Comment by GordyMD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GordyMD | Hacker News Reader

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Hi there I'm Gordon and I am a software engineer! I have worked in the startup space for the 4 past years in London and San Francisco. Over this time I, like many others, have experienced the way in which the world of tech recruiting works. I have grown frustrated by the number of times I have been contacted about roles not suited to me and how recruiters regularly pitch me roles based on technologies I used in previous employment. I have also experienced recruitment from the employers point of view where I had to build a team out in San Francisco which was equally frustrating.

I believe the systems that we employ to help us find a job/recruit falls short of our expectations and is in need of some desperate rejuvenation and optimisation!

5 months ago I arrived back from San Francisco and teamed with 2 former colleagues who shared a passion in trying to improve this experience for both developers and hirers. I would like to invite you to be one of the first people to see and use Workshape.io - a talent matching service for Startups.

The key premise to Workshape.io is that we are a matching service that focuses on what you want to do in your next role - more specifically: what tech you want to work with and how you want to spend your time as a developer. We feel when you are open to another role your aspirations should be recognised as one of the key components to matching you to a role. We are focussed on rolling out in London right now and currently have roles from companies such as Shazam, Spotify, Qubit and Moo.com online.

We are very early stage right now and would really welcome your feedback on the experience, thoughts on the site and how we match you to roles.

Thank you for your time

Still focusing on just the tools? Why is no one talking about the people? I feel that the biggest factor in whether I'll like a job or not is whether or not I enjoy the people. Is there anyone there I can learn from? Anyone I find entertaining/interesting? Will I fit into the dynamic?

We all feel great when we are in the presence of a group of people that feels like the perfect mix of personalities. Where each person plays off the others in a way that feels awesome.

When I am interviewing for a new tech job, I always want to meet the team before deciding if I want to join up. Rarely do I get the chance.

It sounds cheesy, but I feel like recruiting should be more inline with matching people and personalities than matching tools and technologies.

I think you've nailed it.

The reason these products don't focus on people is that people are hard. Hiring is one the hardest things out there, with often warped incentives on both ends re: honesty. Building a product/service to solve this dilemma in a way that satisfies all parties is probably even harder, and then on top of that you need a business model for pulling dollars out of the matching process.

It's much easier to just build a product that matches technology stacks, and it's not immediately obvious that it's the wrong approach.

hello - www.somewhere.com - it's all about the people.

disclaimer, I'm a founder there.

Totally agree. This is the direction we are going to head in. We will display existing team members and also how you may compliment/overlap one another.

I'm having some trouble logging in. First time I got redirected back from Github (to http://www.workshape.io/api/0/session/connect/github/callbac...), I got {}, second time I tried, I got { name: "RqlDriverError", msg: "Object field 'id' may not be undefined", message: "Object field 'id' may not be undefined" }

Annoyingly, our email quota ran out, causing this an exception that kills the signup process. Am resolving now. Accounts that were effected will be removed as they are currently in an erroneous state. There is also a chance it was another bug, but this is the first one I have isolated.

Big apology for this, will resolve ASAP.

Same error here, with the same empty response, followed by {"name":"RqlDriverError","msg":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined","message":"Object field 'id' may not be undefined"}

I've looked into the error with a few users and no recreations as yet. Please can you try signing up again now please and report back on whether it works. Many thanks.

Also having issues logging in, same symptoms.

Yeah. I was going to give it a shot, but I can't even get in the door :(

Same error here..

ditto exactly the same for me

Same here.

Sorry about that. I'll look into this as soon as I can. Do either of you mind if I contact you via email to resolve?

Sure do, here is my profile with everything you need: https://github.com/atmosx

Had a brief look on your plateform, nice execution, can't wait to see you guys expand!

Same for me; was looking at it as a potential customer, although outside London

I got the same series of errors

Login error :(

same here!

Same here.

Never used Node or Rethink but looks like the DB treats undefined vs null values differently (errors on the former, inserts the latter).

Caveat: haven't tried the site yet.

Matching based on what you want to work on sounds dreamy for developers, and a like a disaster for startup employers.

Startups are defined by change, and a critical thing you want to hire for is flexibility and tolerance for technology schleps. This seems like the opposite of what you're selecting for in developers.

If you want to make things more pleasant for engineers, perhaps you should be targeting more stable companies on the other end -- the ones that know precisely what they need, and know that it won't change next week.

Source: running a startup.

Agree. When you are running an early stage startup, you don't have much cash to burn and let people fiddle with what they want to try. You want to get something done, fast. And that's where the experienced folks come to help you.

It's different in larger companies, where you can afford more time for learning and self-discoveries.

Source: I worked for a startup where 3 out of 4 devs had 1 year of experience combined. Things didn't go well.

The problem with the tech job market right now isn't typically:

"I'm a hiring manager and I get so many responses from good people that I don't know which to choose"

It's more like:

"I'm a hiring manager and I can't find any people who are interested in our position".

This is more of a solution to the second problem.

I thought the problem was supposed to be:

"I'm a hiring manager and all my postings get spammed by barely code-literate, unqualified people and I can't separate the wheat from the chaff efficiently."

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