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Comment by mortenjorck | Hacker News Reader

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs

I would definitely not read that from the data. I don’t know what percentage of current seekers post in the wants-to-be-hired thread, but as a potentially-outlying anecdote, I didn’t until I had already been looking for three months.

I would hypothesize that there’s a psychological barrier to posting in WWTBH, even if you’ve been laid off and have no current employer you wouldn’t want seeing it – there’s a certain vulnerability in putting yourself out there versus privately applying to jobs. For me, it took a certain level of desperation with my search to make the jump from browsing the hiring thread to finally posting in the other thread this month.

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That's basically my outlook, I wouldn't post in the WWTBH thread. In addition to the reasons you listed, I'd also add that while my identity certainly isn't hidden and I'm not out here being controversial, my HN posts are decidedly more of the "my thoughts are my own" variety and not something I'd link a hiring manager to otherwise.

This is my first month looking. I thought about posting yesterday, but I am very shy about putting my name on the internet. That insecurity won the day. I hope you get good results from your post.

I've definitely resisted posting in the past. The primary reason was I simply didn't want to post while I had a job. The second is that you can't delete old HN comments, and I don't feel like having an "I need a job" comment on my permanent record. I'm not opposed to posting, but I haven't felt the desire to post.

FYI, you can get old posts deleted by contacting the moderators via email.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623557

Good to know, thanks.

I’ve always been able to delete my comments on that post without having to email anybody

Can confirm. My WWTBH comment from yesterday shows me a delete link, as well as a non-expiring edit link.

The delete button is time-limited. I think it's about 24~36 hours. After that, you can't delete without emailing the mods.

I just deleted my comment on the last thread from a month ago with the button.

For regular threads it's two hours but on who wants to be hired threads you can delete your comment whenever you want, no need to contact a moderator.

You can actually delete the WWTBH comments several weeks later, I believe. I've done it before though I'm not 100% sure.

But you're only deleting them on HN. Both the major job threads are heavily scraped and your profile goes all over the internet.

Also, I believe that, like official job postings, a lot of "Who's Hiring" posts are just kinda-serious fishing expeditions. A lot of companies say they're hiring but in reality it's because they always have their bait in the water, waiting for some outlier good deal on a top talent, but otherwise not really hiring.

EDIT: The same is probably true for job seekers, too, now that I think about it. As another commenter noted, a lot of people are being frog-marched back to physical offices at gunpoint, and are probably low-key fishing for a sweet remote-only gig.

Did you get anything from your "who wants to be hired" post? It's not been clear to me that it's a useful thing to do.

I have received a referral bonus that traced directly back to a "who is hiring" post. Haven't posted on "who wants to be hired" though.

I just got a lot of spam email until I asked the mods to delete my post and the spam vanished

I posted last month and didn't hear anything from it. I'm hoping this month is more fruitful.

Not so far. It would be interesting to attempt to quantify how much the thread does or doesn't help job seekers.

I wouldn't call it a psychological barrier so much as a game-theoretical one. If an employer knows that an employee is looking for jobs, their continued employment would be at risk, they could be silently passed over for promotion, etc. I suspect that most people posting in WWTBH are currently unemployed.

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