Ask HN: Can we persist hide YC job postings from the same company?
Frequent job posts by YC companies prioritized on front page:
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineer in SF - 1 hour ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21508840)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 20 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21318785)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Full-Stack Engineers in SF and in ATX - 32 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213893)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring 2 Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 39 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21146429)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring 2 Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 46 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21080481)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 54 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21003584)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring a Director of Engineer in SF - 75 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20822555)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 89 days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695766)
ZeroCater (YC W11) Is Hiring Full-Stack Engineers in SF - 3 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571209)
Would love a setting to turn this off, so new posts from same company are auto hidden.
As the only form of advertising that HN does—I think this is a totally acceptable trade-off to being able to use it for free.
There are also Launch HNs, which get placed on the front page, mostly when YC is in session and especially towards Demo Day, when our inbox piles up with founders handing their papers in before the deadline.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Sure but as with other forms of advertising, it should be relevant. There are lots of other good YC companies too.
Even if someone has decided they have no interest in pursuing a gig at a YC startup (no complaints personally, great folks, great opportunities for those interested)? Just prominently advertise https://www.workatastartup.com/ on the HN homepage instead or give us an option to hide them in our HN profile.
Yes, because you're using the site for free it's not up to you.
Browser extension it is then (you can detect the job posts, as they have no discuss ability), although I would love a way to donate to mods so they can go get a fancy lunch or something like that. I love HN, I think the mods' work is super valuable, but I block ads in general (while donating cash to non-profits and paying for news sources I consume), so of course I would want to filter what I want.
EDIT: I'm apparently entitled because I don't want to see job postings that I'm not interested in in my news feed. Ce la vie.
I hear you—the front page only has 30 slots, and those 30 slots are by far the scarcest resource on HN. To burn one of them on an ad is a pain. Also, don't forget that we place Launch HNs on the front page from time to time (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), especially when YC is in session and with a traffic jam towards each Demo Day. There have even been two of those plus a job ad on the front page at the same time, though that's rare—only once, or maybe twice, IIRC.
It's just so reasonable for HN to give back to YC in exchange for funding it, though, that I don't believe the bulk of the community has a problem with it. It seems to me, if anything, on the modest side.
Writing code to make the browser drop the job ad and slide #31 up to #30 isn't hard. The code for HN's 'hide' feature does something similar already. That's probably your best bet.
I agree entirely. Those who want to see the job ads will see them, those who don’t will find a way not to, and that’s reasonable for everyone.
I might add: is this the best way for HN to give back to YC, through ad slots? If so, carry on, it just feels like there might a more optimal way to pair potential candidates with potential startups (as you’re relying on quite a bit of luck that the right candidate will be on the front page at the right time interested in that particular role, job ad decay and all that). Without context, I’m unable to propose alternative methodologies, so I could be entirely wrong and these ad slots are objectively the optimal way.
Thanks for the reply, I am not unappreciative of the forum or the work you folks do.
> you’re relying on quite a bit of luck that the right candidate will be on the front page at the right time interested in that particular role
Often the way job ads get to people is that somebody happens to see an ad and thinks "that looks like a great job for my [friend|relative|etc]" and passes it on. So it's a wider net than you perhaps realise.
Also, people actively job-hunting will go to the jobs page to see all active listings. But having the placement on the front page serves as an ongoing reminder to people that the job listings exist.
They aren't that common. And are easy to ignore. It's not like they have a banner constantly taking up the top 4-5 spots. Or popups. These sorts of posts aren't even on the front page more often then not.
If you really want to hide it, you could write a CSS rule with the :has selector. Probably won't be too long 'till that's standardised and implemented. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:has
But, as the only thing really funding Hacker News, I think unobtrusive, easy-to-identify job ads are a worthy price to pay.
Are these actually funding Hacker News? I just thought since YC owns Hacker News they were giving out free job postings to the companies they fund.
IMO hacker news basically pays for itself with all the publicity it gives YC and the various YC companies. I'm sure other companies would be willing to pay a fortune for that kind of marketing (although it can obviously be a mixed blessing).
> ‘IMO hacker news basically pays for itself with all the publicity it gives YC and the various YC companies.‘
‘I’ll just take this soda, the grocery store can afford it.’
No one is stealing anything here, and I didn't even advocate for blocking the job postings (which I also pointed out I'm not sure are even paid). I simply questioned whether the job postings are even paid at all.
HN says that they are the ads on the platform - they’re a perk for the companies who have been accepted to YC and want to attract talent to their startup.
If blocking them does not financially impact HN, blocking them would certainly make the life of that startup harder than it needs to be. Particularly as none of the arguments that routinely get used against trackers actually seem to apply here.
Those are really good points, and would have been a much better response than the soda can thing.
> the only thing really funding Hacker News
Wouldn't YC also get value - maybe enough to fund HN - from analysing usage data (upvotes, downvotes, link clicks, maybe PII even, etc.), e.g. to perceive market trends, other topics of interest for services they provide their startup ecosystem?
I think the only data they're interested in is whether this person makes a good founder. They link HN accounts to the YC application.
> Wouldn't YC also get value - maybe enough to fund HN - from analysing usage data (upvotes, downvotes, link clicks, maybe PII even, etc.), e.g. to perceive market trends, other topics of interest for services they provide their startup ecosystem?
That kind of thing isn’t so popular around here.
You are being ironic, I presume. When near everyone who matters in SV / IT / tech is a user on your platform, I gather there is something of interest in the data trail they leave behind.
I mean, that argument could be used for any kind of data exhaust at all - data mining still has a massively negative reputation, particularly on HN.
Ah. Yes, sure, I very much share that opinion. Its done everywhere nevertheless.
I don't know the people at YC (other than dang from his comments.. a great mod) and their moral/ethical stance. But they are in the business of trying to raise unicorns though, with potential multi-billion valuation.
The funny thing is, I've noticed these too, and all I come away with is the impression that nobody wants to work for ZeroCater. I can't imagine that impression bodes well on recruiting.
If you have LinkedIn Premium, you can see they've grown from 188 to 248 employees in the past year. Of those, 8 have been engineers. Overall, it looks like they have about 57 engineers in total now.
How many people have left in that period of time? Churn is a valuable metric.
It doesn't say, but their average tenure is listed as 1.5 years.
Alternatively it would be cool if comments could be open on job posts so that folks who've had experience applying, interviewing or working at the company can leave notes for others.
Cool idea but highly unlikely to go anywhere constructive. Lots of anon accounts at the least.
I’d like it, but it’s doubtful.
The job ads are already staggered so that a company's ad can't appear on the front page until it has fallen off https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs. That's why you're seeing a week or two elapse between any of those posts.
Not sure why YC would build a feature to limit the audience of their job postings on a platform they own and operate
You could argue that it might even increase the audience if specific users can hide companies they won't be working at and as a result they'd see more job postings from other places.
Fair point
We actually do, at least on a per-company basis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21510998
I think a lot of companies post job openings as a form of advertising. I'm not saying that is what is happening here, but there always seems to be a set of companies that have the same positions listed for over a year, despite being relatively small companies.
When I see a position that's been open for awhile (one company has popped up here on and off for what feels like ~2 years), it seems to raise a red flag. If you can't fill the position, something is off.
Growth stage startups, as well as any engineering org above a certain size (a few hundred maybe?) are perpetually hiring.
As anecdotal support, I used BuildZoom for a recent home build solely because I saw their job postings on HN.
(The experience was just ok, but we did find a builder we love through them)
There's a "hide" button on every post on HN, including job posts.
It's extra helpful on the 1st of every month. There seems to be more and more varieties of the "Who's X-ing?" posts every month.
The hide button is a great way to unobtrusively clear out stuff you don't care about. One of the best features.
I'm glad you like it. I was going to remove it at one point, but a two-initialed founder of this site who shall remain nameless protested strongly against that idea.
One thing: I push that an flag on my phone on accident all the time. Have you guys thought about a way to maybe hide it better?