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Comment by the_cat_kittles | Hacker News Reader

since a lot of people on here have probably been involved / applied for companies posted on here, their feedback would probably be useful. in my case, an unnamed YC company made me a really insulting lowball offer. i feel the desire to mention that every time they post on here. maybe thats not what you want, but i think its good for everyone if companies are accountable and dont try to take advantage of people in the hiring process.

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> in my case, an unnamed YC company made me a really insulting lowball offer. i feel the desire to mention that every time they post on here.

I think that's actually the danger here. I sympathize with you, but at the same time, I don't think it would add much value to just give a bunch of people the opportunity to air their grievances in job postings.

Totally agree with that assessment. If it becomes a place where only previously rejected candidates can voice their angst, then its all downhill...

I don't know if the offer really was insultingly low or not, or if he/she interviewed poorly, or if he/she is highly skilled or not, or whatever. These facts aren't terribly important.

Having a feedback mechanism might encourage people to be nice, and I can't see how that's bad. Yeah it might suck to have to spend an extra two minutes talking to every candidate, but I don't see that making or breaking a company.

http://www.paulgraham.com/ronco.html

You'd have to be one hell of an idiot to air your grievances about being rejected for a job application on a public forum like this. Great way to reduce your job prospects for the future.

I suspect this sort of thing would be fairly rare, because it looks bad on both the applicant and the company.

Some folks create throwaway accounts and post anonymously.

Hasn't the internet taught us that there are quite a lot of idiots out there?

(And no, I'm not excluding the possibility that I myself am one of them)

well there is a line to walk i guess. on the one hand, i think a lot of people would like to know about things like my experience so they can decide if its worth the trouble for a certain company if thats the risk. you are probably right to worry if people are actually just going to stick to the facts and not get too emotional though.

I too received an extraordinary lowball offer from a YC company, at least $40k below market.

I'm not sure what goes through some of these companies' heads, but if they can't compensate adequately, then as a leader, I would not be able to assure employees that the company would be competitive hiring the best, unless the company had a particularly special angle such as being in the edtech space.

What is "insultingly lowball?" Were I a YC company I'd definitely leverage its reputation in targeting a certain group of eager, young, and naive labor. I'd view it much like I'd view the labor market in the video game industry: there may be an overall shortage of tech talent, but in specific cases there is an abundance of labor that can be had (relatively) cheaply.

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