I mocked up something years ago that started as a joke, which was a way to refer unwanted co-workers or employees to external competing recruiters so that the person might get hired away, instead of having to manage them out or fire them.
It was an exercise in finding market/culture taboos that were uncomfortable to challenge. The business model was a sales lead generation service, where recruiters could subscribe to updates of new candidates who were being referred "out" and who would have a higher likelihood of responding to incoming job opportunities.
Just because one person doesn't think you are a fit doesn't mean you aren't a fit somewhere else, if someone wants you out, you're probably weighing your options anyway. Instead of conflict, you can create opportunity. Lots of reasons it didn't work, like having an asshole-ware feel / offensive, I wanted to help the users but didn't think much about the real customers (recruiters), etc.
Anyway, I get what skiptheinterview is after, and if there is a single market with a bunch of legacy conventions ripe for disruption, it's hiring.
Not really a joke. When I worked for the government the head of my division had a problem with an engineer who was harassing a colleague. He addressed it by telling the guy to apply for jobs elsewhere and sent out lavish recommendations. The recommendations also overlooked the fact that he was an incompetent engineer.
The idea also has potential as a dating app.
> If you stay on the job for more than two months, your sponsors get double what they invested (minus our fees).
I feel like the linked Twitter criticisms just gloss over the fact. This is definitely a strange idea but it's a shame people dismissed it out of hand based on crude characterizations.
I think referrals, at least at large companies, have messed up incentives. If you and your direct team don't have to suffer the consequences of a bad hire, then of course you should refer random Blind/Reddit/LinkedIn strangers for a chance at getting several thousand dollars. The "large company" issue may be harder to fix, but if you have the potential to lose money, then you will be more discriminating.
> If you and your direct team don't have to suffer the consequences of a bad hire, then of course you should refer random Blind/Reddit/LinkedIn strangers for a chance at getting several thousand dollars.
Several thousand dollars is trivial relative to the amount that professional recruiters charge. That's partially because employee referrals are, on average, less trustworthy than good professional recruiters for the reasons you mentioned: You get a small number of very good referrals, but you also get a large number of people playing the referral bonus like a numbers game and putting in every name they can think of.
But this startup had a different problem: They asked employees to pay to basically gamble on the hiring process. A hiring process which is largely out of their control. Most people don't want to gamble on things like this, and with good reason. It was doomed from the start.
Professional recruiters flood you with unqualified candidates (they can't tell the difference). I would never use an outside recruiter, it is less work per hire for the manager to find people themselves (and thus cheaper in time and expenditure).
So, I sponsor myself and in 2 months the company pays me out 30k? Or fires me one day before the 2 months is up and keeps 15k?
How do you imagine thatâs going to play out?
âWe didnât realise they wouldnât be a great fit without an interviewâ.
Since there is no way to stop bad actors, someone is going to start a new company whoâs sole income is based on ripping off job seekers.
As long as two months wages < the cost of the job, youâre effectively making people pay you to work for you.
Thereâs no sugar coating it: this is a scam.
It will create scam businesses.
If will create law suits over dismissals.
What a brilliant way to drain money from people, if you really donât care about them at all.
The only thing missing is a bidding system where you all bid for a salary too, and only the lowest bid gets the job.
This is kindof how external recruiters already work (recruiter is paid to get you hired after you stay long enough) . You can fix the bad incentive for employers by taking the money and donating it to charity if the person does not last two months.
Perhaps a version without the payment aspect but with rewards would have been received better. Say a potential referrer would sign up and get three reference tokens (which expire) periodically. Then they can use one to support a person they know for a position. If the employee lasts for two months, they get two tokens and some monetary reward.
Honestly, the barrier of having to sign up to act as a reference for someone might be too much on its own. But, if they manage to get people with good professional networks participating it might be valuable.
I don't think you need the token system. I think you just need some non-monetary cost.
What about just asking references to write a couple of paragraphs?
Having to write a couple of paragraphs is not bad per se, just not sufficiently interesting on its own. some current referral systems already request reference letters and reward successful referrals.
It might be fun to try out a system with a limited number of referrals one can submit that rewards consistent good recommendations.
Referral based hiring means you don't get paid if the person doesn't get hired. So there is already an incentive to not waste one's time referring somebody that is unlikely to get hired.
Either way, this company doesn't appear to provide any solution, it's just inserting itself into the process as a middleman.
Well, the disincentive of wasting one's time (in practice that means generating an application link, or filling out a short form online) is much, much smaller than the potential reward.
Eh, whatever. They did a soft launch, realized they didn't have product-market fit, and walked away. Most startups are utterly terrible ideas, just look at this year's YC batch.
This startup actually was in this year's YC batch. They advertised that they were YC backed on their website.
I like to think Wyndly is okay -- https://www.wyndly.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20211013191523/https://skipthein... is an archive link for the SkipTheInterview website which explains their attempted design.
Wow thanks. Pretty sure YC did not invest in this idea - they invested in the CEO who mustâve pivoted to this.
Although I will say the day 1 trial was a good aspect. You can tell a lot about how a person works in 1-2 days. Easier for smaller companies than larger companies
Another example of the difference between homo sapians and homo econimus. This makes some sense from a rational, detached, Vulcan perspective, but homo sapiens hates it.
(I haven't sat down and deeply analyzed it and all the second order effects it may have just for an HN comment, but it's not an immediately obviously stupid idea from a Vulcan perspective.)
Unfortunately, homo sapiens was the target market.
> Another example of the difference between homo sapians and homo econimus. This makes some sense from a rational, detached, Vulcan perspective, but homo sapiens hates it.
Homo economicus specifically refers to entities meeting all the elements of the rational choice model, including having and acting on perfect information about forward net utilities of decisions. Since the entire purpose of this service is to try to deal with a problem of imperfect information about forward net utilities of an economic decision, it would make no sense if the participants were homo economicus.
Your not wrong that it doesn't work for H. sapiens, though.
So instead of an "interview" there's some financial blahblah, followed by a one day "trial" after which either side can say no.
Incredibly heavy reinforcement of structural biases aside, this seems to only remove the cheap part of the interview but keep the grueling, expensive part for both parties, just under a different name. I think a full-ass work day is still not the norm outside of the weird SV cabal; we offer it to candidates but no one takes it, and I've never gotten offered or wanted such a thing.
YC is even more up its own ass than I thought at this point, if this was accepted.
As expected, the only non-negative comments I see on the Internet about skiptheinterview are from HN.
notsurprised.jpg
Are negative comments about skiptheinterview the only valid ones in your eyes?
HN is part of YC, and skiptheinterview is a YC-backed startup, so commenters here are more likely to discuss the start-up in that context - market fit, viability, etc. vs conversations you'd see on Reddit and Twitter.
> Are negative comments about skiptheinterview the only valid ones in your eyes?
My comment was about the culture that produced the idea behind skiptheinterview.com :)
Hiring, and tech hiring more than ever, is broken. We cannot fix it with these kind of ideas.
Well, it is a YC backed startup
I can see why people might not like the concept but I think it's getting more anger than it deserves.
From another perspective, you could also see this as betting on someone, which is actually kind of fun (if I understand correctly and you double your money if they're hired). If they provided accurate statistics on the amount of their candidates who end up being hired, it might not even be a bad investment. I'm curious what the legality of that is though, it seems like actual betting.
I also think friends and online acquaintances might be a bigger source of 'bets' for them than former colleagues. Or even people you don't know, but they know of your work on open source projects, etc.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.
The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
> The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
Exactly, so it's not like these candidates are paying to "skip annoying thing" - it's just a different annoying thing. In essence, this sort of arrangement actually puts the candidate in a less powerful position than if they'd just received a normal offer.
I don't even think this is geared towards 'rich people' - I assume it's mostly aimed at colleagues who are also tech workers. It does favor people who have previous work experience (and therefore colleagues who could vouch/invest), but verifiable experience is usually a job requirement anyway.
I would game the system - I would pay my friends and colleagues to refer me, and when I get the job, I would collect the payout (after two months) from the referrers and keep it as a signing bonus and treat all my friends / colleagues to a big party. (And yes, this is very much doable when Indians are involved ;).
Isn't that what one already does with a successful referral bonus, buy beer for all parties involved?
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