10 ms·

Show HN: TryCatch – Get offers only with your desired salary

124 points by asadlionpk 12y ago

oglo 12y ago
Liked the concept. It's like applying free market models for developers! But I'm curious about anonymity? How does it work?
- munirusman 12y ago
  Co-founder here. Thanks for the liking it. Our anonymizer is semi-automatic for now but listing for recruiters is automatic.
  - nchelluri 12y ago
    What does this mean?
    - asadlionpk 12y ago
      This means that the process of removing identifying information is mostly automatic. But a person then reviews and removes anything identifiable and then the candidate himself approves the profile before we add it to our public list.
ocdtrekkie 12y ago
Heh, clever name (and reason for it).
- thekgann 12y ago
  > Why "TryCatch"? > Because you are an _exception_
  - corobo 12y ago
    Ahhh I just got it. Cheers
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  Thanks! We love it when only devs can understand the hidden meaning :)
itsdrewmiller 12y ago
How is this different from hired.com except that you reveal your current salary?
- munirusman 12y ago
  Hired.com is an auction site for limited time. It works when you are desperately in need of job switch. TryCatch.cc is not bound by time and our target developers are not actively looking for job switch but may change their mind for higher pay.
  - sombremesa 12y ago
    That seems more desirable. I tried hired.com on a whim but most of the jobs were the kind I would only accept if I were desperate. Then again, I have a lot of flexibility in my current role and would only leave for a job that fits very specific criteria, so maybe it just wasn't for me.
  - fishtoaster 12y ago
    I once had an internship in college where I worked with Sitecore (a .net cms). When I was applying for jobs out of college, I mentioned it in my resume when I posted it to Monster.com. It has been many years since I took that resume down, and that technology has been off my resume just as long. However, I still get recruiter spam asking if I’m interested in a 6-month contract-to-hire position on the wrong coast working with Sitecore. This tool sounds like it fits a pretty good passive use case, but I just thought I should point out why I, particularly, love the limited-time model of Hired.com. It lets me avoid being considered “on the market” for all eternity.
johnward 12y ago
I'm open for new ways to find jobs but sadly my expectations aren't that high. I still signed up.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  Good Luck! :)
flipp3r 12y ago
"firebase.js:18 FIREBASE WARNING: Specified Firebase has reached its Peak Connections limit. If you are the Firebase owner, consider upgrading. (https://remoteinterview2.firebaseio.com)" https://remoteinterview2.firebaseio.com)" Also, will there be a European version of this? My salary in Dollars has gotten quite low ( eur vs dollar ).
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  Co-Founder here. We got HN hug! And firebase is having trouble changing our plan. We will be contacting back everyone who is trying to login :) Edit: We are back up!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- munirusman 12y ago
  Sorry, just USD for now. Will add more regions soon.
rb2k_ 12y ago
For a lot of companies, "salary" is usually a mixture of base salary, bonus and stock options/RSUs. I guess there are also various perks (public transport ticket, food, ...), but those mostly don't end up scoring that high on the 'money' scale. Are there any plans to take these things into consideration?
- munirusman 12y ago
  That's a good question. We are currently considering salary only but in near future we will add job position too. For example, a candidate can say: "Contact me only if some company is willing to consider me for VP of Eng.".
  - cpwright 12y ago
    You should consider total compensation and salary vs. just a salary. If you're looking at finance, people will have requirements for both a base salary and the total compensation. Looking at them in isolation doesn't work. Same thing if a large portion of your offer from say Google is in RSUs, that's not cash; but is essential for evaluating the economics of the offer.
    - munirusman 12y ago
      You have a valid concern. We are starting with salary to simplify things because cash is what matters the most.
      - alok-g 12y ago
        In my opinion, you should add total compensation right from the beginning. This is because (1) You would be capturing data from many people (hopefully) and it would be difficult to fix later, (2) The site will be less useful without for many people including me, and (3) Some people will invariably confuse and put total compensation anyways which will introduce unnecessary variability in your data. On the other hand, adding total compensation from the beginning cannot be too complex.
dccoolgai 12y ago
Like the concept, but have some reservations. What happens when recruiters start using it and spamming me regardless of whether they have something that pays the figure in question or not (one of those situations where the amount "magically" becomes 30% less than the recruiter said it was when you go to interview.) Like I said, I love the idea but I have doubts about how it will pan out when exposed to the seedy world of tech recruiters.
- Osiris 12y ago
  This happened to me. I said I'd only interview if the offer would be at least a certain amount. After going through the process, the offer was $15k lower than the recruiter had promised.
  - asadlionpk 12y ago
    I think salary is a very important factor on choosing the employer. They need to be more open about it. In near future we may see that salary is a public information (not as much right now)
  - l-jenkins 12y ago
    I've had this happen. When I got the offer from the CEO (small company) it was what I was currently making but with less job security. I stopped dealing with that recruiter immediately and ignore all correspondence from them (or anyone at their company). I think what they hear is "I need my compensation to be X" instead of "I need my salary to be X". Big difference.
    - s73v3r 12y ago
      Well, many times as candidates, we're told to state our total compensation when asked about our salary.
      - binxbolling 12y ago
        That's surprising/confusing to me--I've actually never been asked that. This is in the US (east coast), so can't speak to other locales.
onion2k 12y ago
This is a great idea, but there needs to be some substantial recruiter vetting in the background somewhere. Here in the UK the bad tech recruiters are renowned for advertising jobs that don't exist in order to get candidates to hand over their details, at which point the job suddenly vanishes but the recruiter spams you for the rest of your life with appallingly unsuitable roles. For a system like this to work there needs to a way to verify that the recruiter is trying to fill a real job that actually pays what they say it pays. That bit will be exceptionally difficult. If trycatch can solve it though, then I hope they take over the entire job market. 100% of it.
- frandroid 12y ago
  User ratings can help too.
  - munirusman 12y ago
    ^Yes that's exactly what we are planning to do to make sure that developers only get genuine offers.
- sgustard 12y ago
  Recruiters do that to companies too. They have fake highly qualified candidates who disappear once you agree to engage. As such, most of "engineer X from Y is interested in your job" is irrelevant spam.
- bhayden 12y ago
  Could this be solved by only uploading resumes with unique/temporary email addresses that can be deleted if you get recruiter spam?
  - munirusman 12y ago
    For now, we are rating employers based on candidates feedback but the idea of using unique/temp email address is really interesting!
- 6t6t6 12y ago
encoderer 12y ago
You should increase the salary on the sample to something more realistic. How about... makes $125 wants $150k?
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  Ok makes sense. Done :)
otoburb 12y ago
Developers only? Or are you just starting out with this role and plan to expand to others later? Do employers sign up as "recruiters"? I would think not since the word "recruiter" has a very specific meaning. This service helps employers save significant time on promising candidates that have wage expectations beyond an employer's budget. Worst case, employers can adjust both initial salary bands and corresponding expectations accordingly through the use of this service.
- munirusman 12y ago
  Noted. Thanks for the suggestion.
nsxwolf 12y ago
I don't trust anything that is Linkedin-based. I find their privacy policy impossible to understand, and I would just assume at some point my employer will know that I've signed up for this.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  I understand, not everyone is a fan of LinkedIn. We will soon be adding email signup.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    Please do. I'm not a LinkedIn user and I don't plan on changing that.
  - bhayden 12y ago
    Thanks, I also refuse to use linkedin but would like to use this service. Also +1ing a geography filter request.
  - cwsx 12y ago
    +1 for signing up without Linkedin, and adding geo support.
frak_your_couch 12y ago
Great idea! I signed up, but I worry that there's no geographical adjustment for salaries. For instance, I make $200k and live in Cleveland. Even 20% more in NYC or SF is a very different lifestyle.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  I agree that we will need to consider location and all the aspects related to it. We are already brainstorming on this.
  - otakucode 12y ago
    Please don't forget the only location that is going to matter in 10 years: REMOTE!
    - munirusman 12y ago
      Can't agree more. Remote is the future!
aasarava 12y ago
Why is current salary relevant? In most cases, revealing your current salary will be used against you by the new employer, as it allows them to lower their offer if they had planned on offering much more.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  One of the reasons is that we are using the delta (demand minus current salary) in ranking the profiles in our lists.
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    I feel I'm good enough at doing that myself, to where disclosing my current salary doesn't seem to have a benefit for me.
  - jonathankoren 12y ago
    I fail to see how this benefits me as an job seeker. It doesn't matter how valuable my current employer thinks I am. All that matters is how valuable my next employer thinks I am.
    - otakucode 12y ago
      It is also inherently false to assume that two identical positions at two different companies are worth the same to each company. A software developer working at a company which sells software and a developer working at a company where they develop a product for an insurance company that enhances actuarial analysis are very, very different in terms of how much value the developer creates for the company - and how much value they create is the only legitimate criteria to test compensation against.
    - asadlionpk 12y ago
      It also does benefit the employer. Your next employer will use your last salary in calculating your value.
- chaqke 12y ago
myth_buster 12y ago
Nice tagline. OAuth is blocked here. Will try from home. > Why "TryCatch"? > Because you are an _exception_
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  Thanks. I wonder why would they block OAuth ?
acveilleux 12y ago
Spin this around so a company can test the water with a salary range and desired qualifications and get a percent of candidate pool coverage... Basically what fraction of an anonymous but hopefully representative group of programmer would consider this salary (a) acceptable and (b) below or above current salary. Bonus point, filter by geography.
- munirusman 12y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. We are trying different ways to generate anonymous list for employers.
- pc86 12y ago
  This would be huge. Having both used recruiters to find work and to find candidates, from the employer side it's one thing for a recruiter to say "You need to raise your salary range by $20k to attract what you're looking for" - after all they get paid a percentage of base salary. It'd be something else entirely we had a tool where increasing base salary by $20k showed us that it doubled the number of interested candidates within a given skill set.
  - robalfonso 12y ago
    I have some wiggle room on my dev jobs so I'm offering $X-$X+20 for someone with $Y-$Y+5 yrs of experience. I'm perfectly open to an increase and I work with a recruiter whom I trust, so I usually ask him if I'm low or high and he's honest with me. So much of success in things coming from not working with scumbags.
    - pc86 12y ago
      Are you hiring any .NET folks? :)
      - robalfonso 12y ago
        Sorry, php and golang developers and sysadmin types. But I hired two guys who were .net guys who were tired of it, they say that the grass is greener, sky bluer, and their wives and girlfriends are more beautiful. ymmv.
goofygrin 12y ago
As a hiring manager here's my concerns/issues with the current process of hiring/using a recruiter - recruiters don't screen well enough technically or personality wise - recruiters tend to lie about everything (candidate availability, salary requirements, etc) - recruiters are hellaciously expensive - you still have to do the full process for everyone that needs to be interviewed (regardless of source. Skipping steps has always resulted in a bad hire in my experience) - resumes/profiles suck for determining coding ability. Sparsely filled github accounts and pet projects are far better indicators As a person being hired here's my issues: - recruiters lie (about opportunities, salary, etc). Notice a trend here? - companies are cagey about salary. I'd rather know up front rather than waste everyone's time. - lack of exposure to the team during the hiring process. Since I'll be spending more time with them than my family I want them to be people I like rather than neckbeards that aren't personable.
- munirusman 12y ago
  - recruiters don't screen well enough technically or personality wise - resumes/profiles suck for determining coding ability. Sparsely filled github accounts and pet projects are far better indicators We are the same team behind https://remoteinterview.io https://remoteinterview.io. We encourage employers to screen on the basis of technical skills instead of resumes. - recruiters tend to lie about everything (candidate availability, salary requirements, etc) We are planning to implement rating system for employers by candidates. - companies are cagey about salary. I'd rather know up front rather than waste everyone's time. That's what TryCatch.cc is trying to solve. - lack of exposure to the team during the hiring process. Since I'll be spending more time with them than my family I want them to be people I like rather than neckbeards that aren't personable. Very valid point. It should be solved.
  - otakucode 12y ago
    That Remote Interview looks absolutely brilliant. I firmly believe that the future lies entirely with remote workers and it's simply a matter of the right tools being available. Please keep doing what you're doing!
jwcrux 12y ago
Unfortunately, it's likely that in many cases the anonymity won't be preserved simply due to the probability of multiple candidates having the exact same job experience. Take the example profile (which doesn't appear to belong to an actual person). We can create a google search that is something like the following: site:linkedin.com AND intitle:" | Linkedin" AND intext:"Data Engineer" AND intext:"Distributed Systems Engineer" AND intext:"Software Engineer in Azure" And, if it belonged to an actual person, would likely show up in the results. If there are multiple candidates with these titles, you can add more conditions, such as the employers to narrow it down.
- munirusman 12y ago
  Yes you are right. For that reason we are planning to show anonymous profile to candidates and let him/her edit it. UPDATE: FAQs updated.
codingdave 12y ago
I'm wary of this without knowing exactly how your profile would be anonymized. I work in a very small niche and even if the company names are hidden, just seeing a list of job titles, time frame, and my skill set would really narrow me down. If my location is listed, that absolutely pinpoints me, as I'm the only person in my niche, in my area. I didn't sign up, so I don't know if is possible to see and edit your profile before it goes public or not. But giving me that level of control would resolve most of my concerns.
- munirusman 12y ago
  It's a very valid concern and thanks for pointing it out. We will let you edit your anonymous profile first. We should add this in FAQs. UPDATE: FAQ updated.
xerophtye 12y ago
I understand that this is your MVP and you are simply gauging the developer interest at the moment, but I would love to see what you are pitching to the employers. No, this is not about me not trusting you, I am just curious why would the other side use this (or how you will convince them to use it). Since you are building a marketplace, I would like to see how you are attracting both ends of the transaction
- munirusman 12y ago
  Great question. The biggest value employers get is significantly higher response rate from developers. Compare it with linkedin inmails where most of the interview offers are considered spam because developers don't see the incremental monetary value in offers.
  - xerophtye 12y ago
    Well ofcourse there ARE benefits to them, but I would just like to see you present it to them as awesomely as you presented to us devs
    - asadlionpk 12y ago
      Yes we are slowly inviting the 'other side'. We do want it to be awesome and create real value!
- rmc 12y ago
  What's in it for the companies? I presume easier and better candidates to interview. Many companies have to wade through a sea of rubbish applicants, interview some and get no-where. If they can make it easier for the companies to get people, that's what's in it for them.
  - asadlionpk 12y ago
    companies will be able to get better candidates (who aren't usually applying for jobs actively) if they are willing to pay. Just like a free market.
xerophtye 12y ago
Btw, Wouldn't a good anti-recruiter mechanism be that you only allow employer accounts when you verify that the user represents an actual company etc?
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  We plan on only giving access to accounts with @company.com emails (where company will be researched ideally by our staff to be a legit tech company). Can you think of any other mechanisms we should have in place?
Avalaxy 12y ago
When I'm trying to sign up: Error: failed to find request token in session at Strategy.OAuthStrategy.authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport-linkedin/node_modules/passport-oauth/lib/passport-oauth/strategies/oauth.js:124:54) at Strategy.authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport-linkedin/lib/passport-linkedin/strategy.js:118:40) at attempt (/app/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:337:16) at authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:338:7) at /app/linkedin.js:84:15 at callbacks (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:164:37) at param (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:138:11) at pass (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:145:5) at nextRoute (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:100:7) at callbacks (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:167:11)
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  hmmmm weird. Can you give it another try. I just tried and it works. Will check logs after traffic reduces :)
  - Avalaxy 12y ago
    Tried again, works now :)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
robalfonso 12y ago
Salary is the wrong metric! For example, I don't want to see a job below 125K but a job is posted at 115K and they subsidize X where X is important to me personally....then that can change everything. It's obviously a much tougher situation to define all those little things, perhaps they should be valuing the total compensation package and not salary? There are jobs with certain benefits where either the same or less salary could still be compelling to someone.
- MCRed 12y ago
  Would you give up $10k a year in salary for a free parking space? What if that space's market value was $289 a month? EG: I'm not sure what's getting subsidized here. If it's worth less than 7k is probably better to take the higher salary and pay for it yourself.
  - robalfonso 12y ago
    Fair point, my argument is that rather than saying salary is 100k, they should be saying total compensation is valued at 110k with 100k being salary, parking being valued at 7k and donations to the upper peninsula bird watching society covered by the company to the tune of 3k per year.
badloginagain 12y ago
How does it choose what jobs I am "eligble" for? In the past 5 years I've done design, user experience, customer support, qa, devops, and programming. Most recruiters want someone who has done one and only one thing for the entirety of their career, regardless of whether that's a sound strategy or not- do you rank higher for employees who have done the same thing for years or is it strictly a position-avialable:pay-requested rank?
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  This is purely upto the employer watching your profile. We don't use your consistency in our ranking. If the employer feels like contacting you. You will get contacted along with complete details about the job position.
arikrak 12y ago
These job sites pop up frequently (each with a small twist) and they get developers to hand over their emails. But I'm not sure how well they succeed in getting good companies to pay for their service afterwards. It's an area I'm interested in learning more about.
david_shaw 12y ago
Looks like an automated version of White Truffle. That said, looks straightforward and has an interesting metric. Nice work.
fiatjaf 12y ago
People are creating job sites and announcing them here almost every day. Is this working? Isn't there a chicken-and-egg problem in there? If it works, someone please tell me what is the magic strategy to get public for a general (no devs, programmers or IT in any form) job postings site that is simple, easy and works. Brazil is in need of it.

124 points by asadlionpk 12y ago

oglo 12y ago

Liked the concept. It's like applying free market models for developers! But I'm curious about anonymity? How does it work?

munirusman 12y ago
Co-founder here. Thanks for the liking it. Our anonymizer is semi-automatic for now but listing for recruiters is automatic.
- nchelluri 12y ago
  What does this mean?
  - asadlionpk 12y ago
    This means that the process of removing identifying information is mostly automatic. But a person then reviews and removes anything identifiable and then the candidate himself approves the profile before we add it to our public list.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

Heh, clever name (and reason for it).

thekgann 12y ago
> Why "TryCatch"? > Because you are an _exception_
- corobo 12y ago
  Ahhh I just got it. Cheers
asadlionpk 12y ago
Thanks! We love it when only devs can understand the hidden meaning :)

itsdrewmiller 12y ago

How is this different from hired.com except that you reveal your current salary?

munirusman 12y ago
Hired.com is an auction site for limited time. It works when you are desperately in need of job switch. TryCatch.cc is not bound by time and our target developers are not actively looking for job switch but may change their mind for higher pay.
- sombremesa 12y ago
  That seems more desirable. I tried hired.com on a whim but most of the jobs were the kind I would only accept if I were desperate. Then again, I have a lot of flexibility in my current role and would only leave for a job that fits very specific criteria, so maybe it just wasn't for me.
- fishtoaster 12y ago
  I once had an internship in college where I worked with Sitecore (a .net cms). When I was applying for jobs out of college, I mentioned it in my resume when I posted it to Monster.com. It has been many years since I took that resume down, and that technology has been off my resume just as long. However, I still get recruiter spam asking if I’m interested in a 6-month contract-to-hire position on the wrong coast working with Sitecore. This tool sounds like it fits a pretty good passive use case, but I just thought I should point out why I, particularly, love the limited-time model of Hired.com. It lets me avoid being considered “on the market” for all eternity.

johnward 12y ago

I'm open for new ways to find jobs but sadly my expectations aren't that high. I still signed up.

asadlionpk 12y ago
Good Luck! :)

flipp3r 12y ago

"firebase.js:18 FIREBASE WARNING: Specified Firebase has reached its Peak Connections limit. If you are the Firebase owner, consider upgrading. (https://remoteinterview2.firebaseio.com)" https://remoteinterview2.firebaseio.com)" Also, will there be a European version of this? My salary in Dollars has gotten quite low ( eur vs dollar ).

asadlionpk 12y ago
Co-Founder here. We got HN hug! And firebase is having trouble changing our plan. We will be contacting back everyone who is trying to login :) Edit: We are back up!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
munirusman 12y ago
Sorry, just USD for now. Will add more regions soon.

rb2k_ 12y ago

For a lot of companies, "salary" is usually a mixture of base salary, bonus and stock options/RSUs. I guess there are also various perks (public transport ticket, food, ...), but those mostly don't end up scoring that high on the 'money' scale. Are there any plans to take these things into consideration?

munirusman 12y ago
That's a good question. We are currently considering salary only but in near future we will add job position too. For example, a candidate can say: "Contact me only if some company is willing to consider me for VP of Eng.".
- cpwright 12y ago
  You should consider total compensation and salary vs. just a salary. If you're looking at finance, people will have requirements for both a base salary and the total compensation. Looking at them in isolation doesn't work. Same thing if a large portion of your offer from say Google is in RSUs, that's not cash; but is essential for evaluating the economics of the offer.
  - munirusman 12y ago
    You have a valid concern. We are starting with salary to simplify things because cash is what matters the most.
    - alok-g 12y ago
      In my opinion, you should add total compensation right from the beginning. This is because (1) You would be capturing data from many people (hopefully) and it would be difficult to fix later, (2) The site will be less useful without for many people including me, and (3) Some people will invariably confuse and put total compensation anyways which will introduce unnecessary variability in your data. On the other hand, adding total compensation from the beginning cannot be too complex.

dccoolgai 12y ago

Like the concept, but have some reservations. What happens when recruiters start using it and spamming me regardless of whether they have something that pays the figure in question or not (one of those situations where the amount "magically" becomes 30% less than the recruiter said it was when you go to interview.) Like I said, I love the idea but I have doubts about how it will pan out when exposed to the seedy world of tech recruiters.

Osiris 12y ago
This happened to me. I said I'd only interview if the offer would be at least a certain amount. After going through the process, the offer was $15k lower than the recruiter had promised.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  I think salary is a very important factor on choosing the employer. They need to be more open about it. In near future we may see that salary is a public information (not as much right now)
- l-jenkins 12y ago
  I've had this happen. When I got the offer from the CEO (small company) it was what I was currently making but with less job security. I stopped dealing with that recruiter immediately and ignore all correspondence from them (or anyone at their company). I think what they hear is "I need my compensation to be X" instead of "I need my salary to be X". Big difference.
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    Well, many times as candidates, we're told to state our total compensation when asked about our salary.
    - binxbolling 12y ago
      That's surprising/confusing to me--I've actually never been asked that. This is in the US (east coast), so can't speak to other locales.

onion2k 12y ago

This is a great idea, but there needs to be some substantial recruiter vetting in the background somewhere. Here in the UK the bad tech recruiters are renowned for advertising jobs that don't exist in order to get candidates to hand over their details, at which point the job suddenly vanishes but the recruiter spams you for the rest of your life with appallingly unsuitable roles. For a system like this to work there needs to a way to verify that the recruiter is trying to fill a real job that actually pays what they say it pays. That bit will be exceptionally difficult. If trycatch can solve it though, then I hope they take over the entire job market. 100% of it.

frandroid 12y ago
User ratings can help too.
- munirusman 12y ago
  ^Yes that's exactly what we are planning to do to make sure that developers only get genuine offers.
sgustard 12y ago
Recruiters do that to companies too. They have fake highly qualified candidates who disappear once you agree to engage. As such, most of "engineer X from Y is interested in your job" is irrelevant spam.
bhayden 12y ago
Could this be solved by only uploading resumes with unique/temporary email addresses that can be deleted if you get recruiter spam?
- munirusman 12y ago
  For now, we are rating employers based on candidates feedback but the idea of using unique/temp email address is really interesting!
6t6t6 12y ago

encoderer 12y ago

You should increase the salary on the sample to something more realistic. How about... makes $125 wants $150k?

asadlionpk 12y ago
Ok makes sense. Done :)

otoburb 12y ago

Developers only? Or are you just starting out with this role and plan to expand to others later? Do employers sign up as "recruiters"? I would think not since the word "recruiter" has a very specific meaning. This service helps employers save significant time on promising candidates that have wage expectations beyond an employer's budget. Worst case, employers can adjust both initial salary bands and corresponding expectations accordingly through the use of this service.

munirusman 12y ago
Noted. Thanks for the suggestion.

nsxwolf 12y ago

I don't trust anything that is Linkedin-based. I find their privacy policy impossible to understand, and I would just assume at some point my employer will know that I've signed up for this.

asadlionpk 12y ago
I understand, not everyone is a fan of LinkedIn. We will soon be adding email signup.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  Please do. I'm not a LinkedIn user and I don't plan on changing that.
- bhayden 12y ago
  Thanks, I also refuse to use linkedin but would like to use this service. Also +1ing a geography filter request.
- cwsx 12y ago
  +1 for signing up without Linkedin, and adding geo support.

frak_your_couch 12y ago

Great idea! I signed up, but I worry that there's no geographical adjustment for salaries. For instance, I make $200k and live in Cleveland. Even 20% more in NYC or SF is a very different lifestyle.

asadlionpk 12y ago
I agree that we will need to consider location and all the aspects related to it. We are already brainstorming on this.
- otakucode 12y ago
  Please don't forget the only location that is going to matter in 10 years: REMOTE!
  - munirusman 12y ago
    Can't agree more. Remote is the future!

aasarava 12y ago

Why is current salary relevant? In most cases, revealing your current salary will be used against you by the new employer, as it allows them to lower their offer if they had planned on offering much more.

asadlionpk 12y ago
One of the reasons is that we are using the delta (demand minus current salary) in ranking the profiles in our lists.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  I feel I'm good enough at doing that myself, to where disclosing my current salary doesn't seem to have a benefit for me.
- jonathankoren 12y ago
  I fail to see how this benefits me as an job seeker. It doesn't matter how valuable my current employer thinks I am. All that matters is how valuable my next employer thinks I am.
  - otakucode 12y ago
    It is also inherently false to assume that two identical positions at two different companies are worth the same to each company. A software developer working at a company which sells software and a developer working at a company where they develop a product for an insurance company that enhances actuarial analysis are very, very different in terms of how much value the developer creates for the company - and how much value they create is the only legitimate criteria to test compensation against.
  - asadlionpk 12y ago
    It also does benefit the employer. Your next employer will use your last salary in calculating your value.
chaqke 12y ago

myth_buster 12y ago

Nice tagline. OAuth is blocked here. Will try from home. > Why "TryCatch"? > Because you are an _exception_

asadlionpk 12y ago
Thanks. I wonder why would they block OAuth ?

acveilleux 12y ago

Spin this around so a company can test the water with a salary range and desired qualifications and get a percent of candidate pool coverage... Basically what fraction of an anonymous but hopefully representative group of programmer would consider this salary (a) acceptable and (b) below or above current salary. Bonus point, filter by geography.

munirusman 12y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. We are trying different ways to generate anonymous list for employers.
pc86 12y ago
This would be huge. Having both used recruiters to find work and to find candidates, from the employer side it's one thing for a recruiter to say "You need to raise your salary range by $20k to attract what you're looking for" - after all they get paid a percentage of base salary. It'd be something else entirely we had a tool where increasing base salary by $20k showed us that it doubled the number of interested candidates within a given skill set.
- robalfonso 12y ago
  I have some wiggle room on my dev jobs so I'm offering $X-$X+20 for someone with $Y-$Y+5 yrs of experience. I'm perfectly open to an increase and I work with a recruiter whom I trust, so I usually ask him if I'm low or high and he's honest with me. So much of success in things coming from not working with scumbags.
  - pc86 12y ago
    Are you hiring any .NET folks? :)
    - robalfonso 12y ago
      Sorry, php and golang developers and sysadmin types. But I hired two guys who were .net guys who were tired of it, they say that the grass is greener, sky bluer, and their wives and girlfriends are more beautiful. ymmv.

goofygrin 12y ago

As a hiring manager here's my concerns/issues with the current process of hiring/using a recruiter - recruiters don't screen well enough technically or personality wise - recruiters tend to lie about everything (candidate availability, salary requirements, etc) - recruiters are hellaciously expensive - you still have to do the full process for everyone that needs to be interviewed (regardless of source. Skipping steps has always resulted in a bad hire in my experience) - resumes/profiles suck for determining coding ability. Sparsely filled github accounts and pet projects are far better indicators As a person being hired here's my issues: - recruiters lie (about opportunities, salary, etc). Notice a trend here? - companies are cagey about salary. I'd rather know up front rather than waste everyone's time. - lack of exposure to the team during the hiring process. Since I'll be spending more time with them than my family I want them to be people I like rather than neckbeards that aren't personable.

munirusman 12y ago
- recruiters don't screen well enough technically or personality wise - resumes/profiles suck for determining coding ability. Sparsely filled github accounts and pet projects are far better indicators We are the same team behind https://remoteinterview.io https://remoteinterview.io. We encourage employers to screen on the basis of technical skills instead of resumes. - recruiters tend to lie about everything (candidate availability, salary requirements, etc) We are planning to implement rating system for employers by candidates. - companies are cagey about salary. I'd rather know up front rather than waste everyone's time. That's what TryCatch.cc is trying to solve. - lack of exposure to the team during the hiring process. Since I'll be spending more time with them than my family I want them to be people I like rather than neckbeards that aren't personable. Very valid point. It should be solved.
- otakucode 12y ago
  That Remote Interview looks absolutely brilliant. I firmly believe that the future lies entirely with remote workers and it's simply a matter of the right tools being available. Please keep doing what you're doing!

jwcrux 12y ago

Unfortunately, it's likely that in many cases the anonymity won't be preserved simply due to the probability of multiple candidates having the exact same job experience. Take the example profile (which doesn't appear to belong to an actual person). We can create a google search that is something like the following: site:linkedin.com AND intitle:" | Linkedin" AND intext:"Data Engineer" AND intext:"Distributed Systems Engineer" AND intext:"Software Engineer in Azure" And, if it belonged to an actual person, would likely show up in the results. If there are multiple candidates with these titles, you can add more conditions, such as the employers to narrow it down.

munirusman 12y ago
Yes you are right. For that reason we are planning to show anonymous profile to candidates and let him/her edit it. UPDATE: FAQs updated.

codingdave 12y ago

I'm wary of this without knowing exactly how your profile would be anonymized. I work in a very small niche and even if the company names are hidden, just seeing a list of job titles, time frame, and my skill set would really narrow me down. If my location is listed, that absolutely pinpoints me, as I'm the only person in my niche, in my area. I didn't sign up, so I don't know if is possible to see and edit your profile before it goes public or not. But giving me that level of control would resolve most of my concerns.

munirusman 12y ago
It's a very valid concern and thanks for pointing it out. We will let you edit your anonymous profile first. We should add this in FAQs. UPDATE: FAQ updated.

xerophtye 12y ago

I understand that this is your MVP and you are simply gauging the developer interest at the moment, but I would love to see what you are pitching to the employers. No, this is not about me not trusting you, I am just curious why would the other side use this (or how you will convince them to use it). Since you are building a marketplace, I would like to see how you are attracting both ends of the transaction

munirusman 12y ago
Great question. The biggest value employers get is significantly higher response rate from developers. Compare it with linkedin inmails where most of the interview offers are considered spam because developers don't see the incremental monetary value in offers.
- xerophtye 12y ago
  Well ofcourse there ARE benefits to them, but I would just like to see you present it to them as awesomely as you presented to us devs
  - asadlionpk 12y ago
    Yes we are slowly inviting the 'other side'. We do want it to be awesome and create real value!
rmc 12y ago
What's in it for the companies? I presume easier and better candidates to interview. Many companies have to wade through a sea of rubbish applicants, interview some and get no-where. If they can make it easier for the companies to get people, that's what's in it for them.
- asadlionpk 12y ago
  companies will be able to get better candidates (who aren't usually applying for jobs actively) if they are willing to pay. Just like a free market.

xerophtye 12y ago

Btw, Wouldn't a good anti-recruiter mechanism be that you only allow employer accounts when you verify that the user represents an actual company etc?

asadlionpk 12y ago
We plan on only giving access to accounts with @company.com emails (where company will be researched ideally by our staff to be a legit tech company). Can you think of any other mechanisms we should have in place?

Avalaxy 12y ago

When I'm trying to sign up: Error: failed to find request token in session at Strategy.OAuthStrategy.authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport-linkedin/node_modules/passport-oauth/lib/passport-oauth/strategies/oauth.js:124:54) at Strategy.authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport-linkedin/lib/passport-linkedin/strategy.js:118:40) at attempt (/app/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:337:16) at authenticate (/app/node_modules/passport/lib/middleware/authenticate.js:338:7) at /app/linkedin.js:84:15 at callbacks (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:164:37) at param (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:138:11) at pass (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:145:5) at nextRoute (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:100:7) at callbacks (/app/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:167:11)

asadlionpk 12y ago
hmmmm weird. Can you give it another try. I just tried and it works. Will check logs after traffic reduces :)
- Avalaxy 12y ago
  Tried again, works now :)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

robalfonso 12y ago

Salary is the wrong metric! For example, I don't want to see a job below 125K but a job is posted at 115K and they subsidize X where X is important to me personally....then that can change everything. It's obviously a much tougher situation to define all those little things, perhaps they should be valuing the total compensation package and not salary? There are jobs with certain benefits where either the same or less salary could still be compelling to someone.

MCRed 12y ago
Would you give up $10k a year in salary for a free parking space? What if that space's market value was $289 a month? EG: I'm not sure what's getting subsidized here. If it's worth less than 7k is probably better to take the higher salary and pay for it yourself.
- robalfonso 12y ago
  Fair point, my argument is that rather than saying salary is 100k, they should be saying total compensation is valued at 110k with 100k being salary, parking being valued at 7k and donations to the upper peninsula bird watching society covered by the company to the tune of 3k per year.

badloginagain 12y ago

How does it choose what jobs I am "eligble" for? In the past 5 years I've done design, user experience, customer support, qa, devops, and programming. Most recruiters want someone who has done one and only one thing for the entirety of their career, regardless of whether that's a sound strategy or not- do you rank higher for employees who have done the same thing for years or is it strictly a position-avialable:pay-requested rank?

asadlionpk 12y ago
This is purely upto the employer watching your profile. We don't use your consistency in our ranking. If the employer feels like contacting you. You will get contacted along with complete details about the job position.

arikrak 12y ago

These job sites pop up frequently (each with a small twist) and they get developers to hand over their emails. But I'm not sure how well they succeed in getting good companies to pay for their service afterwards. It's an area I'm interested in learning more about.

david_shaw 12y ago

Looks like an automated version of White Truffle. That said, looks straightforward and has an interesting metric. Nice work.

fiatjaf 12y ago

People are creating job sites and announcing them here almost every day. Is this working? Isn't there a chicken-and-egg problem in there? If it works, someone please tell me what is the magic strategy to get public for a general (no devs, programmers or IT in any form) job postings site that is simple, easy and works. Brazil is in need of it.