Poachbox – Recruit Startup and Tech Talent

http://www.poachbox.com

by noahchase • 12 years ago

45 49 12 years ago

frade333• 12 years ago

If an employer does not get the response for their offer, who is in the same area and industry and already has people in similar positions (which is likely going to be case, unless one is searching job in an other location than their current employer).

It won't be hard to assume, one of their employees is on the job hunt. So being anonymous might be little of no value, at the end of the day.

And If you are a CEO, you would know which of your employee he/she is, the moment you see the ad ;)

And as an employer, I do not get the idea, it would be more of pain in the asrse than of any 'real' value for employers. And I hate this service.

Every day, top employers like Google, Apple, Facebook and others use services, tactics and tools like Poachbox to recruit top talent like you.

they use poachbox or a (any other) service like poachbox? If the later, what is the point of even mentioning it, except for deceiving users? If the former. wow! it's incredible.

so bottomline is, you are making shifting ass from one company to another easier, while one could save his/her ass. You know, I am an employer and I am already getting upset. ;)

aaa! downvote. no worries, Mr. Employee. If you ever grow up to become an employer, you would have less or more the same feelings ;)

JeremyMorgan2• 12 years ago

lighten up Francis

frade333• 12 years ago

haha! mind you i am an asian, it took me to search whole world wide web to find the meaning of this phrase!

And! yes consider yourself dead ;)

sharpasand• 12 years ago

with attitude like this it should not be a surprise to you that you are probably the type of employer whose employees will be using this type service. instead of whining about this service maybe you should be paying more attention to why your employees would be even tempted to use a site like this in the first place.

theboss• 12 years ago

"Anonymously" aka. Please give us your name, current employer, etc.

I'm a student and this even looks crazy to me. Who is going to give you an offer when they know nothing about you?

noahchase5• 12 years ago

Thanks for your feedback. Really appreciate you checking out the site. Offers are non-binding, and employers are not obligated to hire candidates. After employers make an offer to a candidate, they receive the candidate's full profile. Poachbox delivers employers a pool of vetted candidates, employed at venture-funded companies, with a unique set of skills. We believe companies will recognize the value.

7Figures2Commas3• 12 years ago

As an employer, why would I want to limit my pool of candidates to those employed at venture-backed companies? What is that vetting for?

Venture-backed startups tend to hire lots of people, quicky, and there's limited diversity in roles. In my experience, that doesn't always produce great candidates, at least from the perspective of an employer looking to hire truly well-rounded candidates who don't believe they're entitled to $200,000/year because they worked on a spammy iOS app for a company that isn't likely to be in business in 2 years.

oo7jeep• 12 years ago

Click logo in the top left -> 404.

Maybe they should poach an entry level web dev!

noahchase5• 12 years ago

Thanks for you feedback and catching that! We fixed it. We will continue to work to make Poachbox awesome for our users. Thanks again!

sbisker• 12 years ago

I'm very wary of the photo feature, even cartoony and blurred out...will there be a bias between male vs female candidates in terms of whether people bid on them? Race? Hair color? Etc. There's a reason most companies don't want you to attach a photo to your resume.

shuzchen• 12 years ago

I'm not certain but from the copy it sounds like they'll be using that same pixelated cartoon no matter who the candidate is. Also, it doesn't appear like the signup form has a field to attach a photo.

iamthepieman2• 12 years ago

the fonts are all messed up for me in Chrome 33.0.1750.154

noahchase5• 12 years ago

We're working to fix font on all browsers. Thanks you for letting us know, and for checking out the site.

coreymgilmore• 12 years ago

based on the website, it doesn't look quite finished or polished. The top-left logo is a 404 and the placeholder form text isn't displayed correctly (Chrome Beta).

However, this seems like a decent idea. Kind of a mix between ebay and odesk..sort of.

abimaelmartell• 12 years ago

They should put a "Made with iWeb" banner on the website...

Arsenije• 12 years ago

This looks like a http://hiremyfriend.io/ ripoff. Hire my Friend is on the scene for some time and it's awesome.

SvenAndersson3• 12 years ago

Woah, that looks pretty good, the on-boarding was fantastic. Sadly Poachbox first impressions was not on par at all.

7Figures2Commas3• 12 years ago

At this point, somebody might as well launch Chatroulette for "recruiting."

As far as I'm concerned, if you're an employer and something like "I want to leave my job at a top VC backed startup. I’m an iOS Engineer and Designer looking for a new challenge" is enough to pique your interest in a candidate who is ostensibly not motivated enough to reach out to companies of interest and instead wants to sit back and be "poached", you have no right to complain about how hard it is to hire and retain quality employees.

gopher1• 12 years ago

So what you're saying is that the photos for 4 out of 5 candidates will be junk shots?

hemantv2• 12 years ago

well hired.com do a lot better job, its a amazing company too.

noahchase5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. We agree, Hired is great. We love and respect what they're doing. We believe there's a big enough market for two similar companies to exist. Currently what makes us different is that we're mobile focused. Along with Design, we focus on iOS and Android engineering talent. Another way we're different is that our auctions only last 24hrs. Again, thanks for checking out the site.

hemantv2• 12 years ago

No disrespect to you guys. Its great to have alternatives and competition, because that's the only way consumer wins in the end.

Great work, keep up :-)

dl8• 12 years ago

I've had an awful experience with Hired. Wasn't just a one-time thing either.

ericb2• 12 years ago

I would love to see a pure merit based approach. Let people see github accounts and make offers based on that alone. Maybe we can evolve farther past age and race issues if we focus on work.

pgodzin• 12 years ago

What about candidates whose merit comes from what they did in companies and not in open source?

JeremyMorgan2• 12 years ago

They should be able to put something together on their Github to demonstrate skills.

I rarely hire anyone without it these days.

ericb2• 12 years ago

I've been there. Still, I'd want a code sample anyhow.

If open source becomes the dominant mode for hire screening, it provides an interesting disincentive from taking jobs at open source unfriendly companies.

7Figures2Commas3• 12 years ago

Github is useless. The vast majority of companies that ask for source code samples don't even take the time to review them. Heck, these days you're lucky if your cover letter and resume are read in their entirety by a human being.

The sad truth is that most companies are lazy and/or inept at hiring. Once you recognize that, you can either accept that you're playing a numbers game, or you can decide to evolve beyond playing the role of employee.

seivan• 12 years ago

I'm just curious why no one has tried to tackle this yet. Seems like an obvious angle to take in the "hiring" market (that seems to be saturated). Everyone are basically doing the same thing, having a niche angle might help. Just a thought.

donretag2• 12 years ago

Wish there was a website for remote developers to announce their candidacy.

opendais2• 12 years ago

That would we be nice.

iamthepieman2• 12 years ago

I laughed when I saw the location. Yeah, I'll just put "Middle of no where, USA"

Despite a lot of talk about remote work on the rise, I've yet to see most companies encouraging it or able to manage remote workers.

Least you could do is make it check for the users location via geo or at least ip and make that the placeholder text.

hoodoof4• 12 years ago

odesk? freelancer?

donretag2• 12 years ago

Those are for consulting gigs, not full-time employment.

hoodoof4• 12 years ago

Can you talk more about why you want this and what need is not being met by current services?

interested_dev2• 12 years ago

I love the idea of this. I'm trying to find a new job right now and it's a pain trying to stay somewhat anonymous while searching.

What I don't like about your approach is the fact that the entire experience of applying/signing up to be poached feels half-assed.

You guys didn't make your own form and the embedded version doesn't really match the rest of the site and looks just thrown together.

There's horrible design inconsistencies (serif fonts mixed in with sans-serif fonts on the same line, and no.. it's not design).

This feels like a badly done DeveloperAuction/Hired clone with an anonymous aspect.

Why make prospective employers apply? It feels like a better experience for both parties would just be a listing of candidates, their skills, their location, etc with the ability to start up a conversation (via email or private message or something). If the guy gets hired, he can remove his posting.

noahchase5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the great feedback. We're working really hard to make the site beautiful and useful to our users. We're currently bootstrapping and working as fast as we can. We want to make sure candidates get to work for great companies and employers get to hire great talent. All employers and companies are vetted to ensure this. This is why we require companies to apply. Also to make sure candidate info is not seen by their current employer. Thanks again so much for your feedback.

interested_dev2• 12 years ago

So what's different from you guys and Hired/Developer auction other than the 'anonymous' aspect?

maisiedevine• 12 years ago

Try Poacht instead -- www.poachtapp.com

fnbr• 12 years ago

Personally, I enjoyed:

Get at least 5-10 real job offers in 24hrs. Sometimes less.

Isn't that contradictory? Cool idea though.

argumentum• 12 years ago

I think "less" refers to 24hrs, not 5-10 real job offers.

xianshou• 12 years ago

I'm sure Matthew Deiters really appreciates the pun.

http://pitchbox.com/

That said, even though this would have been a great April Fools' joke, it's also part of a developing trend to provide hyper-liquidity in the hiring market. Besides this company, I've seen at least two "Tinder for hackers" hiring sites in the past couple of months (HackMatch and Blonk) that claim to be making a lot of successful placements.

hoodoof4• 12 years ago

Read the comments in this thread. So hacker news to focus criticism of a newly launched site on fonts and minor design inconsistencies.

SvenAndersson3• 12 years ago

To be fair, the first impression of a job seeking related site should come of as professional, minor design quirks (even stuff like font errors from minor CSS mishaps) can be a thumb in the eye. Valid points and the authors seem to appreciate the feedback.

And there are quite a few non-design related comments as well.

hoodoof4• 12 years ago

Hang on, all the advice I read is "get it out there, ship it, don't wait for it to be perfect". BUt you're saying it should be polished before release?

frade333• 12 years ago

with attitude like this it should not be a surprise to you that you are probably the type of employer whose employees will be using this type service. instead of whining about this service maybe you should be paying more attention to why your employees would be even tempted to use a site like this in the first place.

Got too many downvotes on the previous comment, so here is your chance again to downvote me. If I am a shitty employer, why the phuck is one sticking with me., you only want to flirt with me, that I shouldn't and can not allow. the point I had made was going totally against the employees which is under-stand-able, however I had raised my concern as an employer.

opendais2• 12 years ago

Eh, the jotform doesn't work after you sign up anyway so this site is harmless. xD

Poachbox – Recruit Startup and Tech Talent

Related Stories