Dear Startup: I'm not going to create an account to send you my resume | Hacker News Reader

Dear Startup: I'm not going to create an account to send you my resume

15 pointsrhizome11 comments

The last thing I'm going to do is create an account at some 3rd party HR/JobAd site just because you're too lazy to handle the few resumes you're likely to get for a $high_demand_position.

Some of your companies sound interesting at face-value, but the fact that you've succumbed (I'm assuming) to the sales pitch of Captain Recruiter, JobVite, or whatever parasite service tells me you don't have a very good understanding of friction, and therefore by your use of these sites I assume your company is not viable at the least, and at most the interview process would be similarly cookie-cutter. Good luck.

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My experience (as an employer/customer) with this outfit (jobvite) was like time travel back to 1998 or so--not retro in a good way though. First, the custom "candidate reports" delivered to us were often poorly parsed versions of the actual candidate CVs. Second, the have no interest in aggregating information from community resources (linkedin, StackOverflow, SO Careers, etc.) nor even in allowing a candidate to include their accounts on those Sites. And finally, because the candidate contacts the company via jobvite, when the interested employer replies via email, it's likely to get flagged as spam or ignored because there is no email in the candidate's outbox with this email domain (this seemed to happen about 25% of the time to us).

As someone thats' just finished going through a job search, one of the biggest turnoffs that I found was companies that made you jump through hoops to even get to the interview stage. Whether it was dealing with recruiters (who with few exceptions were not worth the time to talk too), annoying applicant sites like jobvite or telos (my personal fav...not), or having to give your resume through their homerolled system that never parsed your resume right and you had to bring it with you anyways to the interview, it does nothing but sour people on your company. Doubly so for folks that are looking to get in on a startup.

A startup should be hiring themselves, they should be meeting with potential applicants themselves, and they should realize that people that are looking at startups are usually doing so because they DON'T want the trappings that the megacorps have. Throwing up barriers right at the offsets will scare the A and B level talent away to your competitors, and all you'll find is the C level talent, and the megacorps leavings.

Personally when applying for a start-up I would never go through recruiters. I don't want to go through that process. I rather meet with the company in person over coffee and show them the work I've done and discuss things like that. If it is an early stage start-up then I want to work there because I like what the company is doing and want to be part of it. If it can't happen on a personal level without going through millions of hoops then its already a very bad sign.

I'd go one step further and say that if a startup can't be bothered to be personal in their dealings with their potential employees, is it really a company that you even want to bother applying too? In my latest search there were jobs that looked great, but since they were with recruiters I was either leery or didnt' bother at all. Too many headaches and hoops to jump through, and in the area I'm in right now it's a buyers market for talent

I've recently run into a couple of:

Them (first contact): "We're really interested in talking with you."

Me: "Okay, tell me more."

Them: {20 questions}

I have a standard reply in those situations where I come clean and say, "in order to weed out mindless recruiters, could you tell me a little bit about the position?" Legit recruiters, especially in our lines of work here on HN, will always have a job description and typically a company name (ask twice if they don't give you the latter). Resume-collecting recruiters typically don't reply to that email.

I was unclear. I asked about the position.

I'm used to either no response or a couple of job descriptions, as you suggest.

They replied, but with 20 questions. This is new (to me).

Did they tell you what company it was? That's the clue that you're dealing with someone legit, but it sounds like they reacted by trying to snow you under?

> Did they tell you what company it was?

Yes. In fact, both appear to be internal recruiters. (Their e-mail addresses are at the company in question.)

As if on cue, a sponsored Tweet:

https://twitter.com/#!/Jobvite/status/195248446020661248

Just saw a blip for a recruiter's startup "job fair" where the applicants have to go through a pre-screening to be allowed in. Yea, I'm going to take my time to subject myself to recruiter BS so I can possibly be offered some equity and a low ball salary. Why? Why would anyone, who knows what they are doing and are truly skilled, subject themselves to a recruiters process like this. You want rockstars you better be a rockstar yourself. Brogrammer startup job fairs are not going to cut it.

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