My current position is directly attributable to a "who wants to be hired?" post where the founders reached out to me directly. I have gotten to final offer stage with at least four companies in the past two years, and had several dozen more interesting conversations about potential opportunities that have all come through the "who wants to be hired?" thread.

I post every month on the "who wants to be hired?" thread except for when the 1st of the month falls on a weekend or a national holiday in the US. Why? Because the number of people reading the thread, and the number of people posting on "who is hiring?" threads dips precipitously when the 1st of the month falls on the weekend or a national holiday in the US.

Most of the outreach I get from founders through "who wants to be hired?" is low-effort "we'll pay you in exposure!" or "well you can't live on what we're paying in any major meotropolitan area but think of the equity when we IPO!" but occasionally there is a diamond in the rough that reaches out. My current job was one of those diamonds.

The difference between entrepreneurs who "get it" when selling their company on the "who is hiring thread?" and those that don't is stark. And even more stark is the difference between entrepreneurs selling their company to prospective hires on the "who is hiring thread?" vs developers selling their skillset on the "who wants to be hired?" thread. It is the difference between selling features vs selling benefits writ large.

That's really neat to hear your experience, and I'm glad to see there are some successes! I wonder if the success rate is higher than similar job boards or linkedin-esqe spam outreach.

Also, can you expand a bit more on the "those who get it" vs "those who don't"? What are you looking for here? What do you mean selling features vs. benefits?

I posted in "who wants to be hired" a few times, and a few people reached out. About 50% seem to be somewhat targeted to the message. At least one lead to an offer (which I declined for other reasons, it was a fair and interesting offer though).

"Who is hiring" never worked out for me, as the geographic limitations are too strict or confusingly worded. Looking through 400 posts to figure out which are actually open to hire someone from europe is not as promising as looking through dedicated job portals.

At a previous job, HN's "Who's Hiring" was by far our most successful job posting. Frankly it was the only successful recruiting method of those we tried (setting aside personal referrals).

I found out from an ad on here that a startup in a field I am interested in were based 2 minutes from my flat and were hiring, so I got in in touch and ended up working there for 5 years and had a lot of fun, made some great friends and it moved my career in a really interesting direction. I’d never have thought of applying to them otherwise so it worked out well for me!

I'd say that about 70% of our recent hires came from the monthly HN threads, and among first-interview invitees the % may well be even higher. Somehow the average quality of applicants via HN is way higher than via other platforms and I don't know why.

Sidenote: we're not a big company, we hire single-digit new people per year. I have no idea how to scale this success up, ie if we'd advertise way more aggressively elsewhere the % would likely go down.

I got hired for my current job based on a "who wants to be hired" thread. I've also been reached out to 2-3 times based on comments I've made (some recent, some a few weeks/months old) on HN asking me to interview for a position.

I got previous two jobs via Who's Hiring. And, indirectly, my current job due to networking from the previous.

I also recently interviewed for another position advertised via Who's Hiring. I didn't take the offer, but it was a very close decision.

Wrote in Who wants to be hired recently. Got two emails from actual companies and one from a questionable recruiter with no concretes. One of those companies sent me a Triplebyte timed algo question without any real human contact whatsoever so I just didn't do it. Other one had a take home assignment with a fairly easy Leetcode wrapped in an API kind of task. Did that, never received any feedback besides 'thanks but no', no invite for actual technical interview. Had much better experience with companies I found through LinkedIn to be honest. Feels like people here feel elitist to a point where a decent engineer is nothing, without FAANG experience.

Just passed two years into a job I got from a Who's Hiring thread. Emailed the given address and ended up in interviews a week or two later. It's worked out well so far.

I posted as a candidate in one thread over the summer and got contacted by ~10 companies and did a handful of interviews — a couple were duds with non-technical founders casting a wide net but others were solid opportunities. I also applied to a few jobs from that same month's employers thread and got to the offer stage with one of those companies.

I had enough success to try again the next time I am looking for a new gig.

I get a fair number of good resumes from these threads.

I've been hired to more than one job through these posts over the past ~15 years; and I've also done hiring for my teams successfully through these threads.

Having said that, in the last ~2 years, we've had FAR less success with these threads. Didn't post in the last one cuz it just didn't feel worth it.

I got hired for my current role after posting on "Who wants to be hired". Around ~10 companies reached out.

I was hired into a super fun startup from a Who's Hiring post back in 2012. Thanks for this service!

I wouldn't say full success as I didn't actually get a job, but I got deep into interviews that could have led to very good jobs. The progress vs effort ratio is by far the best of any channel.

I was hired at my current company because I responded to a who’s hiring post almost 2 years ago

Yes! I was hired for my current role several years ago from a Who’s Hiring post.

I think I posted in one once or twice and had ~3 people reach out to me about roles. One ended up being promising, but I had to pull out for a family emergency that kept me from being able to participate.

I've gotten a lot of work through the monthly freelancer thread.

Posted a job here once. Got 9 applicants, none of those were hired.

Archive reasons: (4) Underqualified (4) Work Authorization (1) Unresponsive

One of the worst companies I've dealt with this time around was from an HN "who wants to be hired thread". Poor and conflicting communication, lack of respect for my time, that kind of thing. The company's been posting since late last year, and even made an appearance in the October 2022 thread (albeit this time it was posted by a different user).

I tend to comment on topics I wouldn't want to discuss in a professional setting and so I'm pretty unlikely to ever bother with a "who wants to be hired?" thread.

Generally if the company is posting for the same job on HN regularly they're a write-off.

A bit more specialized, but I don't get much inbound interest as a software developer for hardware projects.

I got my first tech internship (at a 5 person startup called "Pagerduty") thanks to one.

Yes! At my current position from a post made in the Who's Hiring. Been here for over a year

Its a sample size of 1, but I found my previous job through a whoishiring post.

I got my current job through one of these threads

I got my previous job thru a 'who's hiring' many years ago. I don't think I'd try doing it again, not least of which is because I've got less than 20 years left in the ol' career (knock wood) and I'd rather stay where I'm at than interview ever again.