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Comment by remyp | Hacker News Reader

Hi all, OP here.

We were interviewing developers for a project and kept hearing how much they hated looking for a new job. We dug into why and it was usually because they couldn't find companies with the culture and work environment they wanted. They either had to invest a ton of time into research or trust a recruiter.

Our tool is different because it matches you with companies who have the culture and work environment you want. And, it skips the black hole that is the modern job application by having companies pitch you.

Privacy is very important to us and we built this so that you have complete control of when you share your personal info. You can anonymously ask interested engineering teams questions before you share anything.

Feedback requested: 1. Would you use this? 2. What are we missing when it comes to culture and dev environment?

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How do you differentiate from other products like Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.com/)?

Many other products are good at helping you discover companies, which is great! However, what they usually end up doing is funneling you directly to the job application and leaving you on your own.

What our product does is take your anonymized profile, present it to companies, and ask them if they're interested. If they are, you may then decline, ask questions directly while staying anonymous, or opt in to a conversation with them without even filling out an application.

I think a tag list of technologies is irrelevant to both parts (even if it's filled in good faith).

For each technology, you could add a list that is a proxy for level of proficiency. Something like:

- just started learning

- used in simple side-projects

- used in complex side-projects

- used in simple professional/production projects

- used in complex professional/production projects

- proficient with years of experience

- deep knowledge

Thanks, that is great idea and def something on our future list to add nuance!

> it skips the black hole that is the modern job application by having companies pitch you

Like Hired, Vettery, A-list, and Triplebyte?

I assume you'd still need to do an interview.

It's worth noting a lot of these "skip the black hole" companies only work with web development positions. Vettery, in particular, contacted me repeatedly to try to schedule an interview when I was looking once. When I told the recruiter what it was that I did in software engineering she proceeded to ask me whether I was "full stack," "back-end" or "front-end." I had to try extremely hard to get her to understand that I worked with computers that are embedded inside of devices. So it was very much a waste of time. And even after that they kept trying to get in touch with me for months.

Contrast this with traditional recruiters who at least know something about the field they're recruiting into beyond what's in vogue in SFO.

Yep, we are aware and working to get past that limitation. Part of this is trying to make a more efficient and effective "resume" which brings in the right info while maintaining privacy.

So a company can only see candidates that are a high match for the culture and work environment they create. And, then they can see candidates who match the position they are hiring for, i.e. an embedded hardware/software position or so on.

The thing is that you don’t have any embedded postings. So there are no companies to match us with. Your first recruiter was at least honest about that. But if you’re only going for web developers you should be honest about that from the start, and when someone then expresses that they aren’t a web developer you should have a way to handle that that doesn’t involve pestering them relentlessly or filing a support ticket and hoping that your engineering team believes it’s a real thing.

Sorry I am not sure I follow. This is for any developers or engineers.

What do you mean embedded postings?

We don't file any support tickets nor am I sure what you are talking about, can you please explain? Are you sure you have the right post?

As somebody who also works in embedded systems, I had almost the same experience with Vettery.

I tried them out a year or two ago, and found that there was literally no way to add keywords/tags as a user. So if Vettery didn't have an existing keyword for [language or skill you're good at], then you have no way to advertise that skill to companies hiring from Vettery.

Then Vettery basically just wouldn't leave me alone and one of their agents kept pestering me to finish my profile. I told them that I couldn't fill it out because I couldn't add the right keywords for my specialties, and they said something like "if you send me a list of your specialties, I can raise a support ticket to try and get them added to the list". I wrote off their platform as fundamentally broken right in that moment.

Vettery: "We use machine learning and real-time data to match talented job-seekers with inspiring companies. Our goal is to enrich and automate the recruiting process."

Yeah, right.

Yep you would still need to do interviews, but our goal is to connect you with more companies who are a match for the culture and work environment you want... what we don't want is for you to put a job aplication in only to never hear back.

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