Show HN: Ladder, find a new startup job anonymously

by brackin • 12 years ago

46 43 12 years ago

brackin9• 12 years ago

We quietly launched about a week ago and have already seen good quality and experience from technical talent. With 50+ engineers, designers, PM's on the platform. Some with 15 years of experience in their field or previous experience leading teams at well known companies

Co-founders of startups are signing up to find something new, PM's at tech companies are looking to join startups and engineers that think they might want to try something new are getting options.

We speak to every signup to evaluate if they're right for the platform and if we can find the right role for them. Once a company and employee are matched, they can communicate directly through their own process.

eroo• 12 years ago

If you wouldn't mind providing some insight, I'm curious what your approach is to verifying a hire is w.r.t. collecting commission?

brackin9• 12 years ago

We want to get out of the way as much as possible. We're really involved with companies and check back in. Can check Linkedin, etc. We wait to see how the employee fits within the company.

If we connect companies with high quality hires they'll want to pay so that they can continue working with us. This will likely only scale to a certain size.

yid• 12 years ago

We don't ask the company to pay anything for 30 days, to see how it goes.

I genuinely would be surprised to see a company pay a sourcing fee in under 30 days, sometimes 60 or 90.

frankdenbow• 12 years ago

Thats the hardest part. I built something similar, although not anonymous (http://startupjob.me) and collecting is tough.

What I have been trying is incentivizing the candidate to also check back in if they have been hired. That way you don't have to rely on the companies alone.

lauradhamilton2• 12 years ago

You misspelled "discreetly."

brackin9• 12 years ago

Doh. Fixed, thanks.

pauldino• 12 years ago

Was there any concern about a trademark conflict with TheLadders?

brackin9• 12 years ago

It's a different market & a generic term used in hiring (this is only for tech talent & curated approach), the name isn't that important though.

timcederman2• 12 years ago

Not that different - and this is liable to cause confusion.

notahacker• 12 years ago

I thought the generic notion of career ladders was what people went into startups to avoid...

tghw• 12 years ago

TheLadders - Find a ________ job (Higher paying)

Ladder - Find a ________ job. (Startup)

Not only that, but the domains are very close:

    tryladder.com
    theladders.com

Prepare for a C&D from The Ladders.

lauradhamilton2• 12 years ago

IANAL but I agree that there does seem to be a conflict with http://www.theladders.com/

fiatjaf2• 12 years ago

5% of salary? Forever? Are you crazy?

brackin9• 12 years ago

Made that clearer on the homepage now, just their first year.

fiatjaf2• 12 years ago

Still high, but at least saner.

timcederman2• 12 years ago

What do these calls-to-action mean?

[hiring] [tech talent]

I have no idea what either are going to do.

Also, when I click on "tech talent", this is confusing:

"What role are you looking for? We only accept high quality companies that are actively hiring."

It sounds like you're trying to qualify me applying...but you're actually talking about which companies you may or may not refer to me. I understand you're trying to make your value prop clear, but it's just confusing at this point.

brackin9• 12 years ago

Thanks Tim, changed hiring to companies & clarified that statement. Will try to improve this further.

afarrell• 12 years ago

Why not "hire" and "get hired"?

thinkt4nk• 12 years ago

Am I missing something? You've essentially started a tech recruitment firm, right? Is there something novel about your business?

opendais• 12 years ago

It appears to be the $0 plan from http://www.typeform.com/pricing/ + a landing page.

So I'd guess the only unique bits are any connections they might have.

dyadic• 12 years ago

I really dislike the use of "Full Stack Developer" and especially when I'm pushed into that box by the only other choices being FE and iOS dev.

walshemj• 12 years ago

yes I take full stack to mean that they can work at all 7 layers of the OSI stack - i.e. they could design and build/supervise the installation of a network that the code they write can run on.

Whereas some take it to mean they can do basic server coding and html/JavaScript

silverbax88• 12 years ago

"Full Stack Developer" is the equivalent of "5 years of experience" in whatever new language or tech was announced last week. When I see companies advertise that, I know they are clueless right up front.

danielweber2• 12 years ago

About a week ago it occurred to me that "Full Stack Developer" is what we used to call "Software Engineer." It's like suddenly understanding some idiom the locals are using; everything in the universe made a lot more sense.

kurrent• 12 years ago

where does one fall in their list of choices if they are doing backend/server side code?

http://i.imgur.com/h20L66f.jpg

there seems to be no clear choice for that

notduncansmith2• 12 years ago

There's really very little excuse for not knowing enough front-end stuff to consider yourself a "full-stack web developer".

HTML/CSS are easy-peasy, and while some people don't like Javascript, it's hard to get away from and you can only increase your value as a developer by being able to work with it. Add to that a little bit of client-side tooling knowledge (Gulp, SCSS/LESS), and some familiarity with jQuery and you're good to go. Shouldn't take more than a week tops to get the hang of it all; no-one's saying you have to be a wizard.

You don't have to love front-end work (I enjoy it, but I also really like doing back-end work so I understand both perspectives), but you're doing yourself and anyone who employs you a disservice by not being at least a somewhat-solid front-end dev. Early-stage startups don't really have room for people without that level of versatility. If you're going to write code, you should be able to write front-end code, back-end code, and be able to administrate your startup's servers to some degree. If you can only do front-end, you'd better be at least a decent designer. If you can only do backend, you ought to be doing some kick-ass ops work. The phrase "T-shaped individual" comes to mind.

taariqlewis• 12 years ago

A very busy space. The true demand is that you have lots of passive talent signing up. These folks are highly valued, but it's not clear how you get passive seekers (who aren't interested in moving unless they get excited) to make a change. Active seekers are already in the ATS' of ALL your recruiting companies. They aren't that valuable. So, you have lots to do here.

Your competitors at Hired.com and elsewhere are investing big money to compete to move passives into active mode. I wish you the best of luck, but competition here is brutal and it's not clear what your unique value proposition or edge is here.

Lastly, "anonymous job searches" is the way of the passive seeker, but it's very hard to get them to make a decision. The chain of interaction requires much more ways to engage than their filling out a few boxes on what they do and where they live/email. If you could bring to the surface things that passives like but will not reveal to just anyone, you may be able to create an edge. However, it's tough meng. It's tough out there for a recruiting platform.

brackin9• 12 years ago

Absolutely. Honestly, I was really surprised at the number of people that signed up that aren't on the market, still work at their job & couldn't use one of our competitors. Including founders and PM's.

The V1 is definitely not the end implementation, there are a lot of challenges ahead. It's just a great way to connect people at a relatively small scale. With curation and reaching out for more information from talent.

danielweber2• 12 years ago

Unlike hired.com, this guy tells me two questions in that since I'm not in SF, NY, or LA I should move on.

Which I actually appreciate. Other places waste my time. I don't know how my appreciation translates into revenue for him, so we're missing any decent feedback loop besides nice HN comments.

7Figures2Commas• 12 years ago

The "passive seekers" you refer to are what I like to call window shoppers.

Recruiting platforms like this one almost always appeal to window shoppers. Many window shoppers are folks who simply want find out if the grass is greener on the other side. In most cases they're window shopping because they don't really know what they want and they're not motivated enough to figure it out. For example, many of these folks are not looking to work in a particular vertical, or to solve a particular type of technical challenge. Instead, they're looking to see if they can earn $xx,xxx more per year or get into a hotter startup.

I wouldn't say that there are no good window shoppers, but they're rarely as attractive as the folks who are happily employed but open-minded enough to explore a great opportunity if they encounter one. Non-window shoppers are more likely to be people you meet in person. You pique their interest by telling a compelling story about your business or the technical challenges you're trying to solve, not by leading with compensation and your fridge's awesome collection of imported beers.

It's amusing that so many companies don't see these networks of window shoppers for what they are.

phantom_oracle• 12 years ago

Add "remote" as a location and your signups will probably increase by double or more.

brackin9• 12 years ago

Added remote as an option

MadMoogle• 12 years ago

Why is github or online portfolio a requirement? It doesn't explain what's being verified, or what we should do if we don't have either of those things.

Smutchings• 12 years ago

As someone who works at Typeform, it's AWESOME to see people using our product to make MVPs like this.

Best of luck, it's an interesting concept. (And one I could have done with a few years back).

Show HN: Ladder, find a new startup job anonymously

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