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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem is that for any job you'll be inundated with completely inappropriate candidates (like, people who literally cannot use a computer for positions as Linux programmers), and you have to somehow exclude those in as automated way as possible.

This is not to defend the Canonical hiring process which sounds weird and inappropriate, and potentially illegal.

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> Part of the problem is that for any job you'll be inundated with completely inappropriate candidates (like, people who literally cannot use a computer for positions as Linux programmers)

I once received an application for someone looking for a position as a railroad engineer. Unfortunately my job listing was for a Ruby on Rails engineer. :-)

... Now I'm trying to imagine a train made out of Al2O3:Cr .

Yup. If you have name recognition, even in a niche field, you'll be inundated with nonsensical resumes and/or desperate people. We get hundreds of applications per position, and many of them are downright nonsensical. No, we can't sponsor a visa for a developer from a different country for an entry-level analyst position. We're a hospital.

Yeah. It goes both ways. Interview processes may often be terrible. But it's also the case that, in a world where you don't even need to put a stamp on an envelope, a lot of people looking for a job/any job (or hoping to get a story written about their client, etc.) will just blast out email/applications to any valid or even invalid endpoint.

ADDED: And, to be fair, if you don't have connections or past history that really jumps off the page, it is a numbers game to a large degree.

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