Found this site, apply to New York City's startups in 60 seconds | Hacker News Reader

Found this site, apply to New York City's startups in 60 seconds

underdog.io

24 pointsmergesort22 comments

It would be nice to see a list of the startups that can see resumes (or opt out of some).

If I was at a startup and looking to move to a new one, I wouldn't want it to be public knowledge that I was looking until I at least talked with a couple companies.

Exactly. With no knowledge of who my information is going to I can't agree to submit an application. Privacy is one reason; not having your time wasted if the companies aren't something you're interested in is another.

Those are great pieces of feedback. We're definitely add this. This is version 1.0 - just wanted to see how many people would be interested in something like this.

Awesome. I do think this could be a really useful tool, but it needs a lot more transparency (and clarity about what it is you do, if not "recruit")

Also, if you guys have any questions re: which companies we partner with, you can email us at support@underdog.io and we'll be happy to share.

That's sort of a non-solution. Perhaps add a field that asks "which startups would you not like to share your information with?"

This way, you keep your site single-blind (to keep people from skipping using your service) and if a company happened to be in the list, the person could still use your service (just hiding his/her info from that party).

Great idea. We'll add that later today.

It takes, like, 2 minutes to fill out the form so you wouldn't be wasting much time on that side.

That being said, I'm assuming you'll be told what company is interested in you (if any) when/if they make contact rather than the usual recruiter nonsense ie. "A company in the financial services space" etc etc

It's the follow up communication that could waste time. I would prefer to do a little research on each company before applying to a dozen of them at once, or to see that the companies listed are known and trustworthy.

What sort of candidate volume are you seeing? I signed up from the startup side but for $350/month I want to have a pick of a lot of candidates. Maybe some way to preview candidates without getting their contact info so that I can feel better before handing over some money? Or free accounts for startups too while you guys build out your volume?

Also I think your tone is too informal for this kind of thing. Seeing "moar" made me cringe.

Hey Mason, we'll send you an email to discuss. We just went live (like one hour ago :D) but we're seeing a good deal of traffic.

The part about needing sponsorship - Don't you think your form should have a field to reflect this. So that the startups can easily see if the candidates are not in the US and need sponsorship? Without having to view each resume.

Also great feedback. We'll add this later today.

looks suspiciously like hired.com - but as a resume aggregator rather than talent marketplace. maybe you can convince companies to pay $350/mo for your book, maybe you can't. good side project though :)

How do you prevent a bad actor from signing up as a fake startup and harvesting your users?

We do our due diligence on every startup before we partner with them.

Great -- and well done going into the thread and answering questions.

I don't want to specifically say this site is good or bad, but I've had really bad experiences with sites of this sort.

Essentially, sites of this sort were all just recruiters trying to farm up candidate contacts, and all you are left with is just spam.

My advice to underdog.io: tell us who you actually are. What's your name? What experiences do you have? Your "About Us" says nothing about you, and makes me suspicious that you don't want to put yourself out there.

Hey, I'm one of the people working on this.

That's totally a legitimate concern. I can promise you we aren't recruiters. It's just a side project at the moment, so we didn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves.

I was interested in your service until I read the about us and the FAQ sections. They are respectively, not transparent enough and patronizing. If you want me to use your job-search service, treat me like a professional and don't address me as "silly" and "cute". I like that you're trying to make it easy, but as you say, a job search is not easy, and your website makes it seem suspicious too. I put all of my information and then what do you do with it exactly?

Pretty much this. I'm not sure why I'd use this service either, if they are a serious company they'd put effort into getting the word out about the jobs in the first place.

That's totally a legitimate concern.

No, it's not. If it were, you'd reveal your identities, just like in any business transaction.

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