SkipTheInterview launches then promptly shuts down | Hacker News Reader

SkipTheInterview launches then promptly shuts down

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48 pointslalaland112553 comments

I mocked up something years ago that started as a joke, which was a way to refer unwanted co-workers or employees to external competing recruiters so that the person might get hired away, instead of having to manage them out or fire them.

It was an exercise in finding market/culture taboos that were uncomfortable to challenge. The business model was a sales lead generation service, where recruiters could subscribe to updates of new candidates who were being referred "out" and who would have a higher likelihood of responding to incoming job opportunities.

Just because one person doesn't think you are a fit doesn't mean you aren't a fit somewhere else, if someone wants you out, you're probably weighing your options anyway. Instead of conflict, you can create opportunity. Lots of reasons it didn't work, like having an asshole-ware feel / offensive, I wanted to help the users but didn't think much about the real customers (recruiters), etc.

Anyway, I get what skiptheinterview is after, and if there is a single market with a bunch of legacy conventions ripe for disruption, it's hiring.

The idea also has potential as a dating app.

Not really a joke. When I worked for the government the head of my division had a problem with an engineer who was harassing a colleague. He addressed it by telling the guy to apply for jobs elsewhere and sent out lavish recommendations. The recommendations also overlooked the fact that he was an incompetent engineer.

> If you stay on the job for more than two months, your sponsors get double what they invested (minus our fees).

I feel like the linked Twitter criticisms just gloss over the fact. This is definitely a strange idea but it's a shame people dismissed it out of hand based on crude characterizations.

I think referrals, at least at large companies, have messed up incentives. If you and your direct team don't have to suffer the consequences of a bad hire, then of course you should refer random Blind/Reddit/LinkedIn strangers for a chance at getting several thousand dollars. The "large company" issue may be harder to fix, but if you have the potential to lose money, then you will be more discriminating.

Perhaps a version without the payment aspect but with rewards would have been received better. Say a potential referrer would sign up and get three reference tokens (which expire) periodically. Then they can use one to support a person they know for a position. If the employee lasts for two months, they get two tokens and some monetary reward.

Honestly, the barrier of having to sign up to act as a reference for someone might be too much on its own. But, if they manage to get people with good professional networks participating it might be valuable.

I don't think you need the token system. I think you just need some non-monetary cost.

What about just asking references to write a couple of paragraphs?

Having to write a couple of paragraphs is not bad per se, just not sufficiently interesting on its own. some current referral systems already request reference letters and reward successful referrals.

It might be fun to try out a system with a limited number of referrals one can submit that rewards consistent good recommendations.

Referral based hiring means you don't get paid if the person doesn't get hired. So there is already an incentive to not waste one's time referring somebody that is unlikely to get hired.

Either way, this company doesn't appear to provide any solution, it's just inserting itself into the process as a middleman.

Well, the disincentive of wasting one's time (in practice that means generating an application link, or filling out a short form online) is much, much smaller than the potential reward.

> If you and your direct team don't have to suffer the consequences of a bad hire, then of course you should refer random Blind/Reddit/LinkedIn strangers for a chance at getting several thousand dollars.

Several thousand dollars is trivial relative to the amount that professional recruiters charge. That's partially because employee referrals are, on average, less trustworthy than good professional recruiters for the reasons you mentioned: You get a small number of very good referrals, but you also get a large number of people playing the referral bonus like a numbers game and putting in every name they can think of.

But this startup had a different problem: They asked employees to pay to basically gamble on the hiring process. A hiring process which is largely out of their control. Most people don't want to gamble on things like this, and with good reason. It was doomed from the start.

Professional recruiters flood you with unqualified candidates (they can't tell the difference). I would never use an outside recruiter, it is less work per hire for the manager to find people themselves (and thus cheaper in time and expenditure).

So, I sponsor myself and in 2 months the company pays me out 30k? Or fires me one day before the 2 months is up and keeps 15k?

How do you imagine that’s going to play out?

“We didn’t realise they wouldn’t be a great fit without an interview”.

Since there is no way to stop bad actors, someone is going to start a new company who’s sole income is based on ripping off job seekers.

As long as two months wages < the cost of the job, you’re effectively making people pay you to work for you.

There’s no sugar coating it: this is a scam.

It will create scam businesses.

If will create law suits over dismissals.

What a brilliant way to drain money from people, if you really don’t care about them at all.

The only thing missing is a bidding system where you all bid for a salary too, and only the lowest bid gets the job.

This is kindof how external recruiters already work (recruiter is paid to get you hired after you stay long enough) . You can fix the bad incentive for employers by taking the money and donating it to charity if the person does not last two months.

Eh, whatever. They did a soft launch, realized they didn't have product-market fit, and walked away. Most startups are utterly terrible ideas, just look at this year's YC batch.

This startup actually was in this year's YC batch. They advertised that they were YC backed on their website.

I like to think Wyndly is okay -- https://www.wyndly.com

https://web.archive.org/web/20211013191523/https://skipthein... is an archive link for the SkipTheInterview website which explains their attempted design.

Wow thanks. Pretty sure YC did not invest in this idea - they invested in the CEO who must’ve pivoted to this.

Although I will say the day 1 trial was a good aspect. You can tell a lot about how a person works in 1-2 days. Easier for smaller companies than larger companies

Another example of the difference between homo sapians and homo econimus. This makes some sense from a rational, detached, Vulcan perspective, but homo sapiens hates it.

(I haven't sat down and deeply analyzed it and all the second order effects it may have just for an HN comment, but it's not an immediately obviously stupid idea from a Vulcan perspective.)

Unfortunately, homo sapiens was the target market.

> Another example of the difference between homo sapians and homo econimus. This makes some sense from a rational, detached, Vulcan perspective, but homo sapiens hates it.

Homo economicus specifically refers to entities meeting all the elements of the rational choice model, including having and acting on perfect information about forward net utilities of decisions. Since the entire purpose of this service is to try to deal with a problem of imperfect information about forward net utilities of an economic decision, it would make no sense if the participants were homo economicus.

Your not wrong that it doesn't work for H. sapiens, though.

So instead of an "interview" there's some financial blahblah, followed by a one day "trial" after which either side can say no.

Incredibly heavy reinforcement of structural biases aside, this seems to only remove the cheap part of the interview but keep the grueling, expensive part for both parties, just under a different name. I think a full-ass work day is still not the norm outside of the weird SV cabal; we offer it to candidates but no one takes it, and I've never gotten offered or wanted such a thing.

YC is even more up its own ass than I thought at this point, if this was accepted.

As expected, the only non-negative comments I see on the Internet about skiptheinterview are from HN.

notsurprised.jpg

Well, it is a YC backed startup

Are negative comments about skiptheinterview the only valid ones in your eyes?

HN is part of YC, and skiptheinterview is a YC-backed startup, so commenters here are more likely to discuss the start-up in that context - market fit, viability, etc. vs conversations you'd see on Reddit and Twitter.

> Are negative comments about skiptheinterview the only valid ones in your eyes?

My comment was about the culture that produced the idea behind skiptheinterview.com :)

Hiring, and tech hiring more than ever, is broken. We cannot fix it with these kind of ideas.

I can see why people might not like the concept but I think it's getting more anger than it deserves.

From another perspective, you could also see this as betting on someone, which is actually kind of fun (if I understand correctly and you double your money if they're hired). If they provided accurate statistics on the amount of their candidates who end up being hired, it might not even be a bad investment. I'm curious what the legality of that is though, it seems like actual betting.

I also think friends and online acquaintances might be a bigger source of 'bets' for them than former colleagues. Or even people you don't know, but they know of your work on open source projects, etc.

I would game the system - I would pay my friends and colleagues to refer me, and when I get the job, I would collect the payout (after two months) from the referrers and keep it as a signing bonus and treat all my friends / colleagues to a big party. (And yes, this is very much doable when Indians are involved ;).

Isn't that what one already does with a successful referral bonus, buy beer for all parties involved?

It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.

Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.

The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.

And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."

This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.

The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.

> The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.

Exactly, so it's not like these candidates are paying to "skip annoying thing" - it's just a different annoying thing. In essence, this sort of arrangement actually puts the candidate in a less powerful position than if they'd just received a normal offer.

I don't even think this is geared towards 'rich people' - I assume it's mostly aimed at colleagues who are also tech workers. It does favor people who have previous work experience (and therefore colleagues who could vouch/invest), but verifiable experience is usually a job requirement anyway.

You know, the idea may be bonkers, but honestly - hiring is such a pain for every person involved that I'm willing to try just about anything to make it easier. There is some merit to your colleagues sticking their neck out for you, and I can think of some people I would definitely do it for that I've worked with in the past.

Is it a bit tone deaf in the current market? Quite possibly. Is it DOA? Seems to be. Is it offensive or discriminatory? I just don't see how.

I think the issue is so much of the labor market is based on who you know, in particular if you know wealthy/connected people you can get job opportunities, and this sort of amplifies the well connected's leg up on the unconnected.

I think the knowing-people effect is a better criticism about referrals generally. Given that most companies already accept referrals, at least with this setup, employees would think twice about referring someone who would be let go before 2 months.

As a (formerly?) unconnected person – You can become connected. It just takes effort.

My favorite way to think about it comes from an old dating forum: Okay so you want to date a super model … how many super models are you meeting every day? If you aren’t where the super models are, you aren’t going to date a supermodel.

Same with networking. Go where the people you want to meet are. Then meet them.

Want a big network in tech? Go be an intern (or whatever you can get) at a large tech company. Have lunch with a new person every day. Or every few days. Spelunk from there

Want a big network of complainers? Go hang out on twitter. There’s lots of us and we love to complain about everything.

Once upon a time on this very forum I posted a blog: “Hey I’m coming to the Bay Area for 2 months, it’s my first time in USA. Who wants to hang?” that got me a string of coffee dates with dozens of people and it was amazing. I failed to keep in touch but most of us still recognize each other online.

Sure, being unconnected is a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean it's one we should fight against. Having referrals and a network means you're not just a good coder, you are someone other people are willing to stand up for - that's a real world advantage in someone you hire. Ignoring that out of some sense of "fair" (if it's even "fair") would be a bad idea.

> You know, the idea may be bonkers, but honestly - hiring is such a pain for every person involved that I'm willing to try just about anything to make it easier.

The introduction of mandatory middle men into a system listed on the FTC webpage as a classic scam signal (pay for job opportunity) does not fundamentally eliminate the problems with it. The structural incentives are such that this model cannot work except as a scam ripping off most of the people pay into it, and the structural incentives also guarantee that it will mostly be the actual job seekers ultimately paying, even if the payments are forced to be laundered through “referrers”.

There are referrals and there are referrals. One is basically a a lead generation product for internal recruiters - internal referral bonuses at the like. The other is a professional and social relationship - a mutual connection recommending a particular person to a hiring manager. The latter doesn't need any financial mechanic to work - the costs and benefits to the referrer are measured in credibility and reputation.

The former already carries substantial financial rewards at most companies. This product seems to be aimed at making that kind carry more weight by adding a downside cost to the (effectively) anonymous referrer, _reducing_ the incentive to stuff the queue.

To me, it feels like the 'crypto to let strangers borrow your stuff' thing that was on here a few days ago. Attempting to replicate a social cost/benefit structure with financial products doesn't really work, and the implied equation of the two rubs a lot of people the wrong way, as seen here.

I suspect that the sort of person that doesn't interview well is also the sort of person that would struggle to get anyone in their professional past to gamble on them like this.

I’m not clear on what the problem is/was here, can someone pls shed some light.

(Ie was the issue that Twitter thought this was just a bad business idea? or was it that Twitter thought this was racist/discriminatory?). If it’s the former I’m not clear on what the big deal is, and why it had to be shutdown so quickly. Tks

Because the job market already sucks and they’re actively making it worse with each job they post. We already lose out in jobs we’re qualified for for completely arbitrary reasons. Now we get to add “didn’t have rich coworkers” to that list. If this catches on, now I have to start worrying about only making connections with rich people because they’re the ones that can get me a job. It just makes the world an objectively worse place by existing

Static mirror so we can skip the stupid, text-hidding, pop-up: https://archive.is/RHhg2

Easier to change your business model now, and think getting more signal from referrals could be solved with new incentives, but mostly agree with the criticisms.

Let’s see, you vote for candidates with money. If I’m a sought after engineer, I can collaborate with ppl inside to bet big on me and receive a kick back

But that would be great for the hiring company: If I read correctly, your application is "vetted" once it reaches certain amount of $$$ which is 1/2 of what the company is willing to pay to fill the role.

So, if you collaborate with people to reach that amount, and you last 2 months on the job, then it is a win-win situation.

> Let’s see, you vote for candidates with money. If I’m a sought after engineer, I can collaborate with ppl inside to bet big on me and receive a kick back

And if you’re an engineer that thinks you are underappreciated on your resume but really good, you can work with other people to, at zero cost/risk to them, turn it into “I pay for a job trial”.

This is a source of significant problems.

The idea seems to be, instead of going through a recruiter or agency you raise funds from ex colleagues. If the firm hires you then they pay your ex colleagues where once they would pay the agency.

If they don't hire you I imagine the backers get nothing? Is this where the trouble lies?

Neither the article nor the tweets, nor the comments here seem to know the problem.

> The idea seems to be, instead of going through a recruiter or agency you raise funds from ex colleagues.

That's the idea.

Of course, there’s nothing to prevent it from actually being “you pay funds through ex-colleagues”, and lots of reasons that's how its likely to work out in practice.

I think there are several problematic aspects. First, the incentives are all fucked up. Why would I pay more money to have my best colleagues leave vs. my worst? Indeed many made the joke that they'd be more than willing to pay several thousand to get rid of their least productive or most annoying colleagues. Similarly, the company hiring has non-zero incentive to fire the candidate before 2 months and the keep the bounty. This isn't likely to happen in "hot" industries like software, but the goal of startups is to grow and spread into other markets.

Second, this makes moving from a low paying region/industry to a higher paying one more difficult since the bounty is based on the target salary for the role. A software engineer coming from Russia is probably not going to be able to raise $20k USD from his Russian colleagues while applying to a job in SF. In effect this bounty system reduces social mobility. You might counter that the option to interview still exists, but if there's one job opening and you can get it "automatically" by raising money the candidate who raises cash the fastest (i.e. knows the most wealthy people) wins by default.

I’m not sure about this startup but I am sure you shouldn’t pay attention to Twitter eat-the-rich mobs.

I mean, when your startup is at soft-launch stage and the exact market your startup is targeting is turning its nose up loudly, maybe it's not a bad idea to listen to them.

Definitely a bad idea. The loud-and-outraged Twitter personality is likely not their target market.

Going back into stealth and working heads down is the right play while they test out their idea more.

Totally agree. I don’t think they actually invalidated product market fit. The way to do that is by pitching to companies/managers/teams in person and seeing if 0% or some other unacceptable percentage of them actually sign up

I don’t pay attention to Twitter. Correct me if I am wrong. Twitter is an exaggerated state of reality with a lot of reactionary takes and complaining or pointing out of issues.

However what do you propose against “eat-the-rich”? More worship of the rich? Where is that at not happening? It certainly happens on Twitter as well as virtually everywhere. The amount of media and casual discussion that occurs because a wealthy person said something is absurdly high. An heir to old fortune said something about our homeless issues? A dozen sites with an article about the person along with Twitter and Reddit threads as well will crop up asap. Meanwhile someone who just climbed out of being homeless and is and will innocuously remain at the median income said the same stuff a month ago…no one cares.

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