Hacker News Reader

> We don't want job applications from people who are looking for a job. We're looking for people who actually want to do work

> We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity

This gem right here sums up what an employers market means. Every employer thinks they are special and wants an employee who's entire life's journey was only a preparation for the singular great moment of meeting you and building your vision, all for the a great compensation package of 65k/year and dental.

But guess what: you are not special, you are just a workplace and you compete in the marketplace for talent just like everybody else. For economic reasons that have nothing to do with you, you have more negotiating power for a limited time. That is all.

If the hiring pool for this job is global, I think it's entirely reasonable to expect to hear from people that are uniquely suited to the role.

And it goes both ways. These days I pick a job based on whether the work is going to help me learn what I need to make progress on my side projects. If I was searching locally that would be an entirely unreasonable filter, but so far it's been win-win.

> But guess what: you are not special, you are just a workplace and you compete in the marketplace for talent just like everybody else. For economic reasons that have nothing to do with you, you have more negotiating power for a limited time. That is all.

I think it’s perfectly legitimate to not want to hire people with this attitude. Just a few people with this attitude can completely ruin an early stage company.

And the same goes in the other direction: I don’t want to work for anybody who sees me as a commodity they’ve bought in a market. I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet.

How did you infer the "early stage company" thing? That's an assumption.

It's worst for early stage, but applies to all companies except one-man-shows.

I believe in this entire thread the attitude of "just do your job well and exceed expectations a few times a year" is very under-represented. And I've met many employers who have it.

That's a fair retort, especially on HN. But I hope we agree an early stage startup is a very very particular organization that is looking for partners, not employees, because the efforts of each has a compounding impact on the capital gains of all.

So while it might be true for GP's company, it's not true for the vast number of available jobs. If you are not in the cap table (or have only unfavorable terms), then by definition you are something the company has bought on the market and that's exactly how the company is thinking about you - else the ownership situation would reflect it. It's a business, not a social club, you either own the capital or you are the capital. Expecting anything else in exchange for you unique snowflakiness is self-delusional and the road to abject bitterness, as many ex a googler and twitterer found out.

> I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet.

There may be only one person exactly like you, although with 9 billion people it remains to be proven. But you sure are replaceable by many others with approximately the same set of skills.

Sure. And my general attitude is that if my employer can replace me then they should, so I can do something more productive (where I will be harder to replace). And to state the obvious: when you run your work life like this for 20 years you get pretty hard to replace.

The graveyard is full of the previously irreplaceable.

"...20 years"

Ohh sorry, we can't hire you. It's a "culture fit" issue. (We aren't allowed to say it's an age filter! It's "culture"- we aren't ageist!)

The grave yards are full of irreplaceable people.

Look: It’s not that we disagree about how the world works, it’s that we give it a different emotional coloring. Yours sounds bitter and resentful to me.

You are indirectly making a great case for requiring that applicants consider the company more that "just a job". If my coworkers ranted like that, I'd not have fun at my work and you'd be dragging morale down.

I spend 8-10 hours a day at my job. That's far more than with any of my friends and typically more than even with my spouse in the average week. My coworkers, at least a significant fraction, better be amazing. If somebody comes and basically says, dude, it's just a job, leave me alone, I leave them to their misery. If I am forced to work with them any significant amount of time, I quit an go work somewhere else where I can build meaningful connections with people around me. Cause let's face it, co-workers are a friends substitute in this day and age.

> dude, it's just a job, leave me alone, I leave them to their misery.

If you really believed what you were saying you wouldn’t have to rationalize it to yourself by claiming that people who don’t think like you must be miserable.

> Cause let's face it, co-workers are a friends substitute in this day and age.

That’s on you. If you’re using coworkers as a friends substitute it’s not surprising you get people who want you to leave them alone.

> We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity to work together with a smart bunch of people on a very hard problem.

So does nearly everybody else. I was never told by a recruiter they are looking for somebody to work on mind-numbingly simple things in the company of idiots.

> they are looking for somebody to work on mind-numbingly simple things in the company of idiots

That isn't always an inaccurate description.

> We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity to work together with a smart bunch of people on a very hard problem.

I think this can be a trap. I'm not saying that your company does this, but I've learned to be wary of this. We've all heard of game programmers who are in endless "crunch mode" for less salary than they can get elsewhere. They accept this precisely because they want the opportunity to work on something they love. But is it fair of the company to abuse people like that? Is it really the right choice to work at a place like that?

Again, I'm not saying your company is abusing anyone. But when I feel this sort of vibe coming from a company that I'm applying to and have no insider knowledge of, it makes me think there might be that sort of abuse going on, which makes me less likely to want to apply to the company.

>Either you're excited about this as much as we are, or you just send a CV.

[...]

>It's really not about loving what we do.

You do realize your contradicting yourself right?

Honestly, young wide-eyed new-grad me (which I bet is your target hiring demographic) would have totally bought into your baloney of "making the world a better place through minimal message oriented transport layers"[1], but as a gray beard I'd really be happy to be filtered out of your resume screening, as it reeks of cargo cult BS. I'm paid to do a job, not to join a cult and make that my life and working identity.

I apreciate your honesty though and I hope more companies do this so I can easily avoid them and save us both the time.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETi_UpG8D_k

I don't have a beard but I'm definitely gray.

It might be about confusing passion for the company with passion for the type of work that is part of what the company needs to be carried out as one and the same.

If those things were clearly separated in the attitude of companies when looking to hire maybe people would be more willing to help both the company and in turn themselves succeed.

Otherwise, it's a bit like professing your unconditioned love before you know what you've bargained for, and that seems backwards.

I'm not in your field, but I read it as such from the get-go and I thought, "Yeah I know what this person is talking about – basically, not seeking someone who lays it on too thick about being in love with the company (or even the specific software/ work), but someone who reads the job description, and is fairly assured they are very capable of doing the work, and wants to do the work because it's interesting to them."

It didn't sound to me like you're asking someone to be a zealot, sycophant, brown-noser, or some kinda corporate drone who drinks the kool-aid and wears the company swag. But maybe I'm misreading?

I say this because I'm fairly niche in my skillset for animation and design, and I only really reach out to studios/ agencies for this very specific skillset, and will turn down jobs (or refer others who might be a better fit) where it's better suited for a generalist or outside of my range. Like, I like doing work within my niche, but it's not my everything or even my core identity.

Doesn't sound like you're asking potential candidates to profess their undying devotion and pile on gratitude. That's just my take. Felt like people might have been reading your comments in a slightly exaggerated interpretation and it could use some other perspectives.

You've got this exactly right. We're not your family. We are an employer. I think we offer a special opportunity. We give our employees a lot of freedom to structure their work day. There's no office, it's all remote.

What we're really just looking for is a healthy mix of passion and experience in the field. I believe that people do their best work when it's easy for them to wake up in the morning, they have low stress, they like their colleagues and don't hate the stuff they are working on. Even better if you're passionate about the work you're doing. That gives you a lot of energy to actually perform the work, and for us we're getting great results. This makes our company more valuable, we get more customers and revenue. We can increase your salary and you live a good life. Everybody wins, no?

So people should not try to read something into what I wrote above that's simply not there.

Tell my why you want to work at WunderGraph. Tell my why you think you'd perform good work. That's all.

Please don't write a cover letter. Keep it simple. The best of the best can say a lot with few words.

Is this from Chatgpt? It sounds like generic startup pablum. "We're not like other companies," proceeds to sound like every company.

I don't see the issue. Why change a formula that is known to work? How is anyone to know if it's an honest description and their attitude is genuine? That's what reputation is for. Reputation is most valuable in my opinion and that goes for both potential employer and employee. If it's not available proxies may give some indication, or character evaluation by in person meeting. Does the pitch align with how the other side comes across? It's not a 100% guarantee. The rest is risk, which we can't be without.

That is the problem with pitches like this, they sound pretty good, till you have read a ton of these and worked with a few companies like this and have been burnt by them.

I guess this highlights the problem with the whole recruitment space. This company put out the equivalent of a bad generic resume while complaining about potential employees putting out bad generic resumes.

The cynical truth is that no one is that excited to work at Wundergraph. Once your revenue drops, you will make your staff redundant.

I am sure your employees love to to work with your other colleagues on an exciting problem, however, it is just a paycheck in the end.

Couldn’t tell if this is satire. Love it.

The era of AI-written recruitment pitches has begun.

"begun the era of AI-written recruitment pitches has" FTFY

You were supposed to bring balance to the market, not destroy it!

:)

Yep. I've been following recruiter groups on LinkedIn, there are a number of prompts circulating for that purpose.

> We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity to work together with a smart bunch of people on a very hard problem.

This is the reddest flag of all on any interview process for me. I discard all companies with this attitude.

Working for a company is not a privilege, it is merely an employment.

Wow you really drank the kool-aid.

You really have to say this first to anyone you give the 'advice' from your previous post