[HN Gopher] TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z
___________________________________________________________________
TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z
Author : elsewhen
Score : 202 points
Date : 2021-05-11 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| [deleted]
| jb775 wrote:
| TikTok launching a job service like:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s8KyuPiLYFA
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| i can see this being genuinely useful for CX type roles, where
| voice and sentiment are important.
|
| Its a quick way to list a database of effective 1st round (call)
| interviews. Then you can let software take over doing analysis of
| the network effect (who knows you and can voice for you) do the
| rest of the work.
|
| I have done recruiting for CX roles in the past, and it has
| frustrated me to no end that I'm unable to easily parse thru a
| list of effective phone interviews. Most recruitment sites dont
| even consider it (probably because CX is low in the totem pole,
| unlike ENG)
|
| That being said, not sure how it would work outside of CX
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Really hope this doesn't get traction. I'm imagining yet another
| hoop to jump through in the hiring process where recruiters and
| hiring managers require your Tiktok (and a dance video interview
| particular to their company). Seems very dystopian.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Pretty clever. It not only allows you to make a first cut of
| candidates without dragging them out for an interview, it also
| allows you to easily filter by gender, race, age without saying
| so. No more obfuscations in a resume for those items.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| It's a heckuva way to collect a lot of personal details though.
|
| Win win.
| kaiju0 wrote:
| A silhouette filter and a voice modulator would address that
| ffggvv wrote:
| you really think they're going to do that?
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| Like you couldn't already in the age of LinkedIn?
| ryandrake wrote:
| You don't have to include a profile picture in LinkedIn. That
| protects race and age. I suppose you could also replace your
| given name with an initial, protecting gender.
| masklinn wrote:
| > it also allows you to easily filter by gender, race, age
| without saying so. No more obfuscations in a resume for those
| items.
|
| After all who doesn't love the smell of circumventing anti-
| discrimination laws in the morning.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Best part of those laws is that if you _end up_ with a
| discriminatory result, no matter how you got there, you 're
| still violating the law.
| fridif wrote:
| It will fail because people don't want to work for the prices
| being offered.
|
| At $15 or $20 an hour, companies will either be fully automating
| or mostly automating their business processes. They don't have
| time to deal with yearly strikes and walkouts over wages.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| The replies to this are emblematic of HN culture -- a whole lot
| of quick dismissals without engaging with why this might exist,
| who it might benefit, and who it might turn away.
|
| A decade ago everyone was telling me how millennials were lazy or
| disconnected or didn't understand the real world. And it felt
| pretty bad. I'm seeing all the same commentary shifted down a
| generation to GenZ without any introspection.
|
| Yes, you might find this silly, and yes, you might not want to
| get hired this way. But also consider that for some companies,
| for some roles, or even for some pipelines there could be
| benefits to broadening the applicant pool.
|
| Some folks are going to have a hard time articulating their
| experience via resume, some folks are going to have a hard time
| articulating their experience via tiktok. Why wouldn't we want to
| consider folks from both input sources and let folks present
| themselves using the form they feel best conveys their strengths?
| mc32 wrote:
| I dunno. This strikes me as the digital version of driving over
| to The Home Despot and looking for some day hands to help you
| out with the yard or something like that --except it's for
| service jobs rather than manual labor.
|
| I really loathe the "sell yourself via video snippet" aspect.
| It's inhumanely degrading.
| xvector wrote:
| > It's inhumanely degrading.
|
| Hyperbole much? There are a lot of inhumane, degrading things
| in this world. TikTok videos are not one of them.
|
| Anyways, clearly some people thought it would be cool and
| interesting. I think this will be an interesting alternative
| for those that don't do well with resumes.
|
| Fortunately, no one is going to make you use this, so I don't
| know why everyone here is acting like it will be forced on
| them. This is obviously a secondary application method, one
| that will work particularly well for creative or extroverted
| types.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's only a few steps removed from a tryout at a strip
| club. I'm sure a class of hiring "managers" will like this
| option.
| xvector wrote:
| Short-video clips are a few steps removed from a tryout
| at a strip club? Can't tell if sarcasm - surely you
| realize how absurd this sounds? It is simply a different
| way for candidates to express themselves.
| mc32 wrote:
| When you're initiating an interview process and it begins
| with a video snippet where the candidates "sell
| themselves", it necessarily highlights photogenic
| candidates as well as exposes their ticks. This may well
| skew hirings toward the younger demographic.
| shreyansj wrote:
| It's quite normal in a lot of countries to include a
| picture with the resume/CV. The "photogenic" bias could
| exist in the process as well, yeah?
| mc32 wrote:
| Yes, German women agree this is problematic.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| When you put it like that...I _still_ think the strip
| club comparison was weird because I can think of at least
| one other other common and far less contentious career-
| path with an interview /try-out process similar to this:
|
| _Acting_.
|
| Is there perhaps something deeper you want to say about
| sex workers that's going unsaid right now?
| mc32 wrote:
| Acting is apt; however, at least in principle you're
| doing a screen test given you want to ensure acting
| ability as well as photogeneity. But we also know the
| colloquial acting couch.
|
| Strip clubs don't care what your skills are, they mostly
| look for the eye candy their clientele seeks. Video is
| similar in that it doesn't care about skills other than
| maybe being able to present yourself at the cost of all
| other attributes.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| There are a lot of really interesting assumptions and
| projections being made about a number of classes of
| people going on in this mindset.
|
| But okay.
|
| Thanks for clarifying and sharing your perspective.
| mc32 wrote:
| Well, we'll have to wait and see how it gets used but I
| see potential for this being abused.
|
| It's not different from TV news vs Daily newspaper. One
| is more fluff than the other. When was the last time you
| saw an "ugly" news anchor. In the papers you don't care
| what the reporter looks like.
|
| During a sit down interview you at least have a chance to
| make your argument if the interviewer has misconceived
| something or it needs elaboration.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| >When was the last time you saw an "ugly" news anchor. In
| the papers you don't care what the reporter looks like.
|
| To be completely honest, I don't care what the reporter
| looks like in _either_ case. But I 'm going to presume
| this was a rhetorical question and not meant as a reply
| or question to my specific manner of news consumption?
|
| You'll have to forgive me (or, well you don't _have_ to,
| that 's up to you) but this still feels like putting the
| career carriage in front of the job prospect horse to me-
| for some reason. Perhaps said another way: none of what
| you said speaks to me to be a problem with the medium of
| interviewing (in this case video, ostensibly via tiktok),
| but instead rather the individuals participating in the
| process.
|
| I can't quite pin down why, but it's a very strong
| sensation. I'll take this elsewhere and find a way to
| reconcile it without going turtles all the way down here
| in the thread.
| willcipriano wrote:
| A service such as this would save Harvey Weinstein a ton
| of time.
| oytis wrote:
| Tryout is at the extreme side of being intimate and
| without any due distance at all. CV is is impersonal and
| as much distance as you can get. Videos are in between.
| Is it still absurd?
| williamdclt wrote:
| > I really loathe the "sell yourself via video snippet"
| aspect. It's inhumanely degrading.
|
| Interesting, why do you find it more degrading than selling
| yourself via text snippet (your CV)?
| mc32 wrote:
| Of course. Text doesn't care about looks, presentation,
| voice, speaking skills, etc. It does require forethought,
| ability to organize things logically, and present the best
| aspect of your work history, accomplishments and future
| potential with much less ability to judge and dismiss
| within mere seconds.
| oefrha wrote:
| > Text doesn't care about looks, presentation, voice,
| speaking skills, etc.
|
| Lots of jobs care precisely about those. Most notably
| sales, but also most other customer-facing jobs. Even for
| jobs where these aren't the primary skills, they
| contribute to overall success. People who are good at
| these can equally complain that text doesn't do them
| justice. In any case, calling these inhumanely degrading
| is just a subtle way to be inhumanely degrading to people
| who possess these qualities. It tells us more about you
| than the process honestly.
| mc32 wrote:
| I don't dispute that. However, a video snippet has the
| potential of disqualifying many prospects before they've
| interacted with a hiring manager because of their short
| video --which I hold gives them the short shrift.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Politics is eating the world. Everything is forced to be looked
| through the eyes of clans and governance.
|
| It's upsetting, uncreative and harmful.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Politics is eating the world. Everything is forced to be
| looked through the eyes of clans and governance
|
| When was this _not_ the case - ever? Perhaps it didn 't seem
| like "politics" for you in the past.
| mrtksn wrote:
| There's always politics but politics is overhead. It
| necessary but if the overhead is too large it can easily
| eat up the bandwidth and leave no room for the actual
| stuff.
|
| You can't do if all you do is arguing over what to do and
| how to do it.
|
| People have limited time and cognitive capacity.
| phaemon wrote:
| You missed the point: it's always been politics, you just
| didn't realize when it was your little group getting the
| free pass.
| mrtksn wrote:
| >you just didn't realize when it was your little group
| getting the free pass.
|
| As a lifelong minority with periods of being undocumented
| or illegal if you wish, I rarely got a free pass. I'm
| very familiar of the concept of being not allowed to do
| things o be denied stuff due to status I have no power
| change.
|
| There was a time I had to beg bank employees to open me
| an account because I was working for months now and I
| need to get paid, and not because the law forbid me from
| having an account. There was a time when I was on a
| fishing boat crossing borders illegally and it was not
| because I was too lazy to get a proper visa.
|
| Can you please inform me about the freebies I got? Why
| don't you tell me about the wonders of having your family
| being threatened to be send to the place where people
| often get lost without a trace? Tell me about the
| privilege of having your father feeding you by working
| for less than the minimum wage despite being an
| Electrical Engineer with Masters degree?
|
| If anything, part of the big political events of the last
| few year revolves around me getting similar rights to
| those who are not happy with the new situation. I guess
| they want their underpaid Engineers back.
|
| DB.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > It necessary but if the overhead is too large it can
| easily eat up the bandwidth and leave no room for the
| actual stuff.
|
| This has always been the case - some sub-groups of the
| population didn't notice it because it wasn't their/our
| bandwidth being consumed. Pick any past century or
| decade, and I will name a group whose world was consumed
| by politics then.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes, there were always some rules for some subgroup that
| caused political discussions and that's fine.
|
| The problem starts when the bandwidth gets saturated. I
| don't say that people just should shut the f up and
| follow the rules, I'm simply saying that this saturated
| state is very bad.
| clarkevans wrote:
| Politics is about deciding what should be society's rules of
| liberty and economics in the game we call modern life.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Imagine if games were made of discussions on how the game
| should be.
|
| it's important stuff but should not be replacing the stuff
| that it's supposed to regulate.
|
| Intense rule making periods are tragedies. Everything of
| substance is easily lost on the promise that we will have
| more of it in the future.
|
| At the end, often the rules remain about the same but the
| rulers change. Politics is not about philosophical argument
| but power distribution. It's not the case that the more you
| argue the better rules you produce. In the Middle East the
| everyday life is deep into politics and they failed to
| produce the outstanding rules.
| nimbius wrote:
| >everyone was telling me how millennials were lazy or
| disconnected or didn't understand the real world.
|
| a decade ago was the single largest financial collapse in
| american history since the depression. millennials were told
| they would all get office jobs and a lexus. they all largely
| got working-poor fast food jobs and endless student debt.
|
| now GenZ is looking at the same prospect. Covid and stagnant
| wages, and unapproachable college debt.
|
| whatever Tiktok hopes to do, it needs to pivot from this
| malarkey where everyone needs to be a programmer and start
| offering trade jobs, which have been starving for new hires for
| 40 years. plumbing, HVAC, electrical, mechanical maintenance,
| and engine techs would stop traffic for a chance to so much as
| talk to someone from GenZ about the trade.
| kodah wrote:
| > The replies to this are emblematic of HN culture -- a whole
| lot of quick dismissals without engaging with why this might
| exist, who it might benefit, and who it might turn away.
|
| Curiosity comes from exploring both positive and negative
| consequences. You now have the top comment, so how emblematic
| of HN's culture is that?
|
| This is the third time today I've read this sentiment and it's
| always someone frustrated that their view isn't as widely
| supported as they've hoped it would be. It's a big crowd here,
| from all across the world _and_ the US. Trying to box HN much
| less HN users up is fruitless. Feel free to look at some of my
| post-history where I assumed I knew things about a user or
| their intent.
| [deleted]
| tmpz22 wrote:
| If we're going to go out of our way to acknowledge this new
| service could be a civic good we should also acknowledge that
| it could be immensely destructive. If you get to have optimism
| for a brand new corporate product launch from TikTok I get to
| have cynicism.
|
| Social media, particularly to Gen Z, and particulary TikTok,
| has a major focus on projecting success, wealth, beauty, and
| other aspects of vanity - often in unhealthy ways. Rich people
| tend to have more followers, white people tends to have more
| followers, blondes tends to have more followers, sexually
| provocative content tends to have more followers.
|
| I do not see TikTok shedding its whole zeitgeist to forward a a
| jobs product that helps the world.
| xnx wrote:
| I must be seeing a different sides of Tiktok than you. The
| Tiktok I see has plenty of vanity (though nothing compared to
| Instagram), but also an immense amount
| honestness/earnestness/openness where Gen-Z shares its
| mistakes/embarrassments/awkwardness.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > Social media, particularly to Gen Z, and particulary
| TikTok, has a major focus on projecting success, wealth,
| beauty, and other aspects of vanity - often in unhealthy
| ways.
|
| As if it wasn't true for basically entire human history.
|
| It is just the way in which the success or image of it is
| being projected that is changing.
|
| You, Mister, need to study history a little bit before you
| start to compare generations. Also get a little bit of
| distance and learn about your biases.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| > Gen Z [...] has a major focus on projecting success,
| wealth, beauty, and other aspects of vanity
|
| Focus on projecting success, wealth, and beauty is a tale as
| old as time. It is not unique to Gen Z, nor is it heightened
| in Gen Z.
|
| Funnily enough, those claims are also as old as time.
| dentemple wrote:
| > Social media, particularly to Gen Z, and particulary
| TikTok, has a major focus on projecting success, wealth,
| beauty, and other aspects of vanity
|
| This statement can apply to LinkedIn as well.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| You should realize that HN audience is old and graying, I was
| really looking forward to new tech forums populated by younger
| people, but havent seen any popular ones.
| jlengrand wrote:
| Maybe because younger people simply don't use the same
| platforms we do.
|
| All younger folks I see use TikTok and Snap to communicate,
| interact and get their data feed.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I'm sure the HN audience is a diverse set of folks across age
| ranges, there's just a culture of punching down at things
| they don't understand that's permitted here.
| acwan93 wrote:
| Not just here, Reddit and even MacRumors as well [1].
|
| [1]: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-
| ipod.5...
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I'll always remember /.'s take on the iPod:
| No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
|
| The history of what works vs what flops for similar
| products is always fascinating. The iPod is basically no
| more, but it sure did better than I ever thought it
| would.
| deanCommie wrote:
| I think it would be uncontroversial to say that
| HackerNews would have had the exact same take if it
| existed.
|
| And I, at the time, had the exact same take.
|
| Despite being full of entrepreneurs and hackers, folks
| here are remarkably out of touch with the average
| consumer.
|
| It's not a damning criticism. Like I said, I include
| myself in this group that reacted with a resounding
| "What? WHY?" to almost every single Apple product
| launched under Steve Jobs's tenure, and was wrong every
| time.
|
| But it's a blindspot we should be cognizant of. And
| anything related with TikTok is the perfect confluence to
| lead to the most stale takes.
|
| _Having said that_ , there is always a bit of a
| survivorship bias with these trends.
|
| I also was completely negative and dubious on Snapchat
| and turned out to have been vindicated.
|
| I do think TikTok is something different. It captures my
| imagination and attention better than any platform EVER,
| and I include YouTube and Instagram in this. Their
| recommendation algorithm is truly wonderous.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I am graying but I wouldn't say I'm that old =) Btw, what's
| that new "tictac" you youngsters keep talking about...
| [deleted]
| eberkund wrote:
| Forums are old and graying, the young people are on TikTok
| and other social media sites like this article suggests.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I disagree - reddit's audience is still young, but it's
| been taken over by politics spam
| adventured wrote:
| Imgur is in the same boat. It was a younger, energetic
| social network and the comments were mostly whimsical. I
| used to enjoy perusing its frontpage. Now it's heavy on
| political spam, talking points and general political
| propaganda, more or less cloning the descent you see on
| mainstream Reddit (plenty of niche subs are still great
| and mostly free of politics). I think it largely mirrors
| the manic obsession you see in certain parts of the US
| culture to hyper focus on politics 24/7.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Reddit's audience is old; it's a bunch of millennials and
| older gen Z. And the kids don't really use the comments
| on Reddit, they just yoink memes and throw them on
| whatever social media platform their friends use. The gen
| z's I know through the LGBT community couldn't give a
| shit less about politics.
|
| Text as a medium is rapidly falling out of favor unless
| it's for purely informational purposes. I read an article
| this morning about how the book publishing industry is
| all but dead because nobody is buying books anymore.
| Newspapers are largely dead, and the ones that still
| exist have pivoted hard to video or metatextual content.
|
| Text doesn't sell valuable ads and reading requires your
| full attention, and that is in direct competition with
| social media. It's why banner ads were never really
| effective and the big ad revenue shift only happened
| after video ads became viable (and made YouTube
| unwatchable).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I have a 14+ year old Reddit account, and that platform
| was always astroturfed.
| tyrust wrote:
| > taken over by politics spam
|
| Not in my experience. You just have to subscribe to
| subreddits that don't have a political tilt. On rare
| occasions some subreddits go dark or sticky something
| political, but I'd hardly call that a take over.
| wdroz wrote:
| The spam is everywhere, even /r/science was spammed last
| time I was there (I leaved last year).
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| The defaults (Or what used to be defaults), are all
| generally garbage and filled with political spam. Finding
| more niche and specific subreddits yields better results.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| No they're not usually, except a few communities
| drannex wrote:
| I would highly suggest Tildes, it's a little more varying
| than HN with much better discussions.
|
| https://tildes.net/
|
| I'll drop a few invite codes below for anyone interested (if
| they are all used, let me know)
|
| https://tildes.net/register?code=I448A-IEYUI-UDNWH
| https://tildes.net/register?code=VDTMC-SBJTQ-PTW9X
| https://tildes.net/register?code=HEX3N-VA48Z-AIJIT
| https://tildes.net/register?code=7L0GO-L4BZ0-962ZN
|
| Note: I am not affiliated with Tildes, just an active member
| who wants the community to grow.
| ipaddr wrote:
| There is literally one or two comments if any on most
| articles. Some articles "Trump blog not lighting it up" and
| "Elon Musk is not your friends" are worse than anything
| that even appears on slashdot.
| vecinu wrote:
| Did you spend some time reading these posts? I actually
| did and found them both interesting.
|
| The first confirms that once DJT was removed off of large
| platforms like Twitter, he lost a lot of followers and
| digital support, proof that large scale networks have a
| strong positive feedback loop.
|
| The second provides 2 videos that go into excruciating
| detail on why Elon Musk is a fake futurist, ruthless
| capitalist and overall a terrible person (Including
| working his factory workers at the TSLA factory through
| COVID forcefully, threatening their jobs and saying we
| will be at 0 cases by the end of April 2020). At the very
| least, you should dislike Elon for his anti-union,
| ruthlessly capitalistic approach to human labor and
| selfishness.
| stronsay wrote:
| They're all gone.
| kossTKR wrote:
| All of them says invalid?
| j-james wrote:
| [deleted]
| ajdude wrote:
| Too late all gone
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| Looks interesting, but I don't understand how it's supposed
| to grow with limited access. Imo, it's better to have free
| for all registration (maybe until it hits a certain number)
| and just block the unwanted users later.
|
| This invite only approach doesn't seem to be working all
| that well, I've been following Lobste.rs, from what I can
| tell it's got the same problems as HN with poor comments.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| I think there's quite a few young people here. Like you say,
| there's no many other tech forums. That's why this one is
| popular and why people come here.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| There are tons of slack/discord servers full of all kinds of
| people, you just have to look around.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| not necessarily young, and the chatroom format is not
| engaging
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jollybean wrote:
| Actually, I think HN skews younger. The previous polls
| demonstrated this [1], this is an old link but I think it
| holds up.
|
| Also 'young people new to the job market' will probably
| always have a major mismatch with respect to expectations and
| values, it's probably been that way since the dawn of time.
|
| It took me 2 years just to get my head straight in a 'basic
| way' to even start to understand the professional world.
|
| Though I don't think it's fair to characterize any generation
| as 'lazy' though, that's not the right word - although
| Millenials are the first generation to not consider 'hard
| work' as a characteristic of their generation - this is an
| old data point (10 years old) which could either indicate a
| generational value shift - or - simply the fact that people
| of a certain age don't have that virtue (or don't think of
| themselves as that) but by the time they are 30 then their
| views and values shift etc..
|
| TikTok surely can reach young people for certain kinds of
| jobs, not doubt. But it's also just a way to try to make
| money in any way they can.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175588
| sudosteph wrote:
| There's a weird gap between Gen Z and Millenials in how each
| of our generations experienced what "tech" is, and I do
| wonder how it affects the Gen Z tech world in particular. My
| generation, Millenials largely learned technology at a time
| when unpolished, non-standardized platforms were still the
| norm. We got comfortable with installing and rolling back
| drivers, setting up routers and printers, and navigating
| text-dominated forums and mailing-list email chains to
| troubleshoot issues. Lots of us were into PC gaming, and that
| kind of stuff was just expected if you wanted to play. When
| we went into technical fields later on, those skills were
| still really applicable.
|
| Meanwhile, my early-teen step-siblings have very similar
| interests to what I had back in the day (they enjoy playing
| games like roblox/minecraft on the computer, and FPS on
| consoles) - but are way less comfortable messing with the OS
| to troubleshoot vs what I was doing at their age. They were
| raised with tablets, where things just kind of work. When
| they do want to learn something, they pretty much always go
| to youtube first - and I'm not really sure if that's more
| effective or less effective than what we used to do, or if
| means they will have a harder time parsing technical docs
| later on in life.
|
| They've expressed interested in computer science fields, and
| I do think they'll be able to learn it just fine. In some
| ways, maybe the exposure to more polished UX will make their
| bar for those experiences higher than what my generation
| would accept.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > They were raised with tablets
|
| and macbooks. Totally opaque systems that you d rather
| replace than upgrade. That's OK -- it would happen
| inevitably, as it did with cars. The problem is that this
| culture has extended to software, where it is normalized
| that any technology must be offered through frameworks,
| APIs and prepackaged cloud solutions
| cmehdy wrote:
| Same generation as you, and same experience. It's just that
| creativity went elsewhere now.
|
| Because there's three trillion ways you can write a program
| and all of them seem to come with dozens of READMEs and
| what-to-do and what-not-to-do and very opinionated
| maintainers, the creative minds of today might just create
| their games within Roblox or get to know Javascript by
| making mods for a browser game, or learn to use DAWs to
| make cool-sounding EDM, etc. This was already a thing in
| "our" time with Flash and Adobe's software, but now that's
| the norm.
|
| Effectively those minds have migrated over generations from
| the pure hardware to progressively thicker layers of
| software, which makes sense to me since that's how all
| human progress basically does with any other field too.
| uncletaco wrote:
| Are you sure this is a millennial/gen z problem and not
| just a techie/non techie one?
|
| Because this a really broad extrapolation.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| i m sure ease of tech has to do with it. In the 80s,
| lawyers would use SQL -- because that was the state of
| tech at the time. Problems that are out of sight are out
| of mind.
|
| btw there is no such thing as techie anymore - everyone
| is into tech, there are very very few luddites left.
| There's a tendency of UI designers to infantilize their
| designs , but i m not sure that's based on actual
| measurable improvement or a certain "contempt" for the
| end user.
| inamiyar wrote:
| Agree
| nine_k wrote:
| One has a hard time becoming a techie when all technology
| is indistinguishable from magic, sleek and impenetrable.
| sudosteph wrote:
| In this case, I really don't think they're very
| different. I ended up in tech, but I didn't consider
| myself a techie at their age. I could do the stuff I
| mentioned, but pretty much everyone in my peer group
| could - and most of us did not end up going into tech. In
| some ways, they're more advanced (one of them used to
| play some tablet game that basically used programming
| concepts - though he's never touched real code or applied
| anything outside of roblox to my knowledge).
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I get the feeling you are right. I remember when I was
| kid during the late 90s and early 2000s, when these
| "unpolished" systems were the norm.
|
| A lot of my peers were starting to use them, but just
| like kids today, they didn't really look into how things
| worked, they weren't really curious about them, they
| didn't really tinker with them.
|
| They wouldn't go and update / rollback a driver. They
| would just complain if things didn't work, and maybe
| asked a "geek" friend for help.
|
| Today, if a random game doesn't work, people will just
| try the next one.
| Tarsul wrote:
| yes, not too many people tinkered with their computers
| then. But the real question is: how many of those who
| tinkered then, would tinker now if they were born in the
| 00s? Probably less then if they were born in the 80s,
| just because e.g. ipads or smartphones are not to be
| tinkered with. I mean many pupils have problems just
| working at a laptop (e.g. understanding the file system)
| because they never did it at home where all they might
| know are smartphones. So there definitely is a very
| different technological structure today than back then.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That's true, the way "technology" is set up now, with
| locked-down tablets and phones may be less conducive to
| tinkering. But then again, computers, in general, are
| much more affordable.
|
| So if people are curious, it's much easier to get their
| hands on a computer, and there's less risk.
|
| When I was growing up, a PC was a fairly consequential
| purchase for my family, and they couldn't afford to buy a
| new one very often. There was a lot of pressure to "not
| break it". Of course, looking things up a bit and getting
| help from my father and friends, I was able to figure out
| that "messing with drivers" would likely not break it
| physically. But I understand this could have been
| limiting for people not having someone to guide them.
|
| There's also the fact that today much more people have
| access to "computing", so if the part of the population
| interested in tinkering is roughly the same in absolute
| terms, the ratio between those who tinker and those who
| don't is skewed in favor of those who don't.
| spideymans wrote:
| These people might not be tinkering with iPads or iPhone,
| but web development has infinite possibilities and a very
| low barrier to entry (you only need a computer with a web
| browser). Anyone interested in code will find a way to
| scratch that itch.
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| I'm a Gen Z and I've noticed the same thing. I think the
| ease of use for a lot of these technologies is to blame. A
| lot of people I know are into the Gaming PC subculture, but
| couldn't do much on the software side to fix a PC. The main
| reason why I tend to be good with low-level stuff on the
| computer is because I had a computer which constantly
| broke, and I had to optimize.
|
| I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get them
| interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer, or at
| least one that primarily uses the shell (not that those
| computers are bad, I use one myself).
| spideymans wrote:
| >I think for anyone who has a kid, the best way to get
| them interested in this stuff is to have a bad computer,
| or at least one that primarily uses the shell (not that
| those computers are bad, I use one myself).
|
| I got deeply interested in technology the opposite way. I
| got an iPod touch as a kid, and I was amazed by how well
| designed it was. The thing felt completely delightful to
| use compared to the Windows XP/Vista systems that were
| around in the day. I immediately had dreams of writing
| apps for the iPod that were every bit as amazing as the
| rest of the system. It didn't take me long after unboxing
| that iPod touch for me to boot up an old Mac to start on
| my programming journey.
|
| And to this day, creating great user experiences is what
| drives my interest in software above all else.
| inamiyar wrote:
| Also a zoomer...I don't know if I agree with the
| sentiment but my experience was similar. Made my first
| computer in 6th grade, evidently I did something wrong
| because I was debugging crashes on that machine for 6
| years. Also significant time spent min-maxing our
| internet for League of Legends around that time.
| madamelic wrote:
| I think the same could be said about Gen X vs Millenials
| and before that as well.
|
| My dad would tell me stories of copying code from magazines
| by hand and how little memory they had.
|
| Today, memory and CPU speed is basically a non-factor; it's
| assumed to be infinite or at least extremely high for many
| applications.
| sudosteph wrote:
| I believe it! My mom would always tell me about how she
| would do the same, as a teenager learning to program on
| her Commodore 64.
|
| Funnily enough though, memory constraints were still
| relevant for me and some of my friends - since Ti-83
| calculators were the first exposure to programming for
| many of us. It helped that we were all required to buy
| them, so we could collaborate and copy over programs to
| each other. I would write programs so I wouldn't have to
| memorize chemistry stuff in HS. The teachers back then
| never checked, and they expected us to use calculators
| for normal calculations anyhow.
|
| By the time I was using real code in college though - I
| agree. Performance optimization like that was taught as
| more of a "nice to have", and the only classes where it
| really mattered were assembly, and one elective I took on
| game engine development.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Text communication is being replaced by video, see TikTok
| pentae wrote:
| Its amusing that less than 24 hours ago on the 'how to write a
| resume that converts' thread many people commented that
| "Resumes are completely outdated", and now here we are with
| more negativity on this modern approach.
|
| For entry level jobs requiring young people that are customer
| facing, a video application makes a lot of sense to me.
|
| It also removes a lot of the awkwardness Gen Z's might feel
| going down to their local retailer and asking if they are
| hiring.
|
| My instinct says props to TikTok for at least trying something
| that's different and thinking a bit outside of the box
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It isn't that amusing. It just shows that HN isn't a
| monoculture.
|
| This is why comments complaining about HN monoculture get
| upvoted. Because a large enough piece of the userbase agrees
| with both sides. If they didn't, those comments would just
| get downvoted and you would never see them.
|
| Kinda funny how that works. "See, lots of people agree that
| HN is a hivemind!" Proving it's not a hivemind.
| toxik wrote:
| Everyone's a critic. It's always easier to dismiss and be
| pessimistic than embrace and be constructive. In fact this
| very comment I write is dismissive itself.
| agumonkey wrote:
| > Its amusing that less than 24 hours ago on the 'how to
| write a resume that converts' thread many people commented
| that "Resumes are completely outdated", and now here we are
| with more negativity on this modern approach.
|
| I find myself in state regularly. At least I know now how to
| recognize the paralizing absurdity. Still very often a new
| solution is best when it massages an old one to fix problems
| but the world seems to operate by big deviations that shock
| the status quo and then new and old blend again.
| xvector wrote:
| HN has decided it hates TikTok, and so it is. No one here will
| care to read deeper. Despite the (for whatever reason)
| superior/smug attitude of the readers on here, they're still
| party to extreme groupthink.
| rapind wrote:
| An alternative hypotheses; TikTok really is horrible (along
| with many other social media companies) and it's not old
| farts, ego, or groupthink.
| xvector wrote:
| HN definitely has a negative attitude towards TikTok in
| particular, that goes beyond its normal hate of social
| media.
| puranjay wrote:
| I was pretty sad when they banned it here in India.
| TikTok had become really popular among poorer people
| somehow. The income and class gaps in India mean that you
| don't often get to know how the rural poor really live -
| TikTok was rare a window into that life. Helped me
| understand and empathize deeply.
|
| The new replacements for it just don't have the same
| vibe.
| tw04 wrote:
| Not really. Facebook gets far, far more attention and
| negative attention around here than tiktoK.
| esturk wrote:
| The difference is that most people on here have used
| Facebook (wrote and read something) while I'm pretty
| certain most people here have not created a video on
| Tiktok.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| You don't have to be a creator to count as a user.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| "<x> is horrible" if the judgemental attitude people are
| complaining about. As long as something doesnt eat babies,
| it's not horrible
| wutbrodo wrote:
| The thing is, you can have negative feelings about tiktok
| (I am) without thinking that their jobs service is useless
| or doomed to failure.
|
| I'm not much of a social media user, despite being of an
| age full of extremely active users. I find Tiktok in
| particular annoying, like someone took the inauthenticity
| of mediocre YouTube creators and decided that every user in
| the network should ape it.
|
| But that has nothing to do with the jobs service, the fact
| that it may expand a company's recruiting reach or provide
| opportunity to those who don't fit well into the stodgy
| workflow of traditional job apps. Just because the tiktok
| application format wouldn't fit my co's hiring doesn't mean
| that there aren't tons of jobs for whom a short
| demonstration of personality and creativity is signal as
| useful as a resume.
| walshemj wrote:
| Ignoring the fact that in the many countries HR would quite
| rightly avoid asking for a picture in an aplication (apart from
| modeling / acting gigs oh and SC/DV jobs) to avoid potential
| legal blowback.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I have observed young people today, on tiktok, wallstreetbets,
| and other communities, to generally be very savvy and cognizant
| of trends and good investments more so than older people, who
| get stuck in ruts, such as subscribing to hype/fud of zerohedge
| or peterschiff. TikTOk and Reddit investors are good at
| filtering out this bad advice and alarmism.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Is this satire? TikTok, IG, and WSB are comically bad and
| dangerous investment advice. Sure there are a few DD's on WSB
| that get upvoted to the top, but most are just jumping on a
| few tickers because someone said it's the next hot thing.
| Even worse on TikTok and IG, it's 99%:
|
| "look at BTC went 500% last year, buy the dip for another 5x"
|
| "these stocks are the future $RANDOM_SOLAR_PANEL_CO, $TSLA,
| $WEED_CO"
|
| The most generally knowledgeable sizeable investment advice
| community is on bogleheads.org and users are usually like age
| 35+. They're generally well informed on tax implications,
| century old historical performance, different asset classes,
| factor analysis, ETF securities lending, etc.
| Eridrus wrote:
| It's extra funny since YC asks applicants to also submit a
| short video pitch, which is basically a TikTok.
| fapjacks wrote:
| You have just described literally every generation of humans
| that ever existed. The ancient Romans complained about their
| lazy, disconnected successor generations.
| marto1 wrote:
| This will be really powerful.
|
| They have a staggering amount of behavioral data that any
| headhunter worth their salt will be drooling over and can charge
| outrageous premiums for ad space. Can still be screwed up of
| course, but they hold some pretty big aces in that space.
| wkyle wrote:
| The lack of personalized ads on TikTok is really surprising -
| the recommendation engine must have some of the best targeting
| data out of any social media platform. It still seems like
| Facebook ads are far more demographically and psychographically
| targeted though
| [deleted]
| fudged71 wrote:
| This sounds amazing for content creators, wedding photographers,
| videographers etc
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| It might be overly cynical, but I really think this might be the
| death of TikTok as 'fun.'
|
| It won't mean the death of TT in general. This service will
| likely be wildly successful and prompt TT to build more platform
| features like it to appeal to businesses willing to pay for the
| attention they've managed to garner.
|
| The story has played out the same, and I don't expect this to be
| much different. The corporatization of social media is a foregone
| conclusion at this point.
|
| It's almost fascinating to view the changes as a kind of
| biological succession. It won't take long before the younger
| generation sees TikTok as a place invaded by the very people they
| were using it to escape from. And the next Facebook, Instagram,
| Twitter, Snapchat, etc will rise to take its place as the new
| cool place all the kids are hanging out.
| aboringusername wrote:
| This is what happens when technology outpaces laws and laws are
| reactive rather than preventitive.
|
| We seriously need to rethink some of the most fundamental layers
| of society - built and designed for an era where information
| travels at the speed of light and PB's of information is moved
| around the globe each day. Our current laws are obsolete,
| outdated and outpaced and should be updated every 1-2 years in
| lockstep with new apps/services/platforms. We're only _now_
| beginning to see legislation against online platforms, decades
| later after they first appeared...Why?
|
| I understand the need and desire for innovation, and sure, it's a
| 'free market', but certain 'apps' can have far reaching social
| consequences; now you need to be comfortable having your likeness
| exposed to multiple platforms, and of course, you'll need the
| capability to make a video in the first place (phone, internet
| service, account on platforms...).
|
| What's the use of 'laws' when they are bypassed this easily? How
| is this not going to be discriminatory/racist the second it's
| launched? It's ripe for a budding lawyer to build a case and sue
| someone.
|
| Why are there no laws preventing/outlawing video based resume's
| until we have decided whether they are okay and in what
| capability they are allowed.
|
| Why are we even allowing the concept of an "AI" to exist before
| it's legislated against? Have we learnt nothing that we should
| probably make laws first, otherwise it's essentially a free-for-
| all situation which is not good for society.
| woah wrote:
| How is this any more legally risky than an in person interview?
| aboringusername wrote:
| Usually the first filtering step is done without much PII -
| if it's a paper/word document then you can decide what
| information to include and it's filtered based on that before
| interviews (which is how it's always worked for me, my
| employer knew nothing about my background, history, ethnic
| group, race/religion and it was the same for each candidate
| who applied for the position).
|
| IMO it should be a requirement that at least 1 filtering step
| in a hiring process is done without the employer knowing
| certain pieces of information (and it would be down to them
| to ensure they have a process that avoids collecting this
| information before step 2 which you can then hold
| interviews/video calls etc.)
| advrs wrote:
| Laws are not written overnight. I am not really sure what kind
| of `SLA` you have in mind for drafting and passing legislating
| for new fields (especially massive paradigm shifts with
| countless unknown-unknowns), but history would suggest that it
| takes...a lot longer than you expect.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > Why are we even allowing the concept of [] to exist before
| it's legislated against? Have we learnt nothing that we should
| probably make laws first, otherwise it's essentially a free-
| for-all situation which is not good for society.
|
| "Free-for-all" is actually one of the founding objectives of
| the USA.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's a cool idea, and I support it, but it will apply to a fairly
| narrow demographic. I also think it will have a _very_ difficult
| time passing legal challenges. Caveat emptor...
| [deleted]
| Raed667 wrote:
| Yeah, this can only end well /s
|
| Reminder: "TikTok Told Moderators: Suppress Posts by the "Ugly"
| and Poor"
|
| [0] https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-
| us...
| addison-lee wrote:
| The last time I brought this up there was a surprising amount
| of people trying to defend this behavior from TikTok. Glad to
| see you bring this up--awful company.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| What is so bad about this behavior?
| matz1 wrote:
| um most people, including me, like to see beautiful people.
| It make sense to suppress post by the ugly.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Compared to traditional mass market media is it that
| different? Actors and actresses on prime time TV are
| beautiful by western standards, thin and with perfect teeth.
| Living in beautiful, spacious houses that most people can't
| afford.
|
| edit: Not that I'm defending Tiktok, just saying that the way
| it distorts and portrays the world is a continuation of what
| media companies were already doing. I was going to make a
| point about how it is a lot like the Society of the
| Spectacle, but it looks like others have already made the
| connection:
|
| https://blendertrouble.substack.com/p/now-i-know-whats-
| real-...
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I suppose the argument would be that there's no illusion
| that media hiring is intended to serve actors' desires as
| opposed to building the image that studios want for their
| product. If tiktok had marketed themselves as a unique kind
| of curated content company instead of a social media
| service with democratically-determined exposure, I think
| the studio comparison would be apt.
| addison-lee wrote:
| You'll have to send me these articles of other social media
| companies instructing their moderators to suppress ugly,
| poor, and disabled users.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-
| us...
| monkeybutton wrote:
| I was making a comparison between Hollywood and TikTok,
| not between TikTok and other social media companies?
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| I find disfigured/ disabled people livestreaming to many people
| on Tiktok all the time in my feed.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What % will be hired through tiktok vs traditional
| approaches?
| dqpb wrote:
| Don't worry, they're just checking for "culture fit".
| adventured wrote:
| That's brilliant. It's unfortunate you're being downvoted for
| the sharpest comment in this thread.
|
| Trying to find cultural fit (exactly as in product market
| fit) for max attention (clicks, likes, ads) is exactly what
| social media pandering is all about, both by the companies
| and the "influencers." With each post they're experimenting
| to reach that end goal.
| xvector wrote:
| They publicly apologized and the policy has been changed.
|
| It's not like it matters, anyways - your users will suppress
| posts like these for you regardless.
| gman83 wrote:
| Yeah they just built their algorithm to suppress poor and
| ugly people, no need for mods to do it. Not sure if that's
| any better.
| p0nce wrote:
| Tiktok is blamed for that, but it's pretty clear by
| followers metrics that people mostly want to hear about
| pretty and rich people foremost.
| xvector wrote:
| The algorithm simply accurately reflects what people like.
| It turns out _most_ people, perhaps subconsciously,
| actually kind of hate poor and ugly people.
|
| I have some friends that went from overweight/obese to
| looking fit. Their very first reactions were "wow, I cannot
| believe how differently I am being treated." Seeing the
| pettiness of human society, as expressed by the massive
| difference in how they were being treated, turned many of
| them into misanthropes. It is a completely different world
| for good-looking people.
|
| However, solving this problem isn't really TikTok's job.
| Whether a video interview or a physical one, if you're
| pretty and rich, you'll have massive advantage regardless.
| nxc18 wrote:
| As a formerly obese person, I can absolutely confirm
| this. Respect is a big issue for me, because for the
| first ~25 years of my life, disrespect and even disgust
| were the default with every new person I interacted with.
|
| Still, I mostly like videos posted by attractive people
| on TikTok, because I'm not about lying to myself to
| pretend to be woke. It's a visual medium. Just like you
| don't hire stupid engineers, it doesn't make sense to
| watch ugly people. It's about knowing your strengths, if
| you're not going to maintain your appearance, maybe do
| podcasts instead. Or one of the millions of TikTok videos
| that don't show your appearance, because that is 100%
| optional.
| [deleted]
| t_akosuke wrote:
| In this thread - people who have never used tiktok talk shit
| about tiktok. Some of my favorite tiktokers are severely
| disabled, grotesquely disfigured, and wildly popular, and
| making a living telling stories that they would otherwise not
| be doing
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Probably because it descends from Music.ly, an app known to
| be used mainly by tweens and predators looking for tweens.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| People don't like watching ugly and poor people, that's just
| how the life is. I don't see how turning TikTok into Harrison
| Bergeron will make the situation any better.
| Craighead wrote:
| ^ The sympathizer poster always makes me laugh.
|
| You understand China culled the herd and killed millions and
| disenfranchised any who disagreed with their revolution?
|
| disgusting.
| mothsonasloth wrote:
| Google Software Interview:
|
| "Please implement a shortest path algorithm using dance, in
| O(n^2) time"
| mouzogu wrote:
| Do people really want this? It seems like an extroverts idea, of
| hell. I'm really glad I was born too early for this.
| steve76 wrote:
| I thought it was going to be cool. Hold up your phone, a HUD pops
| up showing things you can do for money, like fix a pothole. But
| it's just an elevator pitch to be part of the team. SUX
| rasengan wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is also a great way to collect a lot of
| information about a lot of people.
| kbos87 wrote:
| Writing TikTok off as a platform full of only mindless viral
| content is seriously misunderstanding what is already going on
| there. It's already become a place to share your expertise,
| regardless of the topic. I follow everything from public health
| experts sharing thoughtful opinions on the day to day of the
| pandemic, to dog trainers, to seriously skilled woodworkers
| sharing their talents.
|
| Whether we like it or not, if I were trying to prove my chops in
| a particular space, I'd be creating content and building a
| following on TikTok, and sharing it with prospective employers.
| vmception wrote:
| I've recently started asking people for their tiktok instead of
| their instagram or phone number, when wanting to keep in touch
| with someone after having a good interaction in person
|
| I accidentally look at people like they've grown two heads when
| they ask to find me on facebook, in person. Some communities
| rely on Facebook for coordination and so periodically I might
| actually have a Facebook account, but still. Yuck!
| [deleted]
| tryonenow wrote:
| This will be great for hiring managers with diversity quotas.
| grouphugs wrote:
| i am not gen z
| LibertyBeta wrote:
| Good idea, wrong company to fund it.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Hiring people based on charisma and ability to charm within short
| video clips might make sense if the position involves performing,
| recording videos, or pitching to people.
|
| However, this seems like a step backwards in an era where savvy
| companies are going out of their way to avoid any appearance of
| hiring bias. When companies are going so far as to strip names
| from resumes, asking candidates to perform on video doesn't sound
| like a good idea.
| _rpd wrote:
| > if the position involves performing, recording videos, or
| pitching to people
|
| I don't know about everyone else, but the last year working
| from home my life has been an avalanche of video calls. Not
| infrequently, there's a 60 second pitch that is the most
| important part of the call.
| [deleted]
| seanyesmunt wrote:
| Or, they are just looking for people who are comfortable in
| front of a camera, have some editing skills, and know how to
| make an interesting <1 minute video - which is a pretty
| desirable skill depending on who you ask.
| [deleted]
| tyrust wrote:
| For sure, I doubt that companies are going to be hiring
| engineers with this.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Right yes, but there are many jobs that fall under the "not
| engineer" umbrella. This might actually be perfect for
| people going for marketing roles, though.
| tyrust wrote:
| Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| I wonder what set of human biases this will surface in comparison
| to paper resumes.
| varispeed wrote:
| Sounds like another Chinese government intelligence gathering
| exercise. Why this app isn't banned in the west?
| [deleted]
| xvector wrote:
| Choose your poison, US intelligence or Chinese?
|
| Either way it is irrelevant. People put on TikTok what they
| want the world to see. The importance of the app for any sort
| of intelligence is vastly overrated - Facebook would be far
| more useful as people expect relative privacy amongst their
| friend group.
| varispeed wrote:
| Are you seriously comparing the US to openly racist China
| (social score, Hukou, concentration camps, cultural
| cleansing)?
| xvector wrote:
| What difference does it make as to which country has a
| quirky public dance video of mine? Again, the potential
| benefit of TikTok as an intelligence platform is overrated.
| Bypass cert pinning and inspect the packets sent by the
| application if you're so paranoid - most reversing and
| packet capture efforts haven't found anything of note.
| varispeed wrote:
| They can use your videos to better train AI at
| recognising foreigners for starters.
| xvector wrote:
| There are billions of hours of video on the internet
| already that could assist with that task. Sounds like a
| stretch of a reason to me.
| varispeed wrote:
| Why should they waste time on scraping, compiling
| metadata, following subjects if the app provides all of
| that?
| [deleted]
| Icathian wrote:
| On the one hand I absolutely get wanting to go to where the up
| and coming talent is. On the other I think a bit more distance
| between personal and professional platforms is probably in
| everyone's best interests. I'm curious to see if this gets much
| traction.
| CobsterLock wrote:
| I already see too many people using LinkedIn as a second
| FaceBook. The few times I look at my feed I see people posting
| political opinions and other touchy subjects on their "wall"
| (not sure what the official name is on linked in). I always
| thought these professional social networks were more for
| keeping an up to date resume accessible and tweeting or re-
| tweeeting interesting work topics.
| beforeolives wrote:
| This should be one of those laws:
|
| > As the quality of a social network deteriorates, it becomes
| indistinguishable from Facebook.
|
| or
|
| > All social networks converge to Facebook over time.
|
| Something like that. It needs some work but you get the idea.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The eternal September is like entropy, it eventually
| catches up with all things.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I'd substitute 'Twitter' for that law.
|
| I'm always blown away by how unnecessarily cruel people are
| on that site.
| fullshark wrote:
| Some people can't help themselves, and I bet linkedIN's
| algorithm news story feed optimizes for "engagement" which
| means political flamebait.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I think there is some percentage of people who actually
| purposefully would create engagement-worthy postings...just
| to attract attention, thinking that it will suffice in
| bringing in eyeballs that they can sift through. (A tweak
| of the old adage that there's supposedly no such thing as
| bad publicity.) I'm not a fan of this because it likely
| would not attract those employers who would be an ideal
| fit. But i know some folks who likely do that with intent.
| ignoranceprior wrote:
| Damn, I guess unattractive people like me won't be able to get a
| job in the near future.
|
| At least it's not Tinder for jobs, that would be even worse.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Don't worry, I'm my experience interviewing, being ugly hurts a
| lot regardless, so probably nothing changes for you.
|
| I'm pretty sure I've lost a lot of jobs for being fat, and I
| know from experience the hiring bar is much lower for unusually
| pretty people.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| You're only employed for 60 seconds
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I'm really uncomfortable with the commercialization of the job
| application process. A resume was at least somewhat platform
| agnostic (especially in the paper resume era). Platforms like
| LinkedIn (and now TikTok, I guess) are able to create a captive
| audience of users by getting employers to use their services. The
| free market idea of "if you don't like the product/service, vote
| with your wallet and don't use it" is hard to defend when said
| service is required to apply for a job at an unrelated third
| party.
| CuriousNinja wrote:
| I don't use tiktok myself, but from what I've seen their core
| user group is (mostly young) people doing irresponsible and silly
| things to get views on the platform. I don't think showing how
| irresponsible you are is the best way to convince an employer to
| hire you. Maybe this will work for certain positions like "social
| media manager" that some companies have, but as a general job
| board it will conflict with the main use of tiktok.
| bogwog wrote:
| I don't think so. There are a ton of companies that are
| desperate to fill positions right now, and Gen Z teenagers
| probably don't qualify for unemployment benefits, so they'd be
| willing to take a shitty job for some cash.
|
| Plus, maybe the idea that someone needs to present themselves a
| certain way to the public to be hirable is a millennial thing.
| This could be a glimpse into the future of a world filled with
| Gen Z adults, who have internet culture and mannerisms in their
| DNA.
| spideymans wrote:
| >I don't use tiktok myself, but from what I've seen their core
| user group is (mostly young) people doing irresponsible and
| silly things to get views on the platform.
|
| TikTok isn't all that different from YouTube. Like YouTube, you
| can find a lot of stupid or outright irresponsible content. But
| also like YouTube, there is a ton of amazing, informative or
| outright entertaining content on the platform.
|
| In short, TikTok is whatever you want it to be. Just like
| YouTube.
| mucle6 wrote:
| Whenever you aren't the target audience, you can't assume that
| what you've seen is a random sample. Presumably, you were the
| target audience for whoever was showing you those videos of
| people doing irresponsible things.
|
| I use it sometimes and most of my feed is just funny commentary
| by people in similar life situations or who have similar
| viewpoints. I'm sure there are people doing irresponsible
| things, but I just wanted to chime in and say that it's not
| strictly for hooligans.
| ffggvv wrote:
| how many of the jobs are going to be creepy old men hiring for
| service industry jobs and hiring purely based on looks
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| It reminds me of the fade when firms were trying to recruit
| people in 2nd life 10years ago.
| Kye wrote:
| Going where the most likely candidates are is a time-tested way
| of recruiting.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/zme7d5/once-upon-a-time-this...
| carlosdp wrote:
| I think this could actually work. For a generation that has grown
| up with visual-first mediums, it makes sense that they would be
| able to express who they are better in video form than on a piece
| of paper.
|
| I could totally see recruiters swiping through videos to find
| candidates. The only potential downside I could see is obviously
| racial/gender bias being exacerbated or attractiveness on camera
| entering the sourcing equation for candidates.
|
| That said, those issues exist even today with traditional
| resumes, so one could argue it's not really making the problem
| worse and we're going to have to solve that either way.
| tortila wrote:
| Interesting, I wonder if this tool could serve as a way to
| formalize the work relationship between brands and influencers -
| it seems to me that social media native resume is perfect for
| this type of work. What could follow next is even more brands
| using TikTok and its job service, and hopefully a more diverse
| work environment for Gen Z.
| [deleted]
| brightstep wrote:
| Well, it's more help than they're getting from the US government
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| ElectricMind wrote:
| I don't know what else am I going to see as long as I alive in
| this world. I can't catch a break.
| logshipper wrote:
| > Users can post a TikTok video resume to the site rather than a
| traditional resume. The idea is for users to give an elevator
| pitch or work experience summary via the video in a unique way.
|
| Genuine question. Can anyone tell me how recruiters intend to
| parse through thousands of videos without some level of
| automation or software-based filtering?
|
| I understand that there are AI systems that can pick up keywords
| and sentiment, but we all know they are far from perfect. Plus we
| end up with all sorts of issues where some accents might be
| under-represented, leading to exclusion etc.
|
| For all the flaws in text resume-based hiring, automated systems
| can, at least to _some_ extent, help sift through thousands of
| candidates.
|
| I'm not saying that the present system is perfect, just that the
| proposed video-based system could be worse in terms of scale.
| reidjs wrote:
| The easiest way would be to filter or simply rank by metrics of
| the user's profile, for example likes, followers, hashtags,
| number of videos, etc.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Ugh, the notion of gamifying my resume on social media sounds
| like a nightmare. Especially because I want to keep my
| professional and my personal life separate.
| est wrote:
| > without some level of automation or software-based filtering?
|
| Sort by likes?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| So based on how Tik Tok currently works, underage girls
| wearing yoga pants and shaking their butts will be the only
| ones getting hired?
| rmac wrote:
| While sex appeal works, thirst traps have a limited shelf
| life. Comedy, ingenuity, and creativity go viral.
|
| Also, Remember how the tiktok algorithm supposedly works:
| if a brand only watches / likes / comments on tiktokers who
| build things, the "hiring" feed will be full of people
| building things.
| xvector wrote:
| The FYP algorithm is _extremely_ accurate. If that is what
| you see on TikTok, that's more reflective of you than
| anyone else. I don't think I know a single person with an
| FYP with that sort of content.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| This reminds me of a friend who said he's surprised
| tiktok is as popular as it is, because it's filled with
| right-wing conspiracy videos.
|
| I couldn't help but laugh a little.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| I actually don't have a TikTok account, was thinking of
| this comedy sketch: https://youtu.be/l8LJYeeorhc
| passtheglass wrote:
| I really hope this doesn't catch on, I hate the idea of the
| social mediafication of resumes.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Not that I support tiktok, but I feel the opposite. Resumes
| aren't really that useful for determining whether or not
| you'd want to work with that person. A short video is a lot
| better at that, before moving to something more detailed like
| a resume. How we handle resumes in general is just very
| outdated and archaic.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Videos introduce bias towards young, attractive candidates
| and bias away from shy people or those without a lot of
| confidence or experience talking at a camera. Which makes
| peoples' objections understandable.
|
| However, there are a lot of jobs for which being young,
| confident, and attractive are pretty valuable skills. So
| I'm sure that it will enjoy fairly wide adoption.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > Videos introduce bias towards young, attractive
| candidates and bias away from shy people or those without
| a lot of confidence or experience talking at a camera.
|
| Regarding young candidates: it's specifically targeted at
| Gen-Z.
|
| Regarding attractiveness, confidence and experience
| talking/acting in front of a camera: there are a lot of
| jobs where that's important.
|
| I doubt the intention is to hire senior engineers via
| tiktok.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I think a lot of the criticism being posted here on
| HN is because this would be, at best useless, at worst
| counter-productive, for hiring software engineers in
| particular. But there may be other careers where a short
| video would be helpful. So I'd be willing to give the
| idea the benefit of the doubt.
|
| Just please don't use it to try to hire me in tech! I
| have enough disadvantages, I don't need my monstrous
| looks and obvious signs of old age to put me at a greater
| disadvantage. Written resume for me, thankyouverymuch. At
| least a written resume helps you get your foot into the
| door before the onsite interview happens and looks-based
| biases start making their way in.
| andrewzah wrote:
| "young, attractive candidates and bias away from shy
| people or those without a lot of confidence or experience
| talking"
|
| Is this not exactly the same for regular interviews
| today? Ageism is a huge problem. People who lack
| confidence won't do as well, etc.
|
| Most people have an online profile, so what's preventing
| the interviewer/hiring personnel from just looking them
| up online?
| aboringusername wrote:
| > Most people have an online profile, so what's
| preventing the interviewer/hiring personnel from just
| looking them up online?
|
| Citations needed. What % of currently alive humans have
| an 'online' profile, how are you measuring that
| statistic? Are they engaging actively? How many have
| never had a smartphone, how many do not use social media
| at all?
|
| Without sources and actual numbers it's hard to take your
| point seriously. MOST people do this on Hackernews,
| claiming "most" or "everyone" or "the majority of..."
| without actual data to back that up.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I've never bothered to look up pictures of candidates
| online. I read through the resumes on greenhouse can
| click proceed or reject. Eventually I see them, but not
| until the actual interview.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| But you were probably not hiring for roles were being
| attractive, friendly, used to being in front of a camera
| and (possibly) extroverted were important, right?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I fully agree with you, but I think a missing piece is
| that the resume-oriented system has biases as well.
| Writing resumes and cover letters is a skill that many
| people don't have. There are mountains of jobs for which
| resume-writing ability is a needless barrier that's not
| very useful (or common), and a video app is likely a
| _less_ biased filter.
|
| I used to work at a co building a chatbot to filter
| candidates for low-skill hiring (restuarant, retail,
| etc). These hiring processes are sometimes little more
| than 1) do you meet a basic list of requirements and 2)
| are you "okay" -- ie not going to be slovenly, violent,
| rude to customers, dumb, etc. Step 1 is trivial enough
| that we automated it away, and step 2 is crucial enough
| that we _always_ scheduled an interview once a candidate
| was qualified. The same bias exists towards young,
| energetic, and socially-savvy people, but 1) it seems
| unavoidable, given how expansive and inaeticulable the
| goals of the interview are and 2) it's fairly relevant to
| many of the jobs, particularly customer-facing ones.
|
| Funnily enough, we actually had a feature requested by a
| couple of companies to make candidates upload videos, for
| exactly the reasons I described above. This is the niche
| that Tiktok is trying to operationalize. While going
| through videos is slow and expensive, going through
| interviews is much more so.
| ipaddr wrote:
| What about the racial bias this creates where people get
| judged on their looks or race as the filtering for
| deciding who comes to the interview?
|
| It sounds like a bad idea.
| shrimpx wrote:
| If it were a "down to earth" video that's fine but TikTok
| culture encourages polished, professionally-lit quirky and
| provocative performances while being sexy and dressed like
| a LA yoga hipster. I assume that will carry over to this
| video resume culture which IMO will be kind of a disaster.
| I want to hire capable people not quirky sexy hipsters with
| on-camera TikTok skills.
| steaknsteak wrote:
| What makes you think hiring managers will suddenly
| prioritize "quirky sexy hipsters" if those traits aren't
| desirable for the role? You seem to be assuming users on
| the hiring side will use it the same way the average
| TikTok user browses through average TikTok content
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's actually very easy to go through thousands of TikTok
| videos. The app is very fluid and as soon as the algorithm
| begins to get what kind of content you like, the cognitive load
| of going through videos becomes very low. It's very different
| from the Spotify algo that assumes you are all into Japanese
| music just because you liked one song or YouTube that will show
| you how deep the rabbit hole goes in anything.
|
| I like the idea of elevator pitch style TikToks where you can
| quickly express yourself and show your creativity. I would
| imagine the algorithm can start showing the recruiters through
| the job relevant hashtags and work its magic from there.
|
| The creativity tools of the app can prove very useful, the
| simplest idea that comes to my mind is a recruiter creating a
| TikTok video and says something like "Show me something that
| you learn in your career as X that isn't taught in school" and
| have the TikToker's quote and reply to the video. The
| recruiters then can go through the replies and pick candidates
| for interviewing.
|
| I don't think that anybody will hire through click of a button
| like shopping for employees, that doesn't happen on LinkedIn,
| on Indeed, on HN or anywhere. CV or Video, it's just a lead and
| I bet a few second of a video can tell much more than 2 pages
| of written CV.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > as soon as the algorithm begins to get what kind of content
| you like
|
| I have to assume this style of algo-generated feeds wouldn't
| apply for an actual hiring platform, because otherwise this
| is _ripe_ for "inadvertent" discrimination.
| masklinn wrote:
| Seems like the point? Add a bit of bias
| laund^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmachine learning and you're good
| to go! It's not your fault if "the algorithm" is doing the
| discrimination, after all.
|
| I'm not sure how it could fly in the US where putting a
| picture on your resume is more or less illegal.
|
| Certainly would help the state plonk you down when your
| social score gets too low too.
| Mehdi2277 wrote:
| Even if we had a demographically 'fair' recommender, a
| normal recommender is super top heavy. Telling 1000
| companies person x is great is not very useful to them or
| the rest of candidates. I would expect this system to need
| some heavy limiting of amount of companies a candidate sees
| for it to be useful. Very different than typical
| recommendation where a great video can be thousands or
| millions of views.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Telling 1000 companies person x is great
|
| That's the beauty of TikTok. the rich don't necessarily
| get richer. You will often be presented with fresh
| people, AFAIK they spread out new content to measure
| response.
|
| It's not really the type of platform that everyone
| watches the same most popular people.
|
| It's refreshing that doesn't push for "more from the
| same" .
| Mehdi2277 wrote:
| I used to work at tiktok on recommendation. While we
| definitely do better exploration than some places there's
| still a very clear top heavy bias. Part of that is just
| content quality. A lot of content is worse than others
| for any form of media. But while we are better at showing
| small things than say youtube, there remain very clear
| tiktok stars. Even for smaller areas you will still have
| some creators lead in that area.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I get quite a bit fresh content in the sense that it's
| fresh for me(but popular otherwise) or fresh content that
| has a very few views and likes.
|
| In contrast, twitter is horrible because I'm in a bubble
| and everyone I'm exposed to is there to push their
| agenda.
|
| Instagram is fine but it's essentially place where people
| I know and I don't know pretend to be living the good
| life. It's boring. The content discovery never worked for
| me.
|
| Youtube is actually great in terms of content but the
| discovery revolves around the "more from the same" which
| makes discovery of something fresh pretty hard.
|
| TikTok is not perfect but it's the only platform that
| actually seems to create a stream of stuff that I like
| and are not the same.
|
| So , congrats.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| Ya, a perfect recommender for the "best" candidate on
| some qualitative set of metrics would not be
| discriminatory (unless the underlying metrics were).
|
| It definitely wouldn't be useful. Hiring isn't a
| popularity problem as much as a matching problem.
| subpixel wrote:
| "The creativity tools of the app can prove very useful, the
| simplest idea that comes to my mind is a recruiter creating a
| TikTok video and says something like "Show me something that
| you learn in your career as X that isn't taught in school"
| and have the TikToker's quote and reply to the video. The
| recruiters then can go through the replies and pick
| candidates for interviewing"
|
| This sounds like the very worst parts of LinkedIn, but with
| more video and far more social pressure.
| [deleted]
| dangus wrote:
| I also see it as a huge vehicle for hiring discrimination.
|
| Introverted? Neurodiverse? Ugly? Differently abled? Have a
| regional accent? Too bad, your video resume is disqualified for
| not being as "good" as the charismatic member of the
| cultural/ethnic majority.
|
| I think it's especially important for employers to make their
| evaluations as blind as they can be for as long as possible,
| including things like removing names from resumes before
| presenting them to hiring managers.
|
| In my view this is an incredibly lazy way for TikTok to launch
| a new revenue stream while engaging in a bare minimum amount of
| product development. They see how LinkedIn can charge a hundred
| bucks a month to recruiters and they want in.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Introverted? Neurodiverse? Ugly? Differently abled? Have a
| regional accent? Too bad, your video resume is disqualified
| for not being as "good" as the charismatic member of the
| cultural/ethnic majority.
|
| This already happens, in interviews. There are vanishingly
| few jobs that will hire you without meeting you, because
| there are some basic things that are difficult or impossible
| to convey without meeting. Most white-collar jobs don't have
| to spend much thought assessing whether a candidate is likely
| to show up to work everyday", or whether thy can handle
| workplace conflicts without screaming or violence, but this
| is unfortunately a legitimate concern that eg hiring for some
| McDonald's locations must consider. L
| matz1 wrote:
| Every hiring is a discrimination in some way.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Discrimination towards being able to do the job is
| different.
| MajorBee wrote:
| You're not entirely wrong, but why make it even more
| obnoxious and entrenched?
|
| I can see this kind of stuff useful for applying for jobs
| in the (traditionally) "creative" fields; a well crafted
| TikTok can show the recruiter a sense of the applicant's
| editing skills, taste in art/music, and general
| presentation skills, after all. For a cookie-cutter desk
| job? Not sure what gap this fills that isn't already
| occupied by the venerable Curriculum "Resume" Vitae.
| Gunax wrote:
| Its not that discrimination doesnt exist, but it isnt TikToks
| job to solve it. If the amount of discrimination remains the
| same between traditional job seeking and Tiktok, then i dont
| see an issue.
| dangus wrote:
| My argument is that TikTok is making it worse, not better,
| not the same.
|
| The status quo is that a paper/PDF resume is the initial
| screening method. An employer committed to removing hiring
| bias could have the recruitment department strip personal
| identifiers like the name before handing the resume to the
| hiring manager.
|
| Now, instead of that, you have a video of the person. Now
| you're subconsciously judging everything: how the person
| looks, speaks, dresses, and even the decorations in their
| house.
|
| Obviously, there's potential for bias as soon as you see a
| person in real life or hear them speak. That's going to
| happen at most jobs at some point.
|
| However, this TikTok service introduces new methods of bias
| to the initial screening process that didn't exist
| previously.
| lkbm wrote:
| I'm sure we have that, but it's the second filter, after
| the resumes have provided the first filter. Moving it to
| step one seems like it would exacerbate the problem.
|
| That is, you'll get better results (in terms of hiring
| competent employees) if you find out whether the person is
| physically attractive _after_ you 've already anchored on
| whether they're qualified in a more objective manner.
| Resumes aren't great at giving you an accurate anchor, but
| better than nothing, imo.
|
| I'm reminded of a recent study on speed dating that found
| that higher physical attractiveness increased people's
| perception of ones intelligence:
| https://psyarxiv.com/ewvny/
|
| (Just to note, I'm not particularly opposed to TikTok's
| service as a new avenue to try, but I do agree with the OP
| that it could make various discriminatory biases worse, and
| we should be aware of that risk.)
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is our jobs to call out the discrimination this creates
| for minorities. Tiktok isn't being asked to end
| discrimination. Selling a product who's main feature is
| discrimination is unacceptable.
|
| A normal jobs finds keywords on resumes, filters by
| experiece and education. Tiktok filters by looks and race
| and then calls people in for an interview.
| vsareto wrote:
| I don't think this will be the primary way most companies take
| applications. I think it may be a short-term, alternative
| method of applying to a job where the less volume is more
| likely to get you noticed.
|
| However, I'd bet companies will be more averse to this due to
| the fact you get a video of someone initially, rather than
| their resume, so it may make it easier to employers to quietly
| discriminate or unconsciously discriminate.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| They will probably try to license out their existing analytics
| to companies as the only way to comb through applicants.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Assuming a TikTok-typical video length of one minute, you can
| watch 1000 videos in about 16 hours, or two work days.
|
| Of course that's a rough first estimation. Most videos wouldn't
| be watched to the end, but on the other hand additional time is
| needed for reflection on noteworthy candidates, and for
| reaching out. But overall I don't see the need for automation
| here.
| thekyle wrote:
| Seems like someone watching a thousand videos in 16 hours
| would burn out pretty quickly. I imagine after the first
| hundred or so all the videos would start to look the same.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| If I was hiring I would prioritize someone who took the time
| out of their day to have a 60 second pitch than someone who
| just has a resume. There is no automated way to have someone
| parse through the videos because the point is to get a sense of
| who they are through the video which might be hard to get a
| face to face interview. Reading the article the jobs board
| would have the ability to add a TikTok video to your submission
| (although I guess you could this already through an unlisted
| YouTube video but then the selling point for this would be to
| make that process easier).
| ipaddr wrote:
| What would you be hiring for that you would priorize the 60
| second sales pitch over experience data?
| mrrv wrote:
| I could picture a scenario where both video and written
| approaches co-exist and support one another. There's been a
| number of times where I'm left wanting to see more of a
| person's voice in a hyper-templated piece of paper.
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| Until AGI recruiters simply will be limited in number of
| seconds they can spend on each video. And applicants will be
| taught to optimize for "first N frames" impression. /s
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