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Comment by johnnyanmac | Hacker News Reader

>. I am seeking a cofounder to build the job board that vets employers, and makes money by charging candidates to access it.

Sounds like awful monetization. Dating site issue is right. Your best candidates (so ideally, all the ones you vet) won't be long term subscribers. And sadly, there's way too many grifts in the job system where a candidate paying is a red flag. You'd need to offer the candidates something of value to justify that. Not just "a promise of no ghost jobs").

Is there an issue with the usual recruiter pipeline where you can charge the company some percent of the hire once they get hired? Candidates get hired, company pays a little extra on a successful hire, and your profit incentives come from quality to offer for the companies (hopefully).

The main issue is that it assumes that companies genuinely care about an efficient hiring pipeline. And I've been very cynical in recent times...

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What if the employer was charged a subscription fee, instead of waiting until they find a hire to charge? Then the incentive is for the company to find a hire quickly, since they're now paying per month instead of per head. Some companies will balk at this, obviously, since existing services charge them per head and they don't know how fast a viable hire will appear...but I'd guess that this would be highly effective at weeding out 'employers' who have no interest in employing any new hires.

(Also, seconding the part about grifts where a candidate is charged upfront. Charging upfront for access to training materials, equipment, or some kind of licensing agreement is often a sign that you're about to get roped into a multi-level marketing scam.)

having been on the employers side, i agree with that idea because i think it aligns incentives a bit better. with paying per head only, the recruiters are motivated to get me to accept the first candidate they can find with the least amount of work. with a monthly subscription the recruiter can take more time to find a good candidate because it won't hurt their bottom line.

This sounds like a productive solution, per my reply to @tmn:

> My understanding is that employers already do pay to post on LI, indeed, etc. It simply works out that paying for ghost jobs is worth it, so the enforcement mechanism needs to be a ban/other thing that doesn't rely on pricing

I didn’t realize the LI, indeed, etc. Sites were charging per-head. Could this website be as simple as “an Indeed that charges employers per-month, to disincentivize ghost postings”?

I think the chicken-and-egg problem is a bigger deal than the dating-app problem; while it’s true the best candidates find jobs quickly, they don’t necessarily stop looking. That said if there’s no postings by employers then you’re dead in the water. How could the first 10 employers be recruited?

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