[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What's with the repeated job posts on "Who's...
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Ask HN: What's with the repeated job posts on "Who's hiring"?
I've been applying to some jobs (EM) that are posted on "Who's
Hiring", getting rejected without even an interview and then see
them posted again and again. I'm ok with me not being the best
candidate but I can't fathom the idea that not a single candidate
was good enough in months. What's going on here?
Author : rafavento
Score : 40 points
Date : 2025-06-03 17:30 UTC (5 hours ago)
| TheMongoose wrote:
| Unicorn hunting is probably some of it. I followed up on one that
| sent me a rejection letter after two interviews and just said "I
| see your job has been re-posted" Never heard back. =)
| ahi wrote:
| I see a lot of unicorn job postings here and elsewhere. Bunch
| of companies here in the midwest are looking for 5 years
| experience in AI pipeline engineering. Those people exist,
| sorta*, but they aren't taking $60/hr contract gigs from
| bureaucratic hellscape Acme Corp types. Likewise, I see a lot
| of startups led by technical hustler types (more power to them)
| who would never pass their own hiring expectations. Your CTO is
| a webdev with 6 months prompt engineering. Why would an actual
| expert agree to work for them?
|
| *unclear if experience from 5 years ago is relevant to current
| practice.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > Your CTO is a webdev with 6 months prompt engineering
|
| Lol, these interviews make me so uncomfortable.
| prmph wrote:
| Some of the posters even ask you to contact them directly, and
| then ghost you when you respond.
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| There's a large number of people who might have the skill. Tech
| companies have been laying people off, too, which increases the
| talent pool. That lets them be picky. If patient, they'll get a
| better employee.
|
| On the other side, techniques recruiting is getting harder.
| They've long had to deal with applications that have nothing to
| do with the job, by people with no experience, and people who
| can't code. Now, AI's might be writing applications or sample
| code. On busy sites like HN, they might also just get many
| applications. Even a reasonable, hiring manager might have
| difficulty trusting an application enough for an interview.
|
| Those are my two theories for most of it. Others include
| companies prioritizing culture fit, status, or job adds that are
| schemes. Some of these happen in other places.
| quintes wrote:
| Technical and culture fit likely.
|
| Though with a large pool you'd expect it to close.
|
| Hope they are real jobs.
| samcheng wrote:
| I've posted on "Who's hiring" for years now, and hired many
| engineers from those posts. We reject the vast majority of
| candidates, and to those who we reject, it might seem like we
| can't hire "a single candidate." That's not true - if it were,
| I'd stop posting here!
| owebmaster wrote:
| > if it were, I'd stop posting here!
|
| unless you (the royal you) are posting it for other motives
| other than hiring.
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| Are you perchance gesturing towards stock owned companies
| trying to improve their public looks by creating a look of
| growing via ghost job postings?
| gigatree wrote:
| No, that couldn't be it. Yes, the incentive exists for them
| to do that, but I'm sure their conscious wouldn't let them
| lead people on and waste their time like that.
| owebmaster wrote:
| Also a premium ad spot for free. It would be interesting to
| see the CTR of these "campaigns".
| samcheng wrote:
| When I used "we" in my post, it's because I don't make hiring
| decisions unilaterally.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Collecting resumes then upselling you on a service.
| mathgeek wrote:
| That's also what the Looking to be Hired thread is scraped for.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Tech industry hiring heavily believes in the "fixed mindset."
| Meaning that people are unable to grow. Combine with extreme risk
| avoidance, an explosion in the number of stacks, and no appetite
| for waiting a week for a dev to learn another thing. No hire.
| ozim wrote:
| I have seen enough devs being corporate drones and people who
| say they want to learn but do nothing to be tilting towards
| "fixed mindset".
|
| I do have myself as a counter example but that's small N and as
| usual always others are lazy ;)
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| People are searching for people. I'm not in the demo. yet it's
| interesting to look where the _interests_ are.
|
| And if you look further there are enough of people who were
| actually hired because of this.
| Mc91 wrote:
| I got a gig from who's hiring a few years ago. I also interviewed
| at some other places which were not a fit. Some places never got
| back to me. It has been a mix.
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(page generated 2025-06-03 23:01 UTC)