[HN Gopher] Should you post that you're OpenToWork? A tale of tw...
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Should you post that you're OpenToWork? A tale of two labor markets
Author : leeny
Score : 48 points
Date : 2023-04-11 16:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (interviewing.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (interviewing.io)
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Broadcasting your need to any poor soul who stumbles across your
| post does not sound like the ideal way to get the job you want.
| It does sound desperate like you have no skills and will take
| whatever is offered.
|
| I've never even had a recruiter that could find me the job I
| wanted. It's up to you to find that job and do what it takes to
| meet those qualifications.
|
| You can find that job through the easily searchable job listings
| that cover the internet - or through your personal network - but
| you're your best advocate here.
| jldugger wrote:
| Well, there's an idea that recruiters and LinkedIn use
| OpenToWork as a signal that you might actually respond. But the
| utility of that is somewhat questionable at times, using logic
| related to what you say: if a candidate is hoping to speak with
| a recruiter in 2021, when every tech company is seeing record
| breaking demand, there's probably something wrong with the
| candidate.
|
| In 2023, where every tech company is only seeing normal demand
| and normal growth but laying off thousands, that inference is
| less valid.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| My counter point is that most recruiters have a much smaller
| fishing pond these days. If you want the best then there is a
| high chance you'll have to find it yourself as it might be
| outside the view/contracts of the recruiter you pick.
|
| Your ability to search and sell yourself only becomes more
| valuable in tight markets.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I've never even had a recruiter that could find me the job I
| wanted.
|
| I have, a few times. But it's a recruiter that I've been
| working with for over 20 years, and they know me well, know
| what my strengths and interests are, etc. Even when they cold-
| call me asking if I might be interested in a position, they
| already know that the position will interest me.
|
| That said...
|
| > you're your best advocate here.
|
| Is 100% true. Nobody knows or cares about your needs as much as
| you do. Even my good recruiter is in it for their own financial
| interests, not mine, in the end.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Emphasis on "a few". I can count the number of recruiters
| I've found worth keeping in my network in the long-term on
| one hand.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Agreed. I've found exactly one over a very long career,
| which is why I stick with them.
| ok_dad wrote:
| It's so fucking dumb that a worker has to show fealty to a
| corporation when they want to work there, as if they are blessed
| for having the opportunity to labor on shitty code (or whatever)
| all day, and if they look for other work they're a _fucking
| traitor_ and looked down upon. Meanwhile, if company profits are
| up but interest rates are rising 25 bps over the next year, they
| can just lay off 10,000 workers and it 's just "doing business
| things".
|
| I am "open to work" on LinkedIn and elsewhere, and if a company
| or hiring manager doesn't like it then they can go fuck
| themselves. Note: I have a great job currently.
|
| Further, "open to work" doesn't mean I'm fucking begging for you
| to hire me, it means I'm open to opportunities that might come up
| when I'm specifically _not actively looking_! I 've had several
| good interviews come from random people finding my posts about my
| industry on HN or seeing my "open to work" status on LinkedIn and
| emailing me.
| deevolution wrote:
| Anecdotally I've had more recruiters reach out to me for
| potential jobs when I have the Open to work badge. Why not have
| it on all the time even if you are currently employed, especially
| if you are well performing. Would that not be an incentive for
| your current employer to boost pay/bonus to retain?
| tracker1 wrote:
| Probably not... tbh, unless I'm looking, I stay the hell away
| from LinkedIn generally. What got me even considering a few
| jobs ago was evaluating some of their eLearning courses that
| mgt had wanted people to make use of... Not the best idea imo.
| So, you're going to push your self-motivated employees to a
| site that centers around career connections and recruiters?
|
| In the end, I don't think most managers care that much until
| it's too late. Not all, but enough.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I left it on for awhile as a signal to my employer that I was
| willing to jump ship. I will say that I was pretty
| straightforward with my employer about what I was looking for,
| and started bringing it up regularly.
|
| I eventually got an offer and my employer counter-offered.
|
| Turns out no one even noticed until I showed up with an offer in
| hand. I even asked out to my boss, "didn't you see that I'm
| '#OpenForWork' on LinkedIn?"
|
| (Basically, I was hired as a contractor because my offer as W2
| was below market rate. The contractor phase was supposed to be
| short, but after it dragged out too long I needed to either make
| market rate as a W2 or move on.)
| tomcam wrote:
| Mad props for taking this into your own hands and for being
| straight with your org. Also, fine username (former VBA
| language PM representing).
| rationalfaith wrote:
| [dead]
| dan-0 wrote:
| Maybe it's the fact that I have a lot of recruiter contacts on
| LinkedIn, or maybe it's my engineering field, but I disagree with
| a lot of the comments here. In the past #opentowork has been a
| huge help even up until I started my latest role in November.
| I've never had to be worried about finding a job except when I
| left government work for private sector.
|
| The amount of recruiters that would reach out once I set myself
| to open to work was beneficially and notably more significant and
| I wouldn't have had nearly the number of opportunities presented
| if it wasn't for that.
|
| I've done this both while still employed and after quitting a
| position without any noticable difference.
|
| This is a tangent, but dropping resumes to companies directly has
| proven to be ridiculously time consuming and ineffective for a
| lot of reasons. If I can get a phone screen, which happens at a
| pretty decent rate with a recruiter that reaches out first, I've
| rarely had an issue getting to the next round. There's some
| pretty good opportunities I've been given just taking cold calls
| from recruiters, and #opentowork has played a big role in that.
|
| FWIW, my strategy has been to apply to a few companies I want to
| work at directly, turn on open to work, take recruiter calls
| while I wait on the companies I initially targeted to respond.
| I'll focus ~75% of my effort on my targets and use everything
| else as a backup or opportunity to discover some companies I
| wasn't aware of.
|
| When I was a hiring manager, the hashtag meant nothing to me. I'd
| ask everyone why they're leaving their current position and what
| they expect to accomplish at my company just the same. I'm not
| getting your performance review from your last company, so all I
| can go off of is what you tell me anyways. Maybe some references,
| but those are marginally reliable at best. If you're denying
| candidates based on a hashtag or profile flair like this you
| probably shouldn't be in that position, you're not assessing the
| candidate objectively.
|
| I don't get the "desperate" signal some people are claiming this
| to be either. If you're looking for a job, why not face the large
| end of the funnel towards your input? I don't mean any offense,
| but just my internal take, it comes off as a pride thing to me
| where you think too highly of yourself to allow external help. It
| seems like a self limiting outlook with little upside.
|
| That all said, I don't think the numbers in the article have any
| easily actionable significance. It's a great conversation piece
| and something to mull over, but there isn't enough information to
| draw real conclusions on especially given the social and economic
| changes over just the past few years.
| geebee wrote:
| Good post, though with the graphic, I do think this is one of
| those cases when the y-intercept should start at zero. The
| graphic does make a 7% difference look like a 3x difference. Same
| thing for the previous interviewing.io post on whether to list
| certs on LinkedIn.
| OJFord wrote:
| And when it is done there should be some sort of visual
| indication anyway. I was taught to squiggle the bottom of the
| axis line to show it's non-linear/skipping a bit. You could
| also rule e.g. every 50, so here starting at 40 you'd notice
| the uneven rules. (Much like how nobody uses a log scale and
| then rules only the decades.)
| epx wrote:
| No. Never.
| lowercased wrote:
| tldr: in 2021, 'open to work' was a negative impact, and in 2023,
| it's a positive impact.
|
| I suspect it will revert to a negative or neutral impact by 2024.
| janeerie wrote:
| That isn't quite the conclusion the article draws though. Most
| people would interpret "positive/negative" impact as meaning
| whether the badge will help or hurt you in your job search.
|
| Instead, the article evaluates whether engineers with the badge
| are higher or lower skilled than average.
|
| As such, the only conclusion you could really draw is if you're
| a hiring manager, you should not view an "Open to Work" badge
| as a negative signal for a candidate.
| ska wrote:
| > article evaluates whether engineers with the badge are
| higher or lower skilled than average.
|
| It doesn't even do that, really. Unless you expand to "..
| than average performance at a particular type of
| interviewing"
| bruckie wrote:
| This isn't a comparison of whether _adding #OpenToWork to your
| profile_ changes the likelihood of being hired. It 's a
| comparison of whether _people who chose to add OpenToWork to
| their profiles_ were more likely to be hired.
|
| It's totally possible that one of the populations is more/less
| hireable than the other, and OpenToWork is a correlated, but not
| causal factor.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| I think that's exactly what the article is implying.
|
| Which is a signal to hiring managers to not treat #OpenToWork
| as a negative signal under current conditions.
| [deleted]
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The post and some comments seem to be assuming that whether you
| flip this bit or not can effect your chances of getting hired.
| Maybe, or maybe they just found a correlation, that people more
| or less hireable for other reasons are more or less likely to
| flip this bit, and nobody actually pays attention at allto
| whether the bit is flipped or not, the same person choosing to
| flip the bit or not would not effect their chances. Which seems
| plausible to me. Or some combination. The data analysis as given
| doesn't give us a way to pick from these explanations.
| stetrain wrote:
| Sounds to me like in a strong job market, the people who bother
| to set themselves as #OpenToWork are those either having more
| trouble getting a job, or are already in a decent job and just
| shopping around.
|
| In a tough market following layoffs, more people in general are
| going to be #OpenToWork, even strong candidates who didn't need
| to openly job shop before, and those looking for work are more
| likely to take an offer even if it isn't perfect.
|
| It's still an interesting indicator of the state of the job
| market.
| version_five wrote:
| I wonder how "opentowork" affects salary negotiations? It
| certainly puts the candidate in a lower power position, it's not
| hard to imagine many companies offering less to people who signal
| they are unemployed.
| noncoml wrote:
| I always have it OpenToWork. Don't see any meaningful downside.
| sharkweek wrote:
| I was able to catch myself before doing this, but sort of a
| cautionary tale how bias has sneaked into my thinking the last
| few months...
|
| Friend of mine has a good job - however the company conducted
| layoffs and cut most of her team, with her being one of the
| exceptions so she has since been burdened with the weight of the
| roles of the laid off.
|
| Given her morale quickly ended up in the shitter, she asked me to
| put out feelers to see if I knew of anyone hiring. I went to post
| on LinkedIn saying (without naming her of course) that I had a
| very talented friend looking for a new role. The weird part is
| that _I almost made it a point to mention that she was still
| currently employed._
|
| This is totally unfair thinking given current market trends. Lots
| of good people have been laid off because they were in the wrong
| barn at the wrong time. I know this, but I can't help but allow
| the question to float around in the back of my head, "well WHY
| was this person laid off, was it performance related at all or
| were they just unlucky?"
|
| I'm sure I'll be laid off at some point in the future (again),
| and I probably wouldn't mark myself as OpenToWork. I'd be open
| about current employment status, but probably wouldn't broadcast
| it.
| shazzdeeds wrote:
| I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with admitting we
| as humans have these kinds of pre-selection social biases baked
| into us as a survival trait. We just have to be conscious of it
| and try to fight it when we sense it working against our goals,
| especially in a hiring context.
|
| That said what you did for your friend was perfectly reasonable
| knowing full well many people have these biases and will not
| make the effort to fight them consciously.
| jt2190 wrote:
| In software we call this a "micro-optimization"... Something that
| programmers waste a lot of time fussing with while ignoring the
| factors that dominate the overall performance. Fiddle with
| LinkedIn if you want, but understand that it probably won't make
| a significant difference either way.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| A long time ago I spent a little while debating whether listing
| my middle initial on my resume would make it look "more
| professional"
| tomcam wrote:
| Just watch it with the full middle name, which has a serial
| killer ring (jk (mostly)).
| version_five wrote:
| Unfortunately that's the appeal (and basically the value
| proposition) of linkedin - it's social media dressed up to make
| you feel like you're doing something, when you're really just
| polishing a turd (as it were). Anything is better than spending
| time there, if you want a job or clients or whatever, but it's
| the easiest thing to do so people keep coming back.
| lizardking wrote:
| Maybe true in most cases, but adding a somewhat niche skill set
| to my Linkedin profile late last year almost immediately
| yielded me an attractive job offer.
| tryitnow wrote:
| This pretty much sums it up. There's about ten other things
| that are self-evidently more important in a job search than
| this.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Fascinating. I think the key analysis here might have a flawed
| methodology though. So those who used "#opentowork" on LinkedIn
| passed fewer interviews... But is that because the hiring
| managers/panels saw their LinkedIn profiles and saw it as a red
| flag, or is that because people who used "#opentowork" were more
| desperate already from failing interviews?
| bentt wrote:
| Don't. It makes you look desperate. Use some kind of other
| mechanism to broadcast if you must, but if you put that on your
| Linkedin profile pic it is not a good look.
| WakoMan12 wrote:
| [dead]
| amflare wrote:
| Exactly this. It's like panhandling; it doesn't matter how many
| other people are out there on street corners, it's still a bad
| look and I'm still going to wonder how you can't at least hold
| down a job at Burger King.
| throwaway426079 wrote:
| I don't assume that flag indicates the person is jobless. The
| person working BK while looking for a white collar job might
| well use it.
| gabereiser wrote:
| You don't know how many talented people you passed up because
| of this bias. Almost painful to read. You have no idea what
| that person is going through yet you equate them to a line
| cook at BK? Wow.
| bogwog wrote:
| What words would you use to describe someone who looks down on
| others because they're actively looking for a job?
|
| The three that come to mind for me are: "cynical", "elitist",
| and "asshole"
| duxup wrote:
| I makes it look like you enthusiastically want a job?
|
| As opposed to ? Only sorta want a job?
|
| It's funny as there is so much talk about being "passionate
| about X" but here we don't want to look very passionate.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Maybe I'm a prude, but I think there should be a discussion of
| variance in an article that is basically just a bunch of words
| wrapping a comparison between two proportions.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Think of all the content marketing this excludes though!
| geebee wrote:
| Nah, you're not. I often find myself wanting more data and
| stats when I read the interviewing.io blog as well.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| The article essentially claims that OpenToWork is generally
| considered to be a negative indicator among hiring managers: If
| you're looking for a job, it's better to not mark yourself as
| open to work, otherwise HMs will judge you negatively.
|
| Is that actually a view that many/most hiring managers have?
|
| That seems completely insane to me. My view was that OpenToWork
| == please feel free to contact me about new opportunities, I'm
| willing to switch jobs or take on contract work. But a number of
| HN commenters here appear to have the viewpoint that OpenToWork
| == you're an incompetent buffoon who has been utterly unable to
| get anyone to hire you, so I'm not even going to consider you for
| this position. Wtf? Yes, all the incompetent buffoons will be
| permanently OpenToWork, but I really don't think it's reasonable
| to make that assumption in the opposite direction.
| jldugger wrote:
| "I refuse to join any club that would have _me_ as a member"
| energy
| listenallyall wrote:
| I'd sum up that train of thought like this... A recruiter who
| comes back to the hiring manager with "this person is a
| superstar at [competitor] and we can steal them away" is a more
| persuasive argument, as well as a feather-in-the-cap for the
| recruiter, as opposed to, "this person is, well, Open To Work
| at the present time." At the very least, in the first case, you
| have to move quickly, which is desirable to the recruiter.
|
| Or another way: imagine visiting a foreign city and there is an
| extremely busy restaurant and a mostly empty one. You're likely
| to go to the busy one first and ask if it's possible to get a
| table... the hostess says "normally no, but we just had a
| cancellation and its yours right now." Score! A story you'll
| tell all your friends. Getting a table at the empty
| restaurant... ehhh, whatever.
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| Forgetting to control for relative difference in quality of
| candidates between the two pools.
| listenallyall wrote:
| "quality of candidate" is likely highly correlated with being
| employed or not
| medvezhenok wrote:
| The difference in quality of candidates was the whole point of
| the post (title is misleading).
| dccoolgai wrote:
| It's categorically unfair, but everyone says it when the "teacher
| isn't looking": Tech companies are just riding the wave to get
| rid of low performers and troublemakers while they can.
| Signalling that you're part of that group (and I know it's
| unfair, I already said that) is unlikely to work to your
| advantage, in my view. It's a signal to the counterparty that
| they have leverage over you. It's going to attract people who
| want/need that leverage disproportionately. It probably will
| increase the raw number of contacts you make, but for the reasons
| above, I would avoid doing it until I crossed some threshold of
| "desperation".
| 988747 wrote:
| [dead]
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