The real reason you can't hire developers....

[up_and_up]

TL;DR version: When developer talent sends you an email, you fail to reply!!!

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Full Version:

To all the startups and companies whining about lack of developer talent, I call your bluff.

I ran a little experiment over the last 60 days. I sent emails to ~50 different companies (some well-known, others unknown) that were looking for "Sr. Developers", particularly Ruby devs, as found on the major developer job sites (stackoverflow, Dice, Indeed, 37signals etc). I mainly targeted companies that were potentially/maybe/sorta/kinda/probably/possibly able to accomodate some form of telecommuting/remoting. I also picked companies that most closely matched my skillset. In my email I introduced myself and included my resume. Here is how I am represented in the email (paraphrased from actual text, ):

Given: X > 7 & Y > 4,

"Sr. Level Developer, with X years exp. Y years of prof exp with Ruby. Main expertise is in Ruby, API's, MySQL and a bunch of other stuff. Previously worked for 'ABC' startup ($X Millions angel backed) for two years and helped build out the entire app/platform etc. Later served as CTO for several side projects. I attended Top Tier University , ... blah blah blah"

More stats:

Salary expectations: $115K

Areas of interest: API's, Analytics, SaaS, Telephony, Machine learning ....

Ability to relocate: Open to idea, can't right away

Telecommuter?: Pretty please

Snark level: Not nearly as high as this post ;)

Likeability: Very high

So out of ~50 companies that I tried contacting what was the result?

10/50 - sent me a reply email of some sort (confirmation, autoreply, whatever)

7/50 - tried to setup a phone screen

5/50 - actually completed the phone screen (with all phones screens going very well, I might add)

3/50 - tried to setup a technical interview

0/50 - actually completed a technical interview

0/50 - made offer!

From my 60 day simple experiment, I argue......

The top 5 reasons you are (probably) not hiring:

1. You don't read or dont respond to emails!!

How can 40/50 companies or their recruiters not even respond to an email at all? Why heavily advertise a position only to not follow through! LESSON: Check the email box for resumes

2. You allow for big time gaps in your hiring process

The hiring process at some of the companies that contacted me was just strange. One day they ask me "when can we setup an interview?", so I respond right away. 4-5 days later they get back saying "Ok how about next week?". LESSON: Long delays in communication make me lose confidence in the process/the seriousness of your interest etc.

3. Weird extra steps

Some companies like to send riddle/puzzles/challenges etc, which is fine with me. This might be a barrier to some people that think its absurd. What does it prove? That your team spends lunch break browsing trickyriddles.com? LESSON: riddle/puzzles/challenges might seem cool to you but might just seem like another hoop to me.

4. A cultural mismatch

"Xbox's PS3 Nerf guns Starcraft/Rock band competitions !!!" - Nothing against any of that, but as married father of two, I have other concerns (what no ping pong table?) like "Compensation, Opportunity for Advancement, Great Benefits, Fast Growing, Opportunities to contribute/architect etc". If you think of "Xbox's PS3 Nerf guns Starcraft/Rock band competitions !!!" is an applicant deterrent, then I agree with your strategy. LESSON: not all programmers/developers fit the fold you are presenting, many of us are unique!!!

5. You dont hire telecommuters/remotes even if you say you do

This has been talked about ad nauseum...

Other potential reasons: Administrative snafus, HR general laziness, what HR?, the site's down, I want too much money, your company has a bad reputation, others?

So after 60 days I am still looking ;) but based on my simple research project, 80% of companies claiming to need developers are either nonserious or are too busy to even start the hiring process.

I know, this research project is flawed and anecdotal but maybe it can help you rethink/iron out any bugs in your hiring process. If you can't find talent, my guess is that you are probably failing in one or more areas above.

EDIT: Formatting

[Pewpewarrows]

This post pretty much reflects my observations back when I was job hunting a year or so ago. I had a good amount of experience, was willing to relocate, wasn't looking for a telecommuting position, and was very flexible on salary. I advertised myself to several high-profile companies, many of which have affiliations with YC. None of them were through recruiters, and a few were even direct contacts with some core developers happening to advertise the company on twitter: cough Disqus cough.

The number of responses I received even acknowledging that they got my personalized cover letter and resume? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

I ended up getting a job by being referred through a friend to a company completely outside of the whole startup/valley/YC culture. The absolute worst thing you can do is have your job search and advertisements become a black hole.

So every company reading this comment: get your shit together.

[kakuri]

Similar experience here. Been watching HN's hiring posts for 6 months or so, replied to many, received about 3 responses. I know I'm no John Carmack, but I've had a $100K+ offer (for a telecommuting position), and have a $100K offer (again, telecommuting) on the table. All these poor companies so desperately trying to hire have never even bothered to investigate if I'm a good candidate.

I'm not too bitter as my opportunities are fine, but it really makes me wonder - are these companies insane? Do they actually want to hire? Do they really think they are amazing enough that nothing less than John Carmack himself is acceptable for them?

[goodweeds]

<sarcasm> 1998 called and they want their resume blasts back. </sarcasm>

I find work (contracts) by looking for interesting companies whose money I would like to take, then I look them up on LinkedIN to see how connected I am to them. Sometimes I ask my friends to connect me to them, sometimes I just google stalk them to find the appropriate hiring manager's twitter address or email address, then I email them, whether or not they're hiring, and whether or not they're open to contractors. I pitch my value proposition and tell (not ask, tell) them to meet me for coffee or lunch, my treat, and offer three dates that work for me. In 15 years, be it a VC, a VP of a bank, an unfunded founder, or an incredibly busy CTO at a high growth start-up, nobody has ever turned me down for a free lunch.

Then I close them.

[porterhaney]

goodweeds, has the best advice in this comment thread as far as I'm concerned.

Instead of spending countless hours blasting resumes out, why not do it the smart way, and make a personal connection with the person hiring the job.

No one responded to your form resume, so what. The system for hiring via web forms and resumes is broken, so what.

Bootleg the system and speak to the right people, and none of that will be a problem.

[sabat]

In a normal job market that's good common sense, but in the current tech job market, where unemployment is somewhere around 3%, resume blasting ought to be more than enough. The problem is that companies -- particularly larger companies -- are still in Arrogance Mode and think that the job-seekers need them. They don't.

[waterlesscloud]

A lot of comments here miss the point.

80% did not respond at all . They did not acknowledge his contact attempt in any way whatsoever. Not a canned response confirming contact, nothing. Nothing.

I'm willing to bet very heavily on this representing complete incompetence at the organizations contacted.

[rcavezza]

I don't think this is why companies can't find good developers.

To sum up your email: Hi, You've never met me before, but I like your company. I expect to get paid $115K to lead a team as a senior developer, but don't want to relocate in order to be with the team.

I feel this type of email should get a response; however, I'm not surprised no one hired you. I'm sorry none of these companies replied. If hiring is as tough as everyone says it is, they should at least be willing to followup - they might find a diamond in the rough that way.

80% of jobs are filled informally, especially senior positions. If you know someone on the team, or if the team knows of your work and respects it, you should be able to find a position faster.

[up_and_up]

Big point: Salary was not included in my initial contact email. That means only 5/50 companies even knew what I was looking for.

"I expect to get paid $115K to lead a team as a senior developer, but don't want to relocate in order to be with the team"

I forgot to add, 50% of the positions I applied to gave salary range of 80-130K. Also, I state I am willing to relocate eventually. All the positions claimed to be open to telecommuting.

I had no idea that telecommuting == less salary. I would be open to negotiating.

"lead a team" Seems like people are assuming that b/c I have exp as a CTO that I want "control". Not the case at all. I applied to a "Sr. Developer" position with the idea that I would be working under a technical leader etc

[loup-vaillant]

> I expect to get paid $115K to lead a team as a senior developer, but don't want to relocate in order to be with the team.

He targeted companies that claim to accommodate telecommuting. Not hire when being asked looks sneaky.

[jrockway]

The reason companies can't hire good people is because good people already have good jobs, and many of these companies suffer from "sticker shock" when they see how much money good developers are already making.

I recently interviewed at a major online retailer and cloud computing provider (heh). The person interviewing me said, "wow, you're the best person of the last 50 we've interviewed". They followed up by making me a shit offer. If you want me to move to a different state to work for you, I want a 25% raise and an extra week of vacation. Not a salary match and two fewer weeks of vacation. Their justification was "it wouldn't be fair if you negotiated a better offer than other people on your team".

That's why you can't hire people.

[kamaal]

Exactly,

One more important thing to notice here. There is a strange assumption that goes on, its considered if you are awesome and passionate you won't care about money and will always for little.

The attitude is like - "Greed for money is for bad people, but you are not that kind right? So, here come work for peanuts while some idiot is making twice as you".

[chrisbennet]

"Their justification was "it wouldn't be fair if you negotiated a better offer than other people on your team".

Translation: "We hire for mediocrity and you would skew the curve."

[byoung2]

I had a similar experience. I just left ClearChannel last month to go work at a startup, and though I went through a recruiter to find my new job, I also applied to a handful of job postings at YC-funded startups (through the jobs link at the top of HN). I believe there were 5 total, and 2 of them had puzzles that I completed correctly. I have an impressive resume, and I was willing to relocate (I live in Los Angeles, so SF isn't too big a change). Not one response, even to say we got your email, thanks for doing the puzzle. Through the recruiter, I was interviewed and hired within a week, at a 37.5% salary increase. Go figure

[dman]

I have stopped doing puzzles for companies because I had the same experience everytime I solved a puzzle on a companies website. Common courtesy dictates that if you have a problem on your site that would take more than a couple of hours to solve then you should at least bother to reply personally when a candidate solves the problem (I am looking at you Quora). At first I thought it was just because my solution and resume got lost in the stack of applicants so I contacted someone at Quora on thier direct email address. Still no response.

[ittan]

I agree, through a recruiter and I have a job now :). Why the ads, why the questions if you can't take the time to let me know that you cant offer me a job. Would love to see more of that happening!

[up_and_up]

Recruiters were definitely more responsive with me, but hey thats their job right ;)

[compay]

After many years I was back in the job market earlier this year. I ended up writing to 6 carefully-chosen companies. I got responses back from 5 of them, interviewed at 4, and got job offers from all of them.

The fact that you applied at 50 places is a bit of a deceptive statistic, because first of all, there's no way you carefully crafted your initial contact to each one.

At each of the places I contacted during my job search, my initial email was very carefully worded. I spent about 3 hours writing and revising one fairly short email, to make sure it conveyed exactly what I wanted.

If you just send a generic form letter to a company, they're going to give you the same consideration you have given them: very little.

Even if you did tailor the email to each company, there's no way you as a candidate are going to appeal to more than a handful of the companies, because they all have their own quirks and cultures. NOBODY is a viable candidate for 50 different Ruby-oriented companies.

Also, no offense but I have to concur with other comments here that your writing may have had something to do with it. If what you sent them was worded at all like what you've posted here, then you probably lost a lot of potential responses because of that.

If you want to get your foot in the door at a company, the first impression you make is everything. Sending a poorly worded email is a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot.

[rudasn]

> If you just send a generic form letter to a company, they're going to give you the same consideration you have given them: very little.

I think this may be true as I had a similar experience. Since March I have contacted many companies (both for contract work and full-time) but I only really wanted to work at 3 of them.

For the first company I spent 2 weeks crafting my job application and it took them more than a month to get back to me, and only after I directly emailed one of their HR staff.

For the second I spent about an hour or two writing an e-mail but was quite well thought out. I got a reply the next day and went through the whole process in about a week.

For the third company I sent a code sample to the senior developer and my resume to the CEO. Within two weeks I got an offer.

In all three cases I tried to make it very clear that I am choosing them, why I choose them, and what my thoughts are about their company/market. It seems that only in the third case, when I talked with the CEO, this approach worked.

[patio11]

People trying to hire developers through Dice/Monster are demonstrably clueless. Get introductions direct to the decisionmaker. You won't be in a pile of 200 resumes from people who list "Computers: Expert, especially with MsWord" and apply to developer positions. You'll also be dealt with in more reasonable timeframes.

Job sites are job hunting for people who enjoy unemployment.

[jerf]

I don't disagree, but I'd observe that the symmetrical POV on the hiring side is that if a company is screaming for talent, that implies (to a first approximation) they've already tapped out their network. There's nothing left for them but to strike out into the great unwashed, not-networked-by-them world, however unpleasant that may be. Alas, that requires effort.

[amorphid]

Recruiter here. Going directly to the source is alweays your best option, if that's an option. I exist because the hiring manager has only so many hours in the day to review X applications, let alone interview the applicants.

If you are lucky, I get objective criteria from a hiring manager who actually knows what they are looking for and assess the fit of your application in an objective way.

If it helps it bothers me that there's a need for my role and I try to automate myself out of the picture as much as possible.

[T-hawk]

And the flip side: As a developer, you want to work for a company whose people are smart and connected and passionate enough to attract talent through personal connections. You may not want to work for a company that has to resort to hiring by job boards, with the likely result of merely-average quality in your coworkers-to-be.

This applies recursively to another level too: you really don't want to join a company that can't even make job-board hiring work and resorts to headhunting recruiters.

[up_and_up]

Agreed. Guess I need to expand my network outside my geographical locale.

[jqueryin]

    If you want to steal some of the best talent in the
    industry, open yourself up to the idea of letting them 
    telecommute or work remotely. 

    Offer up a 3 month introductory period to ensure there's
    a mutual fit and they actually do the work as promised. 
    
    Don't make them shitty offers because they aren't on
    site; there is fudge room depending on their cost of
    living. 

    If you're in the valley, get your head out of your ass.
    Talent is everywhere. We don't all need to move to the
    valley to prove anything. 

    We likely DO love your team and product; that's why
    we applied in the first place. Devs are a funny beast,
    most of us apply to things that interest us.

    Loving your team is not necessarily justification to 
    up and leave everything we've grown to know and love.
    We're not all recent college graduates with no ties to a
    community.

    Open yourselves up to change and boundary pushing.
    Consider opening satellite offices in different large
    cities for your remote devs to work at, together. 

::end rant::

[gatlin]

I applied to a kind-of sinking ship in Palo Alto last year. Got through a few interviews, answered all the questions right, and was gently let down. It was a stab in the dark.

My friend who worked there (and, in fact, recommended me) told me the developer doing the interviews has never actually recommended a single candidate and is no longer allowed to do interviews.

This could still mean that I'm stupid and incompetent but it seems like they missed out on a lot of talent because of the egotism of a single dev they had hiring.

Also I did a fair amount of the interview on a rooftop, trying to quietly and safely get down without a ladder. Fun times.

[thoughtsimple]

I recently had an interview with a company that involved 6 people interviewing me serially. That sort of thing is grueling in the best of cases. But this one went south with the third interviewer. He seemed to me be someone with something like Aspergers syndrome. He talked in a monotone, fidgeted constantly and was rocking back and forth. While I have no problem working with anyone technically competent, this person was clearly not capable of running an interview.

He asked a technical question to which I answered a more or less standard response. He told me I was wrong. Being a bit stunned (it wasn't a hard question), I asked him what he meant. He gave me a reply that was quite incorrect.

Now, in a normal interview situation if this occurs, I see it as an opportunity to have a conversation. I can explain my point and the interviewer can respond. You can find out a lot about an organization with this kind of interaction.

But in this case, the interviewer just kept saying I was wrong and never responded to my questions or gave an explanation why his answer's were correct except to say that they were. It was very troubling.

I didn't get the job. This might have been because of this interview directly but it certainly was at least partially the cause since I really didn't have much enthusiasm for the next 3 interviews. A company that would allow someone with social interaction issues run an interview is very problematic. I can't imagine who could have done well in that series of interviews given the circumstances.

[lanstein]

This wasn't Ning, was it?

[spwmoni]

>Also I did a fair amount of the interview on a rooftop, trying to quietly and safely get down without a ladder. Fun times.

Wait, what? Unless this is some figure of speech I'm not familiar with, this requires some explanation.

[euroclydon]

If you're being paid 115K, working from home, and defining architecture, the biggest thing that sticks out to me about that is, you have a lot of control.

Are companies that post developer positions to job boards really looking for someone to delegate a lot of control to, or do they already have that person? How much room is there at the top? If you got that architect job, would you turn around and hire another architect-y person?

Many of these positions are heads-down, in the office and managed. And of course you've got to be a super coding wizard who is more concerned with nerf battles and ping-pong than dirty lucre, jeez!

Companies that hire many intelligent, mature, well-paid peers, are rare, I think. So you either have to go network and find someone who will give you that position of power, and then, how will you hire? Or, start a company. Or, become a consultant, which requires more networking than option one. Or hold out for a job with someone like Mozilla -- they seem to treat developers like adults.

[fuzzythinker]

Counter data:

semi-active search time span: ~4-5 weeks

where: just craigslist & python.org

what: sr. level web frontend or backend

companies: all small/startups, but none are well known in HN

emails sent: I'm quite choosy actually, only applied to ~4 positions a week, which equates to ~20 sent.

results: ~75-80% replied,

out of those replied: ~50-60% replied within a day or two, 2 took more than a week to get back to me, which strangely enough, followed thru with deeper phone interviews.

no on-site interviews (although ~25% I applied are remotes) until one of those turned out to be a recruiter.

Note: I wanted to avoid recruiters since didn't have good experience with them before. But this time it turned out pretty good, got to interview a few companies and landed a decent gig. But since this thread is about no response from direct emails, I did not include these data points from recruiter in my results.

[jerhewet]

Interesting points. Possibly a strong correlation to where you're located vs. the original poster?

[robotresearcher]

It's just ordinary courtesy for a company to acknowledge your application, and then send you a "thanks, but no" letter after a human has reviewed it.

But if you want unusual arrangements like remote working, you are going to have a hard time going through the blind CV channel. What works in these cases is either personal contacts, even over several hops, and/or establishing an online reputation that creates a virtual contact network. Your github projects, blog, JS experiments, history of patches to TeX [1] will make you stand out. Even a little contribution to an Open Source project will get you a CV line and maybe a reference from someone with name recognition.

You are a grown up with kids, so you don't have time to waste. You can't hack demos all day like an undergrad. But a little time spent this way might pay dividends in career development.

The point is not to be a CV in the pile. Get noticed some other way, and don't expect your CV to glow like Charlie's Golden Ticket. The more senior you get, the more important this stuff is. A few years out of school and you should forget about CVs until someone asks you for one, so they can tell their colleagues about you.

[1] Joke.

[shadowfiend]

Specifically in response to the time gaps: it's true that time gaps are bad, but keep in mind these are startups, which means they're juggling about twenty thousand different things at the same time. I think in that domain in particular, some slack may be in order as compared to a 20,000-strong corporation with a dedicated HR department.

Re: weird extra steps: the idea isn't that they're cool. The idea is that if you are willing to attempt it and solve it successfully, it says something about your problem-solving skills. It's not the be-all end-all, but it seems like a decent first-pass filter.

Re: cultural mismatch: if it's a cultural mismatch, you probably shouldn't apply anyway. The thing about a startup is, there are five or ten of you. This isn't just another job. You generally don't just come in at 9, work work work, maybe take lunch with your teammates, and trip it out at 5. You don't just attend the company Christmas party. A startup is typically very much like a family, because everything is riding on everyone. When someone quits IBM, the teammates write it off as a “whatever”. When someone quits at a startup, you spend some serious time looking around to make sure there's nothing scaring them off, because every individual counts a great deal.

In short, culture is critical, and even as a married father of two, signing up for a startup is signing up for a culture and a tight-knit group of friends as much as it is signing up for a job.

[steverb]

I don't know about IBM, but I have worked in several large well established companies and when someone (decent) quits everyone looks around to figure out WTF is going on.

I have lived through 2 mass exoduses, where a company started going downhill and the top 50% of developers all leave within 6 months of each other (often in groups).

There is nothing inherently special about a startup. Many established companies have make or break projects, and working on them requires the same sort of commitment.

In short, don't take shit off of potential employers. If they can't get it together enough to get back to you and treat you with whatever level of respect you expect, then that's a sign that you probably don't want to work there.

[kls]

It's not the be-all end-all, but it seems like a decent first-pass filter.

It is really not, I have been round and round about this with every organization that I have been in that does these. The only thing it displays is the persons ability to answer trivia and solve puzzles. These are not the characteristics of a great developer, the characteristics of a great developer are simplicity, creativity and rapidly adaptation.

You would be better off handing them a paint brush and a canvas and using that as a measure of their creativity. If that seems like a weird concept, then you start to get a picture of how far off these trivia puzzles are, they are literally of no value, not only that they can filter out the best candidates and worse yet they make a company seem like a bunch of elitist that think they are smarter than the average bear.

[mason55]

Re: weird extra steps: the idea isn't that they're cool. The idea is that if you are willing to attempt it and solve it successfully, it says something about your problem-solving skills. It's not the be-all end-all, but it seems like a decent first-pass filter.

The problem is that you're asking candidates to spend 1+ hour before you've even given them a personal response. I've seen positions with well known companies who ask you to do 4+ hours of work before they even talk to you in person. Imagine if every company did that?

[pnathan]

I'm not going to go out and solve project euler style problems for a company unless they are paying me. My time has value, and asking me to give away hours of it on the hope of an interview is not really acceptable. I'd rather find an open source project and submit patches instead... that IMO has a lot more to do with what I'd be doing at a company anyway.

[up_and_up]

"You generally don't just come in at 9, work work work, maybe take lunch with your teammates, and trip it out at 5" and "signing up for a startup is signing up for a culture"

Who said anything about 9-5? I previously worked at a fast-paced startup for 2 years, which is well represented on my resume. I have a good idea what I am in for.

[jfno67]

At one company I was working the career section was listing open position and we were actually doing cost cutting layoffs. Not listing position on your company website is seen as a bad signal to send to the public and your investors. Sometimes, it's more a marketing statement than anything.

[jarek]

Reading some of the comments here, I think the real reason companies are having problems hiring might be that they're unwilling to pay someone with 7/4 years of experience 25% more than a bigco will pay an undergrad straight out of school.

[mgkimsal]

Hrm...

I tend to agree with the OPs thoughts - companies often don't respond, even when, in general, the industry (and perhaps some of those same companies) publicly moan about not being able to find people.

When did having 7 years of experience make someone a sr level developer? I don't think I started using that level for myself until I had 10 years experience. I guess to each his own. Just like everyone's a "founder" these days, everyone else is a "sr level developer"???

What's a "CTO of a side project" look like? I understand it shows a lot of initiative, but depending on the types of companies applied at, it wouldn't come close to what they expect of a "sr level developer".

I guess I'm just old (sorry, senior) and grumpy this morning. :)

[WilhelmJ]

I want to add something from my own experience.

One particular company I was interested in had few puzzles on their website. I once worked the whole weekend to solve them as good as I can. Spent lot of time writing a custom cover letter, resume and attached the C++ solutions to the puzzles.

Its been several months and I am still waiting for the damn reply!

[synnik]

If you complete phone screens on 1 out of every 10 inquiries you send, you are doing very well in my opinion.

If those phone screens do not turn into full interviews or offers, that is a statement on how they went, not on company responsiveness.

Frankly, I don't think your stats show a lack of response at all. I think they are very reasonable, as some level of non-responsiveness is natural, when you account for the fact that you gave them enough information to summarily dismiss you from consideration if you don't match their needs or culture.

[bdunlap]

But even a summarily dismissive response is better than silence (click 'reply', paste in "Sorry, your cover letter doesn't indicate a good fit", click 'send').

[kls]

While I agree with the author that there does seem to be people just wasting time in the market, I did have the same reaction as you to the phone screen numbers. 8 out of 10 of my phone screens convert into an offer. There is a very human element at the point of a phone screen and maybe that has something to do with the numbers. If the author was just doing an experiment and not truly interested in the position, it may have show through in the phone screen or there could have been other issues with it. It seems weird to me to get to the phone interview and just waste time.

[tlogan]

Yap - 80% will not even reply. When I was doing "market discovery" for my startup I sent resumes (real one - no fake things) to all these potential competitor to see how competent they are.

I narrowed down to two competitors and amazingly these two companies did end up leading the entire market.

In order words, the first contact with the company tells you much more about company than any other things. So if somebody does not answer on your email with resume you probably should assume they will not be around for long.