You can see it happen here with the current post: http://hnrankings.info/6310234/
Basically, it seems that submits that don't include an external link degrade faster than other submissions.
EDIT: So this post too will probably go down the ranks pretty quickly because it fits in the same category.
The article at position 4 is 4 hours old and has 78 points.
Definitely looks like flagging. The only reason I can think of is job seekers trying to hide the thread from other potential job seekers.
It doesn't help that it's posted on a Sunday morning. It should be posted the first Monday of every month.
If the expectation is that it would sink quickly, wouldn't employers stop using the service?
[edit] Also for what its worth, the quality of the people that reached out via HackerNews was a lot better than I got else where (I even ran an add on reddit's /r/linux)
If you want a job, show some hustle. If you don't have a job and need one, why are you sleeping in on Monday?
To the heart of the discussion, these should come out on a fixed schedule to give everyone a fair chance.
Of course, in order for those ads to be effective, the rest of the site needs to attract the sorts of people that YC-funded companies want to hire. To that end, it needs to be a decent news site (or something) as well.