Would you use a job board where every listing is verified?

No.

A job being “verified” doesn’t solve the main problem post around 2023. Every single job opening gets hundreds of openings within the first day of it being opened.

If you are looking for a job as any type of generic developer - full stack, front end, mobile, back end, it’s almost impossible to stand out from the crowd. No, “I reversed a btree on the whiteboard to get into big tech as a mid level developer” doesn’t make you special.

If you do have a specialized set of skills that allows you to stand out from the crowd, you still shouldn’t be randomly spamming job boards and you should be able to sell yourself to someone at the company.

My personal anecdote. In my specialty - AWS + app dev + leading strategic initiatives, I’m very well credentialed (trust me on this) and in a certain niche of AWS, I was considered one of the industry experts at the time (again trust me).

But when randomly spamming job boards on a lark in 2023, I heard nothing.

That was always a plan B while I was waiting for what ended up being three offers via my network and one by reaching out to a company who specialized in my niche of AWS.

I’m not bragging, I am old. I should have a network and credentials.

What makes a job verified in this case? You can easily verify a firm exists, but that’s not really the critical part. The question “is this a ghost job with no intention to be filled” is the real struggle.

Probably not, as you’d essentially be performing the function of a recruiter, but not providing the ability for applicants to skip the initial steps of the hiring process by talking to you. Recruiters already list their open jobs in board-like software.

what's the value add ?

what are you offering to candidates - a better interview experience (been tried before etc, those companies closed)

you want to solve a problem, however you are trying solve the problem at a wrong abstraction level -

the problem with the tech market hiring is a coordination problem

No, I don't use job boards.

Imo it might be worthwhile creating a job board that solves the “company-side” issue with the current recruitment process where 200 people will spam AI generated slop CV to every post that opens up. Some kind of account coupled with a ratelimit and you should already deliver some value to people recruiting.

To a large degree, the problem with job boards is job boards are a two sided market for lemons

On the one hand, applicants are applicant who cannot find a job through people they know and the companies are companies who cannot find candidates through people they know Good jobs and good employees come through relationships and you cannot automate relationships.

Relationships are hard. Good luck.

It exists. Linkedin seems to have such jobs.

I want a job board that can filter companies like ATS filters candidates. I want to know salary, benefits, equity comp, tech stack, and workflow practices like CI, test suite time, test coverage, meetings per week, etc.

The answer is yes, and I speak for everybody. People use job boards anyway, why not use another one with the +1 that, at least, you won't get scammed.

Everyone likes to pretend this and that, "I wouldn't do it", "what problem do you solve", etc. I've published many jobs and they all come like hyenas fighting over scraps.

Don't listen to them, just build the thing; they'll use it, they need the bread, lmao.

Cyrpto had some interesting takes on these sort of problems that we haven't really applied more broadly.

The way I'd design a job board is require the applicant to escrow X and the job poster to escrow Y*X. Y is is the trust ratio. Given a bad experience, either the side can 'burn' the other and send both escrowed amounts to charity. An okay trust ratio might be 10, meaning they'll give you 10:1 burn ratio. A good one might be 100 or 1000. At that point they are essentially handing you a big stick to beat them with if they misbehave.

This would entirely eliminate spam and ghost jobs - suddenly everyone would be magically really responsive and polite.

You have to think through the applicant issue. As a hiring manager every time I post a job i get hundreds of applicants and most are not viable for different reasons. A verified listing does nothing to help me deal with the influx of low quality and fake applicants.

Verified how?

The poster has an account? No

The poster has confirmed an email address? No

The poster has a confirmed email address that is associable to the business? Maybe

The poster has a confirmed email address that is associable to the business and their name is verifiable as HR/Hiring Manager/Someone in a legitimate position to post this offer? Sure

the job-to-be-done is connecting the job to the right person. Not job verification.

I built a mobile app dev team in fintech years ago. I remember one person was literally selling their house and moving and was looking for a job. Call it luck, serendipitous, what you will, but the "connection" was made at the right time, right place.

How do we solve that problem more effectively? Cuz right now it's a roll of the dice, constant linkedin messages, etc.

What’s an example of a job scam? How does the scammer benefits from it? I have never heard of this, just looking to learn more about it.

https://www.news.google.com/search?q=ghost+jobs - ghost jobs are a real problem - I don't know if this is the solution.

Hiring is so broken that this just isn't enough. We really need an IETF RFC for open positions. A full-blown TCP-like protocol for an open position, with TTL, SYN ACK handshakes, and data encryption. Anything else is half-assing it. I'm only half joking. It's pretty bad today.

Otta in the UK (now eaten by the inexplicably-named Welcome to the Jungle) used to have a very involved vetting process during company onboarding, and I could verify that it was a great service as both a candidate and a hiring manager. To replicate what you want ("every listing is verified") there's no silver bullet but a good vetting process like that goes a long way.

Another site I like is cord.com, which seems to prioritise companies where recruiters are active on that website, I've had a good experience with that one as well, as you get to chat with an actual recruiter in a matter of hours or days.

I don’t want my application to be swallowed up in the deluge of bot applications either tho. Can you verify the other applicants too even maybe clearing that they meet a minimal qualification so my qualifying application actually gets reviewed?

Not only would I use it, but I would gladly help you build it :) @ra0x3 on Github

No. Ghost jobs are "verified", too.

Ask yourself why this isn't the way already. Obviously everyone would rather only see and apply to verified listings, so why don't job boards work like that?

Maybe job advertisers don't want to verify, maybe it's too much hassle, maybe it costs so much to verify that you need to charge too much for listings, maybe verified listings don't scale.

It's all fine to ask what-ifs like this, but since this is obviously the good thing, you need to come with a strategy for how you'll actually achieve it.

What does "verified" mean here? You can verify that a real company posted that job, but you can't verify whether it is fake in the sense that they really have an H1B candidate they really want for the position and they are just advertising it to meet legal requirements.

How do you verify? A legit company CAN post ghost jobs.

What jobs? There's barely any jobs

I'll do you one better. This would be the ONLY job board I use.

This won't help in countries like Singapore.

When you are a jobseeker, yes, you don't want to apply for job post that is destined for internal transfer.

When you are someone who is in the process of internal transfer, you want this JD has many applicants to prove to the government that this roles has applicants but they are not as strong as the one being transferred.

When you are the hiring manager, you want the process to be finished quickly, whether it is the internal transfer you like, or hiring externally.

This so called verified board stop the transfer from happening.

If you are the outside applicants, great. If you are the one being internal transfer, you want to burn this board.

For record, I have been both side of the picture. Transferred to Singapore and now looking for job, and also as a hiring manager. So I know the pain from all angle.

I would use it if it gives marker for time-to-respond, time-to-hire etc metrics. Metrics not from the company but verified and from others.

I am building something in this space: teeming.ai/jobs

While we are focused specifically on technical roles in AI startups, and we don't "verify" per se, we do enrich jobs data with investor-grade intelligence on the startups themselves, so you can see which companies have legitimate backing.

Cornell ILR is trying to build out a job board [0] like this -- but I feel like it's failing because it's simply an aggregator of other job boards, with limited value add.

[0] https://jobsearchplatform.ilr.cornell.edu/