Ask HN: While applying for jobs/while hiring, what are the pain points? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: While applying for jobs/while hiring, what are the pain points?

13 pointstechbq26 comments

I am really curious about the job marketplace websites, there has really been no innovation in that space. It has always been more like a classified website, where company posts and users when they find something good, they apply.

Is there some innovation? Could you list your pain points either while hiring or applying for jobs or some way to improve the current situation. Thanks

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After 40+ years, you STILL have to manually add your resume to a million different sites and services. Hell, I looked at a LinkedIn job yesterday that wanted me to sign up for 'neuvoo' crap to apply. Wasn't one of the original benefits for job applicants supposed to be a single resume to maintain and easier job application? Seems like you do more data entry now then back in the 80s when you could just hand your resume to a recruiter that would re-work/re-type it if necessary, submit it to relevant companies, and come back to you with a list of places wanting to interview you...

Also, not having even rough salary ranges in the ads can result in wasted time.

edit: clarify resume thing

yeah i can totally get it. But how do you expect it can be improved. Auto scanning of Resume and importing the fields from it should do the job?

eh - standardized resume 'format' (file format)? 'scanning' is just stop gap because recruiting agencies have no incentive to play nice together.

edit clarified to file format

oh - also, being able to filter by 'travel required' is nice.

And 'remote' doesn't mean '25%+ travel required' (looking at you AWS...)

To me, it says a lot about the company if they make you use an old multi page form to fill out all the info. Why would I want to work for a place that has that sort of bureaucracy and outdated tech?

I love places that ask you one page of multiple choice questions and then you upload your resume. At least the company knows about OCR and isn't wasting time with individual fields.

neuvoo?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauvoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau ?

some site I guess: https://neuvoo.com/

Never heard of it, and was annoyed to get hijacked when I was trying to apply to a position. ZipRecruiter is another one

Just a few pain points from an applicant point of view.

- Way to much signal to noise. When scrolling through a job board, it's already rare to see a job that makes me thing "I have to apply to this". What's wire however, is that I have to sift through pages of the same garbage jobs reposted by a dozen different recruiting agencies. Also "promote jobs".

- Useless filters: I remember one site I went on let you filter by industry. So I entered a few and searched. 90% of the results were certainly not in the industries I selected. I'd rather get 0 results than pages of irrelevant ones.

haha i can totally relate to it. Too much noise, in this industry. Do you think it'll be better if you get a curated list of the companies you'll be a perfect fit for? How do you want the list to be curated, on what basis?

Let me tell you an example right now. I saw a workday role that Linkedin suggested that I should apply. I clicked apply on Linkedin which redirected me to the workday site.

The workday site has an Apply with Linkedin button - which I clicked, I mean, I had already wanted to do that before.

Now workday asked me to create an account in their site (wtf?!) not only that but they didn't accept a silly password (why do I need a strong password for a throw away account and why do I need a throw away account for your site?!)

Very similar patterns with other companies... In the end I just gave up, I don't want it badly enough to be tortured in creating accounts and filling details on every company I ought to find interesting / apply when I am already very happy at my job.

If it was friction free, directly from Linkedin with a recruiter calling me to talk about the role, maybe it could lead to something?

I also am not interested in having an up-to-date CV or tailor CV to roles. I already have my Linkedin account and do not look for jobs very often.

And please, no code challenges as well. I do not have the patience to study algo101 to do some tests under 2h in your buggy web UI that doesn't allow me to troublehsoot a problem how I would in my work environment. Amazon keeps directly contacting me saying how interested a particular manager is in my work and how I would be a great fit but it is impossible to talk with a person without first showing them I can pass their buggy UI 101 algo tests under a different environment from my day to day.

yeah ikr, but how do you expect a company to judge you on the basis of a 2 to 3 hours interview. Obviously if you work for some enterprise, you can't show off your projects due to some nda. So there needs to be a standardised way, do you have any other way to determine an individuals worth from the perspective of the recruiter

I am fine with take home exercise or white boarding / full day interviews. Automated challenging before talking with anyone I am not.

I'd love to see anonymous feedback from rejections. Sometimes employers want to give feedback, but it's uncomfortable to do directly or they don't want to deal with someone begging them for a chance if it's a near miss. Sometimes it would be nice to "waitlist" someone if they're qualified for a job but not the best candidate, especially when it's not certain the best candidate will accept the terms.

I would love feedback too.

yeah good one

Waitlisting, or I as I like to call it, ghosting.

Vague / incoherent / cut-and-paste job descriptions.

"MUST HAVE 5-10 years experienced in [trivially learnable, provided you have solid general skills] languages / APIs X,Y,Z,W,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V. Meaning if you have 4.7 or 11.5 years of experience, don't bother applying. You can be Jeff Dean or Linus or Guido -- but if you don't have 5-10 years in ALL of these then please don't waste our time or yours. Not that we have any idea what we mean when we say 'years of experience', or why this magical number matters, anyway."

There are hundreds of websites, thousands of positions but it is really hard to apply a specific filter. Systems are ridiculously inadequate. I really cannot understand how a website for remote jobs doesn't have a "globally remote" filter. Also, filters are very generic while companies are looking for very specific experiences like domain, framework etc.

hmm, you make a good point

As a job seeker, the job postings tend to list a myriad of technologies or requirements. I find that many of the 'required' technology experience is really optional or the level of experience is overstated.

Also, the posting boards do not do a good job of finding truly entry level positions. I constantly find postings that want 5 years of experience or says 'senior' in the title. I get this is mostly an issue with the poster and not the site, but the site could scan for number of years or 'senior' in the title.

yeah that's there because companies don't want to waste time training employees when they know that those guys will leave after a year or two where half the first year gets spent training if he's a fresher. But i see your point, and i don't think the website can do anything here it's the recruiter who needs to step up

One thing I've thought about is no site lists timelines. I understand there's a reason for that, but it can result in wasted applications. If a company is taking 8 weeks to decide, it's probably not a great fit if you already have another offer you're looking to move on in say the next 2 weeks. I don't know if there's a good way to fix this since I can't think of an incentive why companies would want to list a timeline.

yeah most companies are not in a hurry because they'll be spending 10000s of dollars after picking the person. obviously they don't mind delaying by a few weeks if they can get a better candidate

Mainly some interviews themselves, when you get asked questions from a textbook that nobody has realistically had to know in their day to day job for the past 25 years.

Third-party HR applications.

And it's not too broad a statement to say HR is the pain point. I've avoided many interesting jobs when I see an HR Gauntlet of Despair requirement.

Sorry could you please rephrase and if possible elaborate on 3rd party hr applications

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