Ask HN: Which job sites are you using to look for new jobs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which job sites are you using to look for new jobs?

I've seen a lot of people complain that jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed are pretty much fake nowadays so wondering which ones are you guys using to search for new opportunities?

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Hey, I personally recommend smaller platforms, I'm not a native English speaker, so the platforms I use will probably be useless to you, but I can distinguish a few key points: Keep it small, companies that go niche platforms probably aren't looking for 1000 applicants. Look for human written posts, that actually tell you something about them, instead of classic "we provide complex solutions for big companies, that provide services to other big companies". Look for direct contacts, like a phone number or an email address, so you can engage in a real human interaction sooner and speak for yourself, instead of letting people judge you based on a resume, that might have some minor flaws.

Check the communities, like reddit, telegram/whatsapp groups, HN, etc. Again, direct communication can do wonders.

Check companies websites, most tech companies have a dedicated Careers page with all the open positions and requirements, write them a personal email and wait for the response. This can give an extra karma point, because you didn't find them on some hiring website while looking for a job, you've found this position on their website, so it already tells them something about you wanting to work there.

If you are interested in startups, you can check some Y Combinator reports/news, or look at some producthunt posts, it's a riskier bet, but if you are into that kind of a thing, can be a great path.

Hope this can be helpful, best of luck with your searches!

This is solid advice, thank you very much

Your English is perfect btw

Wow. If this is how you write in your non-native language, you must be a virtuoso is your own!

What's your native language?

I don't think the point was that they weren't a fluent English speaker. Many countries like Denmark and Germany have a majority of the population which speaks better English than most Americans.

The reason for mentioning being a non-native speaker presumably was to point out that their own experience with more "niche" job boards would be with sites which are in their native language, or which have more uptake among users of their native language, such that they can't give any specific recommendations to a native English speaker.

Yep, I guess it's not very useful to post a website with no English translation, unless people ask for it. But if someone, who speaks Russian, accidentally finds this thread, I used to look for jobs on rit.work, great place in my opinion.

Thanks a lot for the compliment <3. My first language is Russian, at the moment, trying to get up to speed with Georgian and French in the future.

I pretty much hate all of them due to the low quality and puffery filled content on them. LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Blind seem to be better than others, but not by much. HN who is hiring seems to have less BS, but there are a lower number of listings and almost no options in my geographic area. Not to mention it seems HN posting are geared to higher performers (I'm a low performer).

I feel line linkedin is also full of fake job listings. At least I’ve seen ones that are there since forever

Pretty much all of them have those "evergreen" listing by the bigger companies.

I'm not sure how it's not fraud to advertise a job that isn't actually vacant at the time. I guess there's no incentive to stop it since it would make the jobs numbers for the economy look like worse.

I think that it's not legally fraud (in the US) because an important component of fraud is that the lie is used to steal something of value from the victims. Advertising a job that doesn't exist doesn't do this unless you're charging an application fee or using the data collected from applicants for a purpose other than what was represented.

The practice is lying, though, and I'll join in the chorus of voices saying that it's terrible behavior.

False advertising is considered a type of fraud because you used false facts to extract, or try to extract, value from someone. If there was no job open, you just cost someone paper, ink, transportation, and time. It's a stetch, but in my book it fits.

I run a daily mailing list that emails the latest remote engineering roles found that day (nothing outdated or older than 24 hrs) https://bloomberry.com/remote-jobs/

You can choose specific roles too such as: backend, leadership, frontend

Great stuff, thank you for your work!

How do you manage to scraoe 50k companies?

Impressive. How do you know if it's a new vs. reposted job?

I keep track of the urls and titles posted

very useful! how do you finance this? ads in the email?

For in-person roles in larger cities, there is usually one or more tech community Slack groups with a job channel. It's a good format because often the roles are posted by a member of the community, so you can check their message history or DM them for questions.

My current job started as a job at a consulting company, which I got via a recruiter reaching out on Linkedin.

Hacker News who is hiring threads work as well - posting your resume or reaching out to job listings.

I have got interesting interviews at startups via https://wellfound.com/jobs .

Didn’t know about wellfound, will check it out. Thank you!

I had a lot of success on Dice about 6 months ago.

Nice, thanks for sharing

I still prefer connecting with recruiters on Linkedin. I've heard fishbowl is pretty good too...!

Blind has a job portal,you could give that a shot

If you are in the U.S., I generally pitch USAjobs. The government seems to be leaning into in sourcing tech talent and and I've seen an uptick in the 2210 series being posted. If you are willing to work for a government agency, check them out. If you look at the CR that was just passed, look for agencies that were funded for 2024. If the agency was funded, odds are jobs will be opening up soon. Also, some agencies are willing to do 100 percent telework or remote positions to get in top talent for IT. Granted if you aren't a veteran it can be tough to certify for those kinds of jobs, but no harm in throwing your hat in the ring. I'm not a pro at gov employment, but if you want some details on the right kinds of positions, grades and series that would fit I'd be happy to give some info. The misinformation is strong out there, every little bit helps. Good luck!!

Thanks for the detailed explanation, hopefully it can helo others, I’m based in Europe

What are your tips for USAjobs? I've applied several times (w/ 10 pt advantage) and I've never even gotten an email back.

Honestly, I've never had luck with any job site. I get my jobs by locating and directly applying at companies that I'm interested in working for (whether or not they have any open positions listed) and through a trusted recruiter.

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