This is going to heavily bias the job market in favor of people who have wealthy contacts willing to throw down money.

This might not seem quite as dystopian from the lens of just high paying silicon valley software jobs for in demand people. But imagine this system applied everywhere - it's horrendous.

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 ahead, and such a product would just extend this.

Hiring people based on how many friends-with-money-to-burn they have is going to be extremely discriminatory.

E.g. in the US this is usually how we hire the President. The best fundraisers climb the party ranks and get the job. 98% of hired Presidents have been well-connected, rich, white men.

It creates various perverse incentives, so even if it might work if all the involved parties are well-behaved, it pushes the situation towards people not "behaving well", at which point the proposed system would not get good results.

It incentivizes abusive companies to fire people quickly after firing - most companies do it, but some do; and the proposed system would increase that.

It incentivizes behind-the-back deals with ex-coworkers, stressing ethics and relationships.

It incentivizes inequality - it gives an advantage to people with a wealthy "support network" and creates a barrier to people who don't have one, if a company prefers to do hiring this way.

To me it feels like a "you won a million dollars, please send us $1k to cover the wire transfer costs" scam. Employment in the US is at-will, as an employee I have zero guarantee that I won't be fired the very next day.

Edit: s/be/me

I like the idea. I get why it initially seems like buying jobs, but it is really just you being allowed to offer a guarantee that your word is backed up by something.

But it really is just buying jobs. For many people, the $50 minimum is nothing. For most people (in the US anyway), it's more than you'd be willing to invest in any coworker, no matter how good they are. And for many people, it's the difference between paying rent or not.

The kid from a rich family will have no problem getting his parents, and family friends to slap $50 down. The kid who grew up in public housing? Not gonna happen.

I want to like the idea. Having a better way to connect likely-qualified candidates and jobs is a good thing. But a set amount of money really isn't a good guarantee of anything.

I assume they require that the money comes from a former manager or co-worker and if you work in tech in the USA/Canada, $50 shouldn't be a lot to most co-workers.

And if you want to buy an internship, you can just plop your kid at a startup for free. Unpaid internships are how you buy experience already.

They claim to verify that all the money comes from former coworkers not friends and family.

I feel like many people have judged without really understanding the details.

They are asserting that, however, as this seems a very hard task to really prevent it and they simply assert that they will succeed (especially since if they don't succeed, they don't lose anything, the employer does) without providing any arguments why they think they have an effective solution to this hard problem, their assertion that they'll somehow beat all fraud attempts is simply not convincing.

But this would make it disproportionally easier for people with wealthier friends/family while creating a chilling effect against people from a poorer background, or immigrants.

As a job candidate I would consider doing this.

As a former colleague I would consider staking somebody.

As a hiring manager, I would not do this. It’s just too weird. Hiring is hard enough.

Would you change your mind if they managed to filter people sufficiently to make hiring take far fewer interviews and they could actually source good candidates?

It is weird now, but my parents also think it is weird to interview 8 times for one job.

Honestly, no, not until it’s proven out. and I fear there will be a selection bias where more questionable companies would use this first before established and reputable companies. They need to make it not weird first like sign Uber or another 2nd tier tech company and socialize the idea so it’s acceptable for small companies.

Otherwise you look like a scam.