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Comment by GJim | Hacker News Reader

We solved this by stating we would only accept applications by snail mail.

Magicly, the spamming stopped, and we only had applications from good genuine candidates with a real interest in the role.

The job of any technology (like email and "apply now" buttons) is to make life easier and better. If it doesn't do that, then don't use it!

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IRL proof of work. Elegant solution.

I recall seeing one where you had to send a specific payload to an https endpoint to apply (or it might have been an automated screen immediately after the application was submitted). Forcing potential candidates to briefly open the curl manpage seemed like a similarly elegant solution to me. I doubt it works as well in the era of LLMs though.

similarly, i remember at least one organization (pre-Songtradr Bandcamp, i think) who didn't publish some of its open technical roles anywhere except in HTML comments on their website. they only wanted to attract folks who liked to poke around and look under the hood.

Snail mail has started to break down in the USA. I remember when I was a child letters always took 3 days to be delivered. Now I've sent letters to family members that took more than a week to arrive. I imagine that makes it hard for a candidate to plan or align interviews.

Send it registered, then it has tracking. Only costs slightly more.

As far as I can tell it costs almost 10 times as much to send a letter certified mail (or any other option with tracking). And it means I can't just use a regular stamp, I have to go to the post office or use a third party service like stamps.com and print out a label.

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