Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

This is the reason I no longer bother with HN's "Who's Hiring" posts.

They're all Ghost Jobs and we can't even complain there about it.

I'd be curious to see if _anyone_ has actually been hired through HN Who's Hiring over the past two years here.

I can only offer anecdotal experience, but...

Despite 1) being a US-based dev, 2) Applying only to US-based jobs, 3) With 10+ years work experience, and 4) Having skills in commonly asked for technologies such as JS, React, and Python...

I've only gotten to the interview stage with an HN Who's Hiring listing only once. Only a single instance over the past two years.

Why can't you complain? I see reply links under all the listings and you certainly have enough karma to do anything here (AFAIK)

The Who's Hiring, I kind of have lukewarm feelings toward those outcomes, because assholes are everywhere - but I've had the same experience as you on https://www.workatastartup.com/ which is just what the actual fucking hell.

From reading the sibling comments, it seems that my problem is that I enjoy reading more than talking on the phone so I much prefer browsing through listings and being selective, but what apparently needs to happen is that I call previous recruiters and badger them about "got anything?" rather that believing anything written online is true

Look at the comments at the top of the thread:

> Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to complain about something. It's off topic here.

Complain and it will be removed.

I am also US based applying to exclusively US-based jobs. I've had the most success with Who's Hiring over all of the other ways (cold applications, network referrals, headhunters and whatnot), success rate being way higher than the others: for just a handful of positions I've been interested in I've had three offers, two for FTEs and another for a contract. My skills and background have been pretty well-matched to postings, almost exactly what they were looking for, but extremely deep in specific (increasingly hard to hire-for) areas.

I'll admit I've been super lucky here. It's almost like a cheat code because you're almost always connected with the person(s) actually doing the hiring and with the power to make the decision so things move fast.

I had an interview last month from a post there. Dude sounded like he was half asleep and hated talking to me even from the very beginning. He carried it on for almost an hour for reasons I don't understand if he was so disinterested. No rejection email follow up, posted again in November. The rule just says "you have to respond" and he did by interviewing me, it doesn't explicitly say you have to provide direct yes or no answers to going forward.

On a similar post about ghost jobs a couple of weeks ago, I made the following suggestion:

Another potential way to at least surface dodgy behaviour perhaps: Automatically append to a poster's comment links to all their previous comments in Who's Hiring threads in the past twelve months.

I can foresee posters then creating throwaway accounts to avoid this, but the green username would be a give-away (or restrict new accounts from posting on these threads).

You're assuming that HN cares about ghost jobs. They don't.

They make money by growing startups and selling them, not by respecting job seekers.

So, why would they put any difficulty in the startups' growth? What's there for them to gain?

In the end, it is "caveat emptor". It's the responsibility of job seekers to evaluate if the posts are trustworthy.

>He carried it on for almost an hour for reasons I don't understand if he was so disinterested.

He is just going the the motions that he's been prescribed. Either that or an idiot.

it's more, why did anyone tell him he has to interview people that are clearly not a fit? is this just some sort of thing to hire an H1-B person instead? and if so why carry it on for an hour?

Most likely an H1B, or nepotism. he's been probably been tasked with doing the dirty work of a superior. If he goes on for an hour, because he is most likely tracked for the hrs he puts in.

If you feel repeatedly in a situation like this, you should end the interview prematurely to save your time. I have had to do this a few times in the past.

unfortunately im a little desperate for a job and getting an interview right now is super rare and difficult despite 15 years experience in software