Seen that job listing for a while, its no coincidence

http://www.wsj.com/articles/seen-that-job-listing-for-a-while-its-no-coincidence-1434667304

by sonabinu • 11 years ago

60 98 11 years ago

s_dev• 11 years ago

I personally have little confidence in job postings that I've seen available for at least three months. Similarly with apartments rentals - in a market where developers and apartments are high in demand I usually see it as a red flag if a job or apartment has been available for three or more months. It begs the questions - why didn't others take it?

I never considered that the average interview process is getting longer.

vkjv• 11 years ago

This fails to take into consideration a growing team. We have had a single job listing open well over a year, but that single listing at one point represented 7 open positions.

It's interesting to see this possible view. We might be better off posting duplicates to make this nuance more obvious.

jerf• 11 years ago

Even just an annotation "This post represents multiple open positions" might be good. It also directly sends a message you want to send ("we're growing and hiring lots!"), instead of implicitly by number of listings, which might be missed by a candidate doing searches.

surge• 11 years ago

Probably saves money where most job listing sites post per listing. You can simply list that you're hiring for multiple open positions in the listing itself.

dagw• 11 years ago

The other difference between job postings and apartment rentals is that only one person can rent an apartment, but lots of people can be employed to the same position. You could have same ad out for 6 month, and over that time hire 5-10 people.

madcaptenor4• 11 years ago

Only one person can rent an apartment, but a large apartment complex will have many similar apartments that could be fairly represented by the same ad.

ufmace3• 11 years ago

I have thought that too - if they keep the same listing up for too long, I may wonder if there's some reason why they can't hire and/or keep employees.

If your company is actually trying to fill multiple identical positions, it's probably best to make that clear somehow - that they're growing rapidly and the listing isn't for a specific position so much as that they're always open to hiring anybody who has the right qualifications.

pjc505• 11 years ago

Some long-term job listings, especially the vague ones, are dummies put there by recruitment firms who are keen to get you on their books.

to3m• 11 years ago

This would be my instant assumption as well!

Perhaps too many people are now wise to this? And so recruitment firms have had to arrange for articles (such as this one) to muddy the waters ;)

arethuza2• 11 years ago

Another tiresome tactic that recruitment firms use is to leave up ads for roles that were actually filled months ago - either to attract CVs and/or make them look busier than they actually are.

Edit: There's probably a book waiting to be written on the dodgy tactics of recruitment firms. Mind you, I became a bit less harsh on individual recruiters when I was in an office that shared a floor of a building with a recruitment firm and got to see how they treated their staff. They were too cheap to hire meeting rooms when they were doing staff reviews so we regularly had people getting complete bollockings in the shared kitchen area - which isn't much fun to witness and a pretty ghastly way to treat your own staff.

fecak2• 11 years ago

I've been recruiting for almost 20 years and have been considering writing a book about various tactics. My blog regularly exposes some of the recruiter tricks and strategies on topics from counteroffers to candidate control. If I become convinced there would be even modest demand, I'd write it.

aidos3• 11 years ago

I'm fairly confident of this as well. It's definitely a tactic I've seen used in the past when dealing with recruiters in the UK.

cmuir• 11 years ago

Definitely true, but it's not just recruitment firms that leave dummy jobs up. Startups do this all the time, especially for competitive roles like software engineer and UX designer. It allows internal recruiters and hiring managers to perpetually keep an eye out for good talent. It also makes the companies look like they are doing well and growing.

notahacker3• 11 years ago

It's pretty much the default position if an actual vacancy exists but then gets filled; unless your mailbox is being overwhelmed by new applications, taking down the job offers takes more effort than leaving it up.

Many companies have more or less phantom job listings on their websites and the free boards because whilst they haven't got any positions that need filling, they can afford to create role(s) for the right candidates. And as you've said, some probably can't afford that yet but at least they look like they're growing and get the resumes of people interested in what they might be able to offer in future.

Larger companies often have job ads up for positions they expect to fill internally, because policy requires they advertise it externally.

gumby• 11 years ago

“The jobs disappearing from the economy are routine, really simple jobs. The kind of jobs that are booming are jobs that take lots of judgment and creativity. They’re harder to hire for and so it takes longer.”

Funny they ended with this. It makes some sense. The inverse is true too (for a truck driver, one can do more investigation to see if she has a safe & trustworthy background for instance) but certainly it takes more work to hire a developer than a retail salesperson.

aidos3• 11 years ago

23% of interviews have a drug test. What's the incentive behind that?

JoeAltmaier5• 11 years ago

To avoid addictive folks who will have a high incidence of no-show when on a binge. Or long absences while in jail.

aidos3• 11 years ago

I can imagine what the theory is, but does it make sense in practice? Do you know which industries it tends to apply to? Would a developer be asked to take a drug test?

It's interesting, because I've worked with a lot of people in a lot of places over the years and I've never seen drugs as a problem that impedes workplace attendance / performance. Alcohol / hangovers, sure - plenty of times - but they're not testing for that, right?

bediger40003• 11 years ago

To avoid having to actually do some real human thinking. Fail a "drug" test, you can just treat those people as scum, not worth your time, disgusting pariahs. You don't have to look at them as human, and actually use your wits to decide.

People who, for example, smoke marijuana, will fail a drug test. Will they miss work because they're hungover from a Big Weekend? No, mostly not. Will some straight arrow call in sick because he or she got sick on Sunday evening? Yes. We know this. But to avoid having to cope with ambiguity or grey areas or hard decisions, we just let a "drug" test do it all.

maze-le• 11 years ago

Good, point.

It is also noteworthy, that drug-tests are not as precise as people might think. Most of them look for traces of metabolic byproducts of a substance, not the substance itself.

There are some (legal) medications, wich can indicate optium- and methamphetamine-addiction.

poikniok• 11 years ago

I am confused by your point. Would you rather sick people come into work and get even more people sick?

Lawtonfogle3• 11 years ago

Drug use is a seen as a moral failing. A morally weak person is seen as someone who will be a bad employee (steal, not put in a good day's work, cheat the clock, etc.).

Does it make sense? Often it makes none at all.

joezydeco3• 11 years ago

If I'm running a factory or warehouse and I need sober, alert workers that will not destroy merchandise with equipment and/or kill themselves or others around them, you can be damned sure I'm going to eliminate any risk of their personal time seeping into their work time.

Screening for recreational drug markers doesn't mean I'm judging their morals, but I'm zeroing out my risk factors.

dec0dedab0de• 11 years ago

I think the idea is that if you can't manage to stay sober long enough to pass the test then you have some serious problems that will likely affect your work performance.

atwebb2• 11 years ago

You got some...interesting replies. I think it's mainly a CYA/insurance thing as well as a simple test to weed out undesirable traits. It's generally well known that you'll be tested prior to hire (at least in the US). My view is accept that and either

a) stop/pass the test

b) find somewhere that doesn't care

joezydeco3• 11 years ago

I was confused by this part of the article. Are 23% of candidates being screened at the interview phase, or at the pre-job-offer phase? Drug screening isn't a cheap thing that you just do to everyone that walks in the door.

My company puts a common clause in the offer letter that says "this offer is contingent upon your successful completion of a drug screening, confirmation of your references, and the verification of your education and work history".

HarryHirsch• 11 years ago

To cover the company's ass in case someone is injured on the job by an impaired person. Without drug testing, the injured party has a good case, saying management was asleep at the wheel. But with drug testing, management can say they did screen for drugs, no mutter how asleep they are.

DerKommissar• 11 years ago

Outside of jobs where it's pretty easy to hurt someone if you're intoxicated (construction, etc.), my personal theory is that it's all about control.

As far as I know companies use piss tests, which don't detect most hard drugs after a few days. They detect pot for weeks. Hair tests will detect anything forever. They are more expensive but if companies actually cared about not hiring people who do hard drugs they would have to do them.

The only purpose I can see for it is that it is a legal leash they can tie to the employee to exert control on their lives. There's lots of other things companies would like to be able to fire you for, but they're either illegal or impossible to detect. Drug testing is one they're allowed to do.

I can understand drug testing people if they cause an accident, are intoxicated at work, etc. but to do it as a matter of course for employment is just to show you who's boss.

ufmace3• 11 years ago

I think it's mostly an insurance thing. Certain industries apparently can't get or can't afford insurance without requiring drug tests for everyone. Maybe more CYA policies at large companies.

I used to work for a company that would regularly send employees into refineries and chemical plants that we were consulting for. They required anyone who would go on-site to submit to drug tests, even though they weren't directly employed by the plant operator. So thanks to their requirement, most of our company had to be drug tested routinely.

I do wonder if any of these insurance companies have ever actually proven that drug tests make the plant safer. I suppose it makes more sense when you consider that it's an environment where a routine screw-up could easily cause catastrophic destruction. But do they know for sure, or are they just assuming or protecting themselves from lawsuits or something?

mayukh• 11 years ago

some long-term job listings come from: > the larger companies are for roles where there is constant churn (or growth) and they need to keep the pipeline of active candidates warm > As mentioned already, spammy recruiters looking to collect cv's

Also: > Companies are in-undated with applications and really can't separate the wheat from the chaff. They have thousands of resumes for one or two job openings because its so easy now to apply online and click submit. Perversely the harder they make it to apply online, causes those most in need of a job to jump through hoops to fill out a complete application

Tried hiring help on a local jobs board I was swamped and astounded with volume and eagerness of the responses. Ended up going with someone who was recommended by a friend as I didn't have the resources to process and filter the applications

auxym3• 11 years ago

As a fresh grad interviewing for (real, non-internship) jobs for the first time, I'm really surprised at how long the hiring process is. The article mentions 23 days average. I'm currently interviewing for a BigCo where I already had done an internship, so they knew me. After I contacted my former supervisor, it took him 2 weeks of wrestling bureaucracy to open a position, then HR insists on collecting CVs for 4 weeks, after which I got a phone screen. HR lady told me she would be phone screening for 2 weeks before passing on the CVs to the hiring manager who would contact people for in person interviews.

I'm finally scheduled for an interview next week. But really, 60 days before even interviewing a candidate they already have experience with? I'm surprised they even manage to hire people before they are extended another offer. But then again, this is not programming.

jackgavigan• 11 years ago

HR are a major problem in many large companies.

Oftentimes, they're lazy (outsourcing most of their job to expensive recruiters and agencies), obstructive (creating all manner of stupid, bureaucratic, red-tape hoops you have to jump through before they'll approve whatever it is you're trying to do), and add zero value to the actual process of recruiting an employee.

My hat of HR know no limit.

Lawtonfogle3• 11 years ago

Sounds like they are working on job security in the same way a developer does when he make undocumented code only he can understand. Considering how many developers actually think like that, it shouldn't be surprising to see this in HR as well.

Some places where I've worked at, if you fail to hire (say you select a candidate and they get a better offer), you have to start all over at square 1. Square 1 being justifying to HR why you need the position (a multi-week process).

rwallace• 11 years ago

Agreed, but when it comes down to it, that's laziness or incompetence at the executive level. The personnel department should not be given that sort of power; that's not what they're for. It's the CEO's job to make sure they aren't.

pjc505• 11 years ago

An ex-girlfriend of mine applied, on graduating, for a job at a prestigious investment bank. She heard nothing back.

Eighteen months later, after she'd been through two jobs and emigrated, they sent her a letter expressing interest.

mattbrewsbytes• 11 years ago

I thought there are laws in the US about how long employers are allowed to keep candidate info in the system something like 12 months is what I remember hearing.

notahacker3• 11 years ago

Reminds me of the HR department at a big corporation I rejoined after a couple of years' hiatus, only to receive an email a couple of weeks later from their accountants asking me if I'd kindly approve a long-overdue tax form I thought I'd signed off eighteen months before I originally quit...

rm9992• 11 years ago

Shoot to get another job offer. HR treats you much better when they know they have to compete for you - they'll speed up every step of the process, and they'll be more willing to negotiate. Also, you may end up liking the other offer more :)

auxym3• 11 years ago

Thanks for the tip, I'm also quite far into the process with a second company, and still making calls to friends at other places. I do have a question though.

When asked about whether you are interviewing elsewhere, what should I answer? Be vague and 1 or 2 other places? Or name specific companies/roles? What should I say when they ask what your first choice would be if you were extended similar offers at all these places (it also seems to be a standard question)?

Sorry for being off-topic. I've read Patrick Mackenzie's Salary Negotiation advice post 3x now, and it left me wondering about the above.

Bahamut• 11 years ago

I found this out the hard way - when I first was in the interview process with Google, it took almost 3 weeks before I had a technical phone screen scheduled. I ended up canceling it because I took another offer. Later on, when I started the process and had the initial phone screen, I mentioned that I was interviewing with the likes of Facebook, Amazon, and more, I was immediately told that there was an opening for a technical phone screen the next week.

I think they base part of their scheduling on how many similar companies are trying to hire you.

joezydeco3• 11 years ago

then HR insists on collecting CVs for 4 weeks

I'm not sure what things are like where you are, but I have recently gone through a hiring cycle for an engineer and it honestly took this long to gather resumes that were worth pursuing.

ensignavenger• 11 years ago

How many resumes do you think you need before you begin pursuing the ones that are worth pursuing? The sensible thing would be to start pursuing immediately, as they come in. Especially as in the OP case, it sounds like the hiring manager already know who they want.

njloof• 11 years ago

Seems like the kind of story you see just before a call to expand the H1-B program. I've worked with many fine H1-Bs but its purpose is to fill a need you can't fill locally, not to get someone to take a job that is underpriced.

airza5• 11 years ago

Business-oriented publications and companies that are hiring always seem to carefully avoid the easy way to fix long hiring times: Increase wages.

pjc505• 11 years ago

The long hiring times seem not to be due to lack of applicants, but due to internal hiring politics and process. Rising conservativism about making a "bad hire", perhaps.

airza5• 11 years ago

You can't discount the role of applicant volume in that, though; if you have a 20 day hiring process with one person going through it at a time, the odds of it taking 40-60 days are a lot better than if you have 2-3 going through at once.

frandroid2• 11 years ago

To add to airza's point above, if the team hiring is currently working on a timely deliverable, they can't dedicate as much time as they would like to the hiring process, even if it's counter-productive in the long term.

atwebb2• 11 years ago

The point of the article was less on the supply side and more that the process itself has become more rigorous. That people put up with it might imply they could lower wages.

EDIT: Can someone explain the negative votes? OP was right if the issue was: we can't find people, rather than: we're going to make the process even more rigorous and time consuming. Maybe increasing wages will draw more qualified applicants which will qualify for the tests faster?

mjbellantoni• 11 years ago

Hiring velocity is one area where small companies can use their agility to advantage when competing against larger companies for talent. As a hiring manager, I always endeavor to make this process as streamlined as possible.

A couple of anecdotes:

I was able to hire an outstanding candidate simply because I got them through the process and extended them an offer. Our competition was a reasonably high-profile company in the area. In the end he joined us because after more than a week, the other company was unable to execute their paperwork to get an offer generated.

More recently, I saw a very big name West Coast company (think Google/Facebook/Uber) lose out on a great person because they had a third party do a reference check. In the time it took for that check to happen, the job seeker had lots of time to re-consider the offer and instead ended up working for a smaller company on the East Coast which kept in touch and was able to move blindingly fast.

skolor2• 11 years ago

I work for a pretty large company, and the more involvement I have with the hiring process the more painful it is to see. We just move so incredibly slowly, with frequent false starts, and we've lost a number of good candidates because of it. I'm fairly concerned we're going to lose someone I referred because of it, but there's only so much prodding I can do and that doesn't serve to fix the problem.

bsbechtel2• 11 years ago

This sounds like a major cost that maybe isn't really considered when studies are done that evaluate the cost of potentially hiring a bad employee.

k__• 11 years ago

Sounds strange to me.

If I want to work at a big company, I would only consider small companies if the big ones don't want me and not if the big ones just want me a month later.

notahacker3• 11 years ago

If you want to work at a company offering more responsibility and/or more money, you consider the company that's offered it to you more favourably than the bigger company that says they like you very much and will decide if you're good enough after a week or two. Especially if you suspect that reflects how the respective companies will respond to any future requests you might wish to make if working for them.

If you only want to work at a big company, you probably don't interview with the smaller company in the first place.

vonmoltke4• 11 years ago

Some people want to work in a certain domain and don't care much about the size of the company.

shalmanese• 11 years ago

If it takes a month to get their shit together to hire you, how long would it take you to get anything else routine done at that company? You need a new machine for your first day at work and they put in a request and you'd probably finally get a machine a month later. That sounds like a nightmare place to work.

mattLummus• 11 years ago

I know this was a major factor in joining the company I work at currently. They were quick, they didn't waste my time, they were open and answered questions that I usually would have to push back to get info for.

iamthepieman• 11 years ago

the article mentions 27 days as the average time from job candidate to actual employee. This seems like a very reasonable amount of time for anything that is not traditionally high turnover like retail, certain service industries etc.

I like to give at least 3 weeks notice simply because it usually takes that long to transfer all my projects and responsibilities. That only leaves 6 days for the active screening and interviewing process.

The article seems to be covering very general employment and job statistics so most likely the 27 day average vacancy is quite high for service and retail positions and fairly low for tech positions.

Siecje• 11 years ago

What if you are not working?

pjc505• 11 years ago

Obviously nobody will hire people who's unemployed.

/possible sarcasm

vonmoltke4• 11 years ago

The article said 27.3 days before being filled. I would consider a position filled once a signed offer is in hand.

madcaptenor4• 11 years ago

Is a "group panel interview" many interviewers and one interviewee, or the other way around?

davidgerard• 11 years ago

I thought the market would provide! Have they considered paying more?

samstave3• 11 years ago

heh -- I know some people who interviewed for the Teespring DevOps lead position.... they said that teespring was trying to "interview like google, while being a tee shirt company" -- teespring keeps putting that posting up.

Maybe they should realize their reqs for that position, or their actual interview process is a little disconnected from who they are...?

Seen that job listing for a while, its no coincidence

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