to share with candidates (at least for us).
johan_larson 12y ago
It would be nice to have a bit more transparency on salaries. Yes, they are negotiable, but only within narrow bands. And if you ask for anything outside of those bands, the result is often not a counteroffer, but dropping the discussion entirely. That makes it time-consuming to determine what the market rate for your skill-set actually is, particularly since the "no"s don't typically come with reasons attached.

amorphid 12y ago

AngelList is acting as a niche job board. It's definitely cool, but I wouldn't call it disruptive or revolutionary. As soon as people figure out how to use it as an efficient hiring channel, AngelList will become saturated with companies hiring & candidates looking, just like every other formerly disruptive hiring channel.

shaunrussell 12y ago

We've had great success hiring from AngelList. More than half of our team at this point.

durga 12y ago
Congratulations. Can you share some insights into what works well for attractive engineers, esp on AL?

Animats 12y ago

I dunno. I tried advertising on AngelList for someone to make big-ticket sales to big companies. I keep getting responses from people who claim to be able to grow website traffic.

durga 12y ago
Having worked in enterprise companies, I'd conjecture that enterprise sales guys are not using AL much yet. Just a matter of time though..

CalRobert 12y ago

I propose we change every occurrence of "disrupt" to "perturb". Or better yet: "Angellist is promoting perturbations" Seems more appropriate, and I'm sick of seeing "disrupt" everywhere.

OpenDrapery 12y ago

This is my favorite bit: "I emailed everyone I knew, posted the job on LinkedIn, got it posted to the jobs list at several universities, and also posted on some paid sites. End result: nothing very good to show for all the effort." Exactly how much effort was 'all the effort'? Did it take you all of 2 hours to post the job on several sites?