The big idea: Charge $1 to apply to a job (hear me out) \ stacker news ~econ

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The big idea: Charge $1 to apply to a job (hear me out)nodumbideas.com/p/the-big-idea-charge-1-to-apply-to

2358 sats \ 31 comments \ @elvismercury 27 Feb econ

A beloved idea around SN is the curious magic of paying sats to post or comment as a solution to many of the ills of the modern internet. Here's that idea but ported to a different domain: job hunting.

I hadn't spent any mental cycles on the DOS attack that LLMs pose to companies trying to hire from the application perspective (although our company is trying to hire and I've thought about it from an "evaluate the candidate over video" perspective) but clearly it's about to be a bigger shitshow than it already is, which is saying something.

I wonder if this is a kind of vector that could stamp the idea into the head of normies? Because there will be no alternative to internalizing the lesson?

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139 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Feb

It will be necessary, unless we want the labor market to devolve into pure nepotism (that's the other solution I can think of).

I had a job that involved reviewing applications and it was already a firehose of low quality submissions. I can only imagine what it's turning into now.

62 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury OP 27 Feb

It's interesting that nepotism is not a bad solution in some ways, although we can all readily think of its shortcomings. There's a reputation to maintain by both parties, there's identity to individuate, etc. We discount those forces, but they're very powerful, and have offsetting virtues than does "merit".

27 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 27 Feb

In a lot of ways, it's kind of nuts that we just expect to pull from the general pool of anonymous people.

38 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 28 Feb

Certainly it's more nuts than our modern default way of believing is, where the nepotistic strategy seems totally bonkers, and the "merit-based" way seems without drawbacks.

97 sats \ 14 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Feb

I just brought this up to my wife, and not only does she agree but she says that they should have to pay to post a job listing as well due to the sheer number of fake job listing's. Apparently a lot of information gathering is happening on that end of things too.

42 sats \ 12 replies \ @elvismercury OP 27 Feb

Crap, hadn't even considered that angle.

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Feb

Me neither. Apparently my wife came up with the SN version of LinkedIn 😁

42 sats \ 10 replies \ @elvismercury OP 27 Feb

Makes me think of SN a little differently, something like: an honest general marketplace. The current SN is an honest marketplace of ideas, or at least, it has the tools to support evolution in that direction. But you could do a two-sided one for jobs and job-seekers, too.

Once you have something money-like, you have the possibility for reputation. (And, I suppose, vice-versa.)

27 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism 28 Feb

Once you have something money-like, you have the possibility for reputation. (And, I suppose, vice-versa.)

Can you elaborate this? I thought of Justin Sun when I read this line and shuddered but that's probably because I misunderstood.

150 sats \ 5 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Mar

You might not have. I expressed it poorly, but:

Reputation -> money: if you are known to work hard, be honest, and do a good job, you'll have a good reputation and can leverage it to make money.

Money -> reputation: the getting of money confers a reputation, based on the nearly subconscious idea that people get money when they're of service to others, when "of service" is distributed across the entire universe of human interaction. It's highly but not completely untrue. Probably the more relevant one is that reputation accrues from power, and power and money are much more tightly inter-related.

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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Feb

Same, apparently @k00b was onto something.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 27 Feb

We'll see.

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 28 Feb

this is a good point, so many shit, fake bot job posts out there!

27 sats \ 4 replies \ @User21000000 28 Feb

What about low income people that may not have the money to apply in this case ? Then can’t apply then can’t get a job

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 28 Feb

Yes, that's a drawback of this method. There's no free lunch.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @User21000000 28 Feb

Yes. Possibly a range of titles or categories that are low income free to apply or you get 2 x free applications a month or something. Advertisers need to pay to post ads as well surely

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury OP 28 Feb

It might not be a problem in practice -- scammers may have little incentive to apply for the kinds of jobs that low-income folks would be qualified for. Not sure what is to be gained by applying for a job that requires you to show up in person at a gas station or loading dock or whatever.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @User21000000 28 Feb

Very true

44 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 27 Feb

My wife has been applying to jobs on LinkedIn. She's seeing stuff that has well over 1000 applications already. It may not be a bad idea to he honest.

9 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 28 Feb

I can tell you that a while back, upwork did something similar. Now, to bid on jobs you have to buy something called connects, and each job submission uses X amount, and you can increase the amount to move yourself higher on the search results. they even make you pay connects to show an availability badge.

I can't say for sure if it's a good thing, I only apply for things I am highly qualified for and i literally don't think in 10 years i have ever gotten anything i applied for, people reaching out to me directly on upwork is how I've always secured clients.

it's probably a good thing though, because any time a job would be posted, it would immediately have 500 applications. jobs seem to still have a lot, but who knows.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 28 Feb

Lol sites don't even want to add the apply with linkedin button to make it more lazy

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 28 Feb

Advertise for a musician it actor and you might even earn enough to pay one of them.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 28 Feb

Love it. I used to have to go through way too many responses to job postings and most of them were not a fit. Should make it $10 and if you get an interview it gets reimbursed.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Kenobi 27 Feb

Sounds like you arrived at the same conclusion as the original creators of the Proof of Work method.

But it makes sense to use money in this case.

The problem with this is then that you need money to make money, and I can already imagine certain jobs literally being paywalled for rich people only. Even though that already happens with nepotism, but oh well.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 27 Feb

Yep... this is already needed.