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shsachdev

875 karma · joined December 25, 2016

www.careerfair.io

everything is prep for the big show

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shsachdev··on The booming, high-stakes arms race of airline safety videos
Good point, yes - the director of the United video (Karim Zariffa) told me that during the shoot the employees were highly invested (they didn’t want to make a mistake on camera) and the whole shoot likely helped boost employee morale.
shsachdev··on The booming, high-stakes arms race of airline safety videos
I don’t know whether it would be legal, but I 100% agree with your suggestion - a more active form of learning would be more effective. Professor Molesworth (the expert I interviewed for the article) actually suggested that airlines should make passengers count how many seats away from the emergency exit they’re sitting - again, making that a more active process.

There’s also the argument that to improve retention, the regulatory body should decrease the amount of “key safety messages” that need to be included in the videos (which ends up being around 35-45). If you decrease that number, retention of the info you do mention should go up.

shsachdev··on The booming, high-stakes arms race of airline safety videos
Thanks! So the plots were designed by one of my editors Zachary Crockett (https://x.com/zzcrockett?lang=en) - I think he uses Photoshop :)
shsachdev··on The booming, high-stakes arms race of airline safety videos
Good question. I asked myself the same thing. Since airlines are mandated to produce a safety video regardless, the ROI they really have to assess is against that incremental spend on making the video cinematic/entertaining. And if you factor in that potential to go viral and get good PR from it, as well as the fact that they can produce a video once and reuse possibly for X years, the incremental investment doesn’t sound that unappealing. Also: traditional methods of advertising (say renting a billboard) are just as expensive, if not more.
shsachdev··on The booming, high-stakes arms race of airline safety videos
Hey I’m the author of the article! Happy to answer any questions :)
shsachdev··on I analyzed 30 years of airline safety videos
Hey HN! I dissected over 113 airline safety videos and tracked their evolution. You can find the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EOMxpdxIsaQk19bhDJEz...
shsachdev··on Glassdoor updated my profile to add my real name and location
That’s super slimy of them — a while back I had spent some time investigating fake reviews on their platform [1] and also found that their moderation team has no strict processes in place to deal with bad actors.

[1]: https://www.careerfair.io/company-reviews

shsachdev··on I Ran a Background Check on a Startup
unironically i can see an interesting biz model, pay $200 and get:

- financial report: does it make sense to join now, at this valuation? how much stock should you ask for? what's the market growth looking like? - reference check past employees who worked there - glassdoor review analysis (fake reviews? helpful reviews?) - past layoffs? - legal side / open lawsuits?

shsachdev··on I Ran a Background Check on a Startup
great point! I don't think your average candidate would do this, but I guess this was an exercise in formulating what such a check could look like. it's overkill for sure, but I do think that accessing this type of info can be valuable.

though i'd say the questions I brainstormed in the bullets are the type candidates should definitely be asking during their interview process

shsachdev··on I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took
Full disclosure: I did this as an experiment for an article (https://www.careerfair.io/online-maze) and as such my motivation to keep applying was driven by the piece of content I was creating. In addition, a lot of the time I wouldn't actually press the "submit" button - I would just stop my timer. Again, my goal was to create a cool, accurate piece of content that could spark interesting discussion, which did end up happening (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37753292).
shsachdev··on I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took
Hey I’m the OP who did the experiment - 2.5mins was from start of app to clicking submit. Time does not include me reading the job description.
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
Woah that's wild!!!! Any chance you could put me in touch? i'm doing a piece on referral bonuses. my email: shikhar@careerfair.io

my last 2 articles: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37753292 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36634529

shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
And would you know how much this person has made in total?
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
I’m a writer working on a piece on referral bonuses. If you don’t mind, could you email me at shikhar@careerfair.io? I’d be curious to learn more, thanks!!
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
great point. the "social cost" to referring someone who does badly is often forgotten
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
Could’ve been a hoodie!
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
How much $$ we talking?
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
good point! i'm sure there's someone out there who's just spamming referrals for fun though. mostly all upside (perhaps there's the social cost of looking bad if one of your referrals totally bombs an interview)
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How much have you made from your company's referral bonus program?
interesting, thx for sharing. Yeah I recently learnt that at some places (like Accenture Federal Services - specifically their "hot jobs" section), there are some bonuses going up to $20k.

source: https://events.afs.com/referral-bonus-program#:~:text=For%20....

shsachdev··on I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took
thanks! I have not but will def consider it
shsachdev··on I applied to 250 jobs and timed how long each one took
my next article is likely about that :)
shsachdev··on Ask HN: Glassdoor is unbelievably bad, why no one disrupting it?
As others have pointed out, growing any sort of two sided marketplace (in this case with companies and applicants) is really, really hard. On top of that, the quality of the reviews itself is very hard to regulate because Glassdoor isn't necessarily incentivized to promote the "truth" - they make money from the companies on their platform, not the applicants.

See related discussion recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36634529

shsachdev··on The underground economy of Glassdoor reviews
Yes very good point - unfortunately the ones that are good enough to avoid detection, well, we won’t be able to track :)
shsachdev··on You don't take enough risks to be lucky
Great post George. I find that the school environment we're brought up in really (or at least for me) shapes our brain to view risks as bad things -- we're taught to get the answer right on the first try. But the real world is a completely different model where you have however many shots on goal and you only need one to really land. And each one is one you can learn from, thereby hopefully improving your odds the next time.

I like this post on the topic too: https://stopa.io/post/228

shsachdev··on Goodbye, San Francisco
Downtown SF (and especially OP's neighborhood of 7th/8th Mission Street) is not the place to be. It's a bit like complaining about LA and living right near downtown.

Upper Market, North Beach, Hayes Valley, Valencia St, Mission Dolores, Polk Street, Upper Nob Hill, Haight Ashbury -- all fun locations.

I've lived near Dolores Park for the past 15 months now and have had a great experience. I've found community, made new friends, and have never felt unsafe whilst walking around at night.

We don't have highrise buildings or a thriving "downtown" like other urban cities, but we do have plenty of lively, energetic neighborhoods around the city and the best food & weather in the country.

I agree with the author that changes need to be made and that the homelessness problem is bad. But I think you can still have an overwhelmingly positive experience in the city if you pick one of the neighborhoods I mentioned above to live in.

shsachdev··on I Investigated the Underground Economy of Glassdoor Reviews
Hey there thanks for sharing. I wrote the original Reddit post - quick TLDR of what I found:

- A prominent Y-Combinator backed startup, in addition to other companies, is buying fake Glassdoor reviews.

- Companies pay between $10-$35 to get a fake review written by freelancers.

- Companies pay between $100-$1000 to get a negative review taken down. Most of these payments are tied to Contingency Agreements (only pay if review is taken down).

- One of the top companies in Glassdoor’s Best Places To Work 2023 rankings seems to have artificially inflated its reviews right before the October deadline last year.

Full article is here: https://www.careerfair.io/company-reviews

shsachdev··on Ask HN: What would the ideal job board look like?
Yep, there's always tension between team & industry. Much like you, I would also be highly unlikely to consider jobs in certain industries even if the team I joined was full of rockstars.
shsachdev··on Show HN: Immigrant Valley – A gallery of successful immigrant founded startups
Hi HN - I posted this yesterday with a different name (H1B Valley) which was misleading. That's my fault - I asked the mods if I could resubmit with a new URL which they said was fine. This is a gallery of companies founded by immigrants who've come here on a variety of different visas. Hope you like the site - Shikhar
shsachdev··on Show HN: H1B Valley – A gallery of successful immigrant founded startups
Hey! Never meant to state that all these founders came here on an H1B; just used that in the website name given what's been going on recently.
shsachdev··on Ask HN: How do I prepare for a job as an Implementation Consultant?
Hey OP,

I'm a technical account manager / CSM and your role honestly sounds a lot like mine. Did a writeup of my role here: https://www.careerfair.io/reviews/customersuccessmanager

Hope you find it useful. Lmk if any questions :)

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