Feature: non-YC startups to post to jobs.YC

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=81722

by tjic • 19 years ago

19 10 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Obviously, YCombinator doesn't want its job board to turn into a free version of Dice. ...yet I suggest that it would be a big boon to the community of people interested in startups, at little or not cost to YC, to allow firms that have, say, less than 5 or 10 employees, to post to jobs.YC.

To give an example (and, yes, you caught me, this is a large percent of the reason that I brought the topic up) HeavyInk is looking to hire a Ruby / Rails rockstar to help us do something amazing in the comicbook space.

http://heavyink.com/forum/forums/1/topics/30

far33d• 19 years ago

You could help this along by requiring a karma floor before you can post a job.

However, I believe that the jobs tab is a significant competitive advantage for the YC portfolio companies.

joeguilmette• 19 years ago

the karma floor is a great idea.

marcus2• 19 years ago

Instead of a minimum karma, how about a karma cost.

If you contribute to the community you can expect the community to give back.

rms• 19 years ago

I believe this has been requested before and PG rejected it, wanting to keep the jobs page exclusively YC. Fortunately, there is an alternative and you've come across it right here.

tocomment2• 19 years ago

Why no requests for contract work or remote positions? I'm actually in your area, but I'm always curious what peoples' thoughts are on remote work.

tjic• 19 years ago

I have no moral opposition to contract work - I've been a contractor, and I've hired contractors.

There's a trade off.

Contractors cost more per unit time than do employees (in the short term), and are usually looking for the next gig. At a startup, we don't have tons of free cash, but we do have tons of potential. We'd rather reward someone with a promise of sharing in our success (which we have) than with twice as much cash (which we don't have).

As far as working on site versus off site: again, I have no moral objection to this, and I've done it myself. However, I'm not just hiring engineers to produce lines of code: I'm hiring them for their wide-ranging intelligence, their ability to contribute to the ideas bouncing around the office, and their ability to tell me when my ideas are full of shit. All of this takes place much more easily in an office. Finally, while most people who work remotely are professional about it, I have noticed that it becomes easier for someone to disengage, grow tired or frustrated, and mentally "check out"...and it's harder for me to detect this, and take appropriate action (a word of encouragement, an announcement that we're all bagging work for an hour to go get a burrito on the company's dime, or whatever else).

As much as I like the IDEA of remote work, and easily compartmentalized tasks, I have come to believe that humans have evolved to be highly social, and to work best when they are immersed in a social environment.

I note that Joel Spolsky has company lunches every day, and considers this important.

tocomment2• 19 years ago

Those are good points. It's just frustering for someone in DC that all the good jobs are in SF. (Except for yours of course :-) but I haven't done any RoR )

Here's another thing that's really bothered me as a job seeker.

Most employers will say something like you did "I'm not just hiring engineers to produce lines of code: I'm hiring them for their wide-ranging intelligence.." but then proceed to ask me excruciatingly detailed trivia during the interview, or require someone have X years of experience in some technology. If you're hiring for intelligence, should it really matter if the employee hasn't use technology X before? He should be able to learn quickly.

Perhaps your case is different though. RoR is more like a movement than just a technology so maybe it's a good indicator of sucess for a candidate to have already used it.

johnrob• 19 years ago

Just post your jobs in the news area. If people like it, they will vote up (hopefully). Actually, it's a good benchmark for your job description - whether it will float on ycnews.

RyanJG• 19 years ago

I disagree with this. I could see the main page getting bogged down with job offers. However, being able to vote up/down on the jobs page isn't a bad idea and I think it'd have the same effect you were looking for.

Feature: non-YC startups to post to jobs.YC

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