6 ms·
We're only being dishonest to get your attention. Join us!
In response to a story currently on the front page titled "FB is the Only Other Platform Used by 20% of College Students. Join Us!" [1]
Do you actually want to hire people who are going to fall for dishonest linkbait like that?
YC companies, I understand that you get to post job ads on HN and they automatically show up on the front page. Great. But please, show some respect to the people you are trying to recruit, and show some respect for this exclusive privilege PG gives you.
If you read the full post[1] you'll see that what they are referring to is the college students at a single university. At this university, apparently, 20% of students signed up at launch, and 30% of those use it daily. Making it more like 6% of students, at one university, who use their app. Probably a little more if you count weekly or monthly users. But still. That, in comparison to what the headline claims (20% of college students, everywhere) is ridiculously inaccurate.
And also, what about Google? Way, way more than 20% of college students use Gmail, Docs, etc. And what about things like Craigslist? It is even claimed that their app can tell you "exactly what you need to get done every day, with no input". No input is qualitatively different than "very little input, but it's really easy and quick."
You can, and should, do better. In addition to misleading people being a mean thing to do (even when effective), it doesn't do you any good to mislead your own future employees, anyway. Geez.
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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6269664
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lolwutf 13y agoHats off to that! Lots of the job postings on HN tend to make outlandish requests/offerings just because 'hey we got HN front page'. Some are downright shameful. Also, in before the HN cabal muzzles this one.
- icecreampain 13y agoUnfortunately, dishonesty sells. How did all the large megacorporations get to where they are now? Not by being great programmers and free thinkers, but by being greedy businessmen and, later, buying tons of lobbyists. This piece of shit company is ... well... just being a normal company.
- RyanZAG 13y agoDishonesty sells to 95% of the population, sure. That's the part of the population without critical thinking skills or the desire to fact check things they read. If you're selling a hairspray or something, being a bit dishonest is probably highly recommended. The problem is these companies are trying to hire top notch talent - the 5% of the population that is least likely to be happy about dishonesty. Especially when it comes to a major decision like a new job. It's simply a mistake and the marketing is unneeded - if you're a YC company, the HN crowd has at least read your announcement in techcrunch and knows what you're trying to do.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoUnfortunately, dishonesty sells. How did all the large megacorporations get to where they are now? Not by being great programmers and free thinkers, but by being greedy businessmen and, later, buying tons of lobbyists. This piece of shit company is ... well... just being a normal company. Citation needed.
- larrys 13y agoAlthough I am one to also ask from time to time for links or citations I think that in this case this is clearly one persons opinion as opposed to someone saying "it is well known that dishonesty sells and that all large mega corporations get to where they are by.." [1] As far as "dishonesty" in business that is determined many times by when the consensus actions of a particular industry is. Behavior in one industry in many cases means you have to play the same game or perish. Each industry works differently. [1] Add: In which case a citation would be appropriate.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoI think that in this case this is clearly one persons opinion Agreed, but they should've phrased it as such as opposed to stating it as fact. I appreciate that your reply included "I think" :)
- jmomo 13y ago
- joeblau 13y agoThanks for addressing this, I was wondering what was going on with that other post. The content did seem intriguing, but also a little shady at the same time.
- balsam 13y agoFWIW this shows what it takes to get to the front page. There are a lot of interesting links in "new" right now but only stuff with a bit of negative tension gets boosted to the front page (fear & conspiracies work!) Disclaimer: I provided the crucial vote that boosted this here very thread.
- minimaxir 13y agoThere's a big difference between "getting to the front page" and receiving more than 1 upvote per minute.
- balsam 13y agonot if you cast the second vote within a minute. the subsequent votes don't help as much as the second vote, which already gets it too far (where people on the first few pages in the main section can see it)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nknighthb 13y agoYC job ads are not voted on. They appear on the front page automatically.
- balsam 13y agoi'm not talking that YC job, I'm talking about this post replying to the YC job.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pearjuice 13y agoYC companies always have the worst link-baiting lines to get you to click on their job offers. Just put them in a standard template so we know who is looking for what before clicking on the link. I propose: {company} ({yc season}) looking for {role} Role should be the actual function title and if applicable mentioning the language-stack (i.e. RoR, node) the candidate should master.
- dylangs1030 13y agoI second this strongly. I'd pay a lot more attention with a simple format. It's more respectful to the audience and makes you seem more professional. Common objections: But we're young and hip, we wanna look different from the big companies! - Doesn't matter. Still bad practice. But we don't like labels. We want generalists. - Then specify that. Asking for a "ninja" or some other nondescript title is retarded. But we want to say what we do! - That's what the post is for. YC companies have the exclusive ability to post job ads on the front page. I highly doubt there's any reasonable justification for posting anything aside from a standard template. It's not like you need more help.
- minimaxir 13y agoThere's a popular growth hacking strategy which I like to call the "what the hell" strategy: The content lead-in is deliberately vague but still gives you an idea of what it's about and it makes the reader go "what the hell?" and check it out of morbid curiosity. It's the inverse of link-baiting.
- biot 13y agoWhat about this objection? "We A/B tested the copy and we got far better results with custom, quirky copy than we did with a standard format. Why should we purposely use a version that people find boring and has been proven to be less effective? If you don't like our job postings, then the job isn't for you anyways."
- dylangs1030 13y agoThen I respond with this: "Your A/B test demonstrates it's better for you in the short term. Great! Now you're just being dishonest, instead of ineffective and dishonest." EDIT: That probably sounds harsh. I have nothing against YC companies, this advertising is just something I personally find disagreeable and annoying.
- porterhaney 13y agoThat's a load off. I thought they were talking about Tumblr.
- jmgrosen 13y agoThe way I saw it was that they only operate at a few universities, and at the ones they do, they have 20% of the student body. That being said, I agree it was disingenuous at the least and downright misleading at the worst.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- argumentum 13y agoIt wouldn't have been that bad had they made one simple change .. from (20% of College Students) to (20% of <some big name school>) or (20% of a major public university). It would have actually been more impressive if they weren't so vague .. now they are probably going to turn off a lot of good prospects. I say this as a YC alum whose 1st job post was fairly ill-advised (though not dishonest). Believe me, it is quite tempting to play around, so I wouldn't be too hard especially on the smaller teams who haven't been recruiting/employing for too long. They will learn, soon enough. It's also important to note that many teams consist of 17-22 year olds, and as this app is aimed at college students it seems like it could be one of those teams. So cut them some slack.
- jpadvo 13y agoI figured they would learn by getting called out like this. And since the post was anonymous, it doesn't really hurt them anyway. Free learning experience.
- amirmc 13y agoAnd also useful feedback for other YC companies that are queuing up job posts. There have been previous discussions about the state of some YC job ads (though I can't find them right now), so this isn't the first time people have felt compelled to say something. edit: Link to previous job post discussions (I know there are others but can't dig them up). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5230892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5230892
- argumentum 13y agoI agree with this (particularly since it's anonymous), but piling on seems kind of mean. Another option would be to simply email the given address and state your complaints. For example that you may have been interested (if you were), but felt mislead by the posting.
- jpadvo 13y agoThe reason I publicly posted this is because it is an issue about community standards, not just a personal issue between me and the company. It's interesting to think about my own motivations -- I wonder if I would have been gentler if their post hadn't been anonymous. If so, should I have been gentler even though their post was anonymous? Anyway, I apologize if this caused unnecessary hurt, I didn't mean to.
- leetrout 13y agoAs a newer HN user I was surprised that there are no comments on job postings. I've also noticed some interesting posts and think there could be some constructive conversation around them. I can appreciate why there are no comments but also I think it would be interesting to allow direct feedback to job postings. Anyone else ever thought this, too?
- minimaxir 13y agoReddit allows users to comment on ads. 99% of the time it doesn't go well, especially if they are being dishonest.
- corin_ 13y agoHN is, at least in theory, a place where being polite when giving feedback is the norm. Reddit, on the other hand, is a place where humour and rudeness is not only expected, but wanted by the majority.
- hkmurakami 13y agoin the mainstream subreddits, yes. But in the more niche ones, the discourse is civil if not heartwarming (I frequent the bicycling subreddit, personally)
- corin_ 13y agoSure, I just meant within the same 99% that minimaxir was talking about regarding the adverts. (I've found plenty of friendly people in sports, gay and classical music sub-reddits myself.)
- jlgreco 13y agoReddit ads are pinned to the top of the page but allow comments. HN ads float with the rest of the links, but don't allow comments. Either has their pluses and minuses.
- airnomad 13y agoWhat is really dishonest is not having an option to downvote a job ad.
- thegeneralist 13y agoseems like this worked, being at the top of HN and all...
- hydralist 13y agowho cares honestly, everyone talks shit when they are recruiting. if an applicant can't figure that out, what gives?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- p_campbell 13y agoLooks like they've changed the title and apologized.
- csdreamer7 13y agoThankyou for posting this!