Job search is stressful, time consuming and exhausting as a candidate. We need all the help we can get.
We take the posts in the monthly "Who's Hiring" pretty seriously, treating each job post with way more respect than job posts elsewhere.
The 5 major objectives are to identify companies that:
1. Ghost.
This, after they list intricate requirements with elaborate HackerRank/take home assignments, quiz that try and see how much of time you spent reading their posts here/elsewhere including cues ("Please keep your answers short and include the word 'IReadThis <your hn id>' so we know you read these instructions.")
2. Not looking to hire but actually collect resumes/market research
The day (sometimes even a week) long take home assignments are just to see if anyone who's really capable is really interested in the position enough to put in the work needed. Some throw forms with multiple questions on it at you that take hours to fill out instead. No response. Not even an interview.
3. Misrepresent themselves, the position or the benefits.
"Remote" companies that "prefer" candidates in the same city. Or "Yeah, we are trialing the remote thing 2 times a week for now."
4. Crowdsource their MVP
Scrappy startups with no actual funds to hire a developer are using assignments to build their MVPs. More in this video: https://youtu.be/QkJpdaNGHgQ
5. Repeatedly post "job postings" every month, without a break, for the exact same role, schedule interviews, assign take homes, regularly, over and over again, without ever hiring once and providing 0 code review for those assignments.
Currently, there is absolutely no way for us to communicate to each other when we come across these companies.
THIS is an attempt in fixing that.