I applied to a bunch of companies last year, and was in the middle of the process with many of them when I decided on the company I was going to work for. I wrote them all an email notifying them, but thanking them for the opportunity to meet with them. A few startups didn't even bother responding back, but I did receive some nice emails back from some companies thanking me for letting them know, and wishing me luck at my job, and if things didn't work out, to contact them again.

I'm not saying I needed to be treated like royalty, but basic common courtesy goes a long way. As well, how you treat people that you don't need to treat well reflects on the type of company (and person) you really are.

This is really an underappreciated bit of wisdom here. The true nature of a person is revealed by how they treat those that are "beneath" them (socially) or are otherwise not useful to them. Someone who is rude and demanding to waitstaff, or rude to a stranger passing by is someone who will eventually turn on you once you are no longer beneficial to them. Take these instances as warnings.

> You say it's bad to treat people "below you" badly, but I think it's even worse to believe anyone's below you

That's why he put it in quotes. hackinthebochs never said he thinks they are below him, just that many people do, and treat them badly. You cannot deny that there are people who think this way or that there are not some standards that society in general uses to compare people.

Not a single response, not even to say "no longer looking, but thanks!" I can't think of anything in a professional context that is more rude or disrespectful. If I spent half an hour writing a customized email and giving you 100% of the information you need and you can't spend 30 seconds to tell me you're not interested, you're just a bad person. That's all there is to it.

From time to time I partake in the HN freelancer thread. Not that I ever got any business out of it. I still think in principle it would be nice to do business with fellow HNers, that's why I keep trying it.

Usually, I get about 2-3 inquiries per month from the Freelancer thread - by far most of these from people who apparently came through a search engine and aren't HN users at all. Of these, 2 are general carpet bombing mails, asking me for things that I didn't advertise and can't/won't provide ("would you like to move to Berlin and work as an entry-level tech support person?"). Sometimes, that leaves one real contact.

Here's where things start to get on my nerves: there will typically be an exchange of 3 to 4 emails back and forth. It starts with a project introduction (which is often excellently detailed), then we're moving on to references and code samples, then we're talking fees (even though I explicitly state them on my profile website), after which it's all "I'll totally do this project with you", and after that: nothing. In two cases, there were even 30+ minutes Skype conversations, all for nothing of course.

Last month I decided to do something different, be more proactive: I sent out emails to people looking for freelancers on HN. Same procedure (see above), same results. But I got something very interesting out of it: a few of them told me they received upwards of 30 applicants! Holy crap, even for the lamer job postings!

It's now clear to me why the freelancer thread doesn't work, at least for "normal" HNers like me. As a freelancer, there is so much competition, the chances of success are exceedingly slim. Companies are drowning in applicants. Of course they're going to choose either the cheapest one, or if you're lucky enough to inhabit something of a niche, the most famous one.

So why are they not responding? Why are they just breaking off communication after a short exchange? Because they don't have any reason to value our time. There are just so many of us.

As a freelancer myself, I know how annoying it is when your bank account is dwindling, you need work, but people take so long to get back to you, or don't get back to you at all. It also hurts that it is still a sellers market and you know if you hold out you'll find someone willing to pay a decent rate, but you spend all your meetings talking to people who want you to work for bargain basement prices.

On the other side - at one point I was working on a hand-curated freelancer marketplace. We posted jobs on other freelance sites to recruit the first few users for our platform. I got tons of responses, usually at least 50 for each posting. Some were clearly copy pasted, some had actually taken time to write out detailed responses. I did try and reply to everyone to tell if we wanted them on board or not, but it took a lot of time (the interface makes messaging lots of people slow). Morally I should have just spent an hour or two writing one liner replies to everyone, but the bigger issue was just the thought of all these desperate people looking for work was too depressing. So I preferred not to think about it and simply not reply to the people we weren't going to bring on board.

Was it acceptable? No, of course not. But I just wanted to show how the world looks when you're faced with a resume deluge.

Getting contract work online should be a last resort.

It's the same with commercial freelancer sites, by the way. Tons of lame projects, many of them quite shady or illegal, with absolute rock-bottom budgets and dozens of "developers" fighting over scraps.

Experiences like this make me think our profession truly is in the toilet right now. A view weeks ago I chided a commenter on HN for saying the software employment situation is a buyer's market and thus he has trouble treating programmers with respect. I can see why that is, though.

Dipping your toe in the water and exclaiming how it's so awful isn't constructive and just unnerves other people.

I obviously totally misunderstood this initial statement of yours somehow.

For what it's worth I just wanted to share my experiences. It's absolutely possible that I'm the only person who saw these problems and everybody else is having a positively marvelous time - that's why it's called anecdotal evidence. If that's true: sorry, I didn't want to give the wrong impression.

For example if, like in my case, you live in the middle of nowhere or with low expectations of pay (Montevideo, Uruguay).

All it takes is a reply like this:

    "Hello _______, We are very appreciative that you took the time to send us your _______. Once we get a chance to review your ______, we will contact if you we feel like you are a good fit.
    Best Regards,
    _____________"

I got the resume before the first phone screen... he did not do well.

I can understand a "personalized" response to be unrealistic. But at least a simple automatic e-mail saying "Thank you for applying, regretfully the position is now filled" or anything indicating "don't wait for an answer" should be the norm. Especially with a lot of large companies indicating that an answer could take up to 2 months.

All it takes is an auto-responding filter. It is one of the shittiest feelings to send a resume to a company and get no response. I've done it many times, and I have had many no-responses. The feeling never got less shitty.

There is a learning opportunity for me to align my expectations and my credentials to the jobs I applied to. If I could identify that major road block, I could fix it. I could apply to fewer positions knowing what was appropriate or not. Everyone else could too and there would be less resume traffic overall.

If all it took was to apply, there would definitely be an opportunity for a data market: I would create submissions for the sole purpose of getting the credential response. From there I could build a map of what the industry is hiring. With that I can sell resume coaching services. (Amongst other data sales.)

The most likely reason is to stay "in charge" of your interviewing process. If Johnny sends in a resume and he is unqualified, what do you say? "Thanks, Johnny, but you are not a fit for our organization. Best of luck!" Form letter. Awesome - that makes someone feel better? Okay... Anyway, here's the problem: Johnny writes back and asks, "What is it that I could have done differently?" Do you respond? If you do, what do you say when he writes back yet again (and again and again)?

"Scott - this is the kind of guy you want to hire! He's persistent!" Oh really? So that's all it takes to get the job you are hiring for - persistence? Of course not.

"But you can take a guy like that and train him - he'll be great, I bet!" Will he? What's your proof? He's already shown you that he's trying to punch above his weight and that he's okay with that. He's already shown you that he's kind of a PIA. What makes you so optimistic about his ability to learn?

The point is that there are lots of reasons that employers don't continue the dialog, but this is a major one. No company wants to pay someone $25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the Johnnys of the world ad infinitum. And as for companies getting interns to reply, that's just ridiculous IMO. What CEO wants interns to be in charge of replying to job applicants? That's awful. At BEST you can train them not to *#$& up a form letter.

When I'm hiring, I respond to each and every resume. 99% of them get a canned "Thanks for applying. Unfortunately, it's not a match, but we wish you the best of luck."

Is that so hard?

My personal answer? No. It's not.

You're programmers. Write a macro. Then tap the key.

> No company wants to pay someone $25,000-$100,000 a year to reply to the Johnnys of the world ad infinitum.

First, this is ludicrous; even if you're sending thousands or tens of thousands of these letters, you can have a process that doesn't cost but a penny or two more than REVIEWING the email in the first place does.

Second, any company that can't design good processes that work well and cheaply isn't a place where I want to work.

Yes, actually. To say that it isn't implies that either (a) you aren't doing much hiring, or (b) that the number of applicants you get is very small. For an admin position, we might get 150 applications. Of those, less than 50% will have met the stated job requirements/pre-reqs. Even if I were to automate it, how much time have I spent automating it? Maintaining it? And for each person, there's certainly a few seconds/minutes of "Let me make sure I get the name right..." And that's just one position. It is hard to do what you're saying, unless (a) you aren't doing much hiring, or (b) that the number of applicants you get are very small.

(I've spent 20+ years in the tech biz. I've probably hired a few hundred people myself. I've never been "too busy" to live up to the bare minimum professional standards of behavior. To me this smells less like being too busy - and more like being too arrogant.)

    But at least a simple automatic e-mail saying "Thank you for applying, regretfully the position is now filled" or anything indicating "don't wait for an answer" should be the norm. 

Let me frame this another way. Sometimes I find that Gmail doesn't always deliver my mail. It's rare, but it happens. A simple auto-reply can give people the peace of mind that they are at least being considered.

You respond back and say "Unfortunately, due to the high number of responses we received, we're unable to go into detail as to why we moved forward with some applicants and not others. We wish you the best in the future." Further responses go straight to the trash (unless they stand out enough to be placed on the never-hire-these-people-ever list).

I don't think you are rude and you are right I haven't done a lot of hiring but I have done numerous interviews along the years and applied dozens of times. As a matter of fact I am currently applying right now.

I understand your point about the personalized response saying explicitely "you are not fit for our organization" or even more "you lack this and that". It could be opening a door to a "negociation" and lead to a lot of lost time. And when you have dozens or hundreds or applicants it really is not possible.

But this kind of response goes a long way from a simple "the position has been filled" when it has been filled, even if it is a month afterwards. This helps the candidate to understand that the company is not interested in his application anymore.

In my opinion it shows a lot from the company and does not cost "that" much of time it the process is automated (and I think it should be for the majority of cases).

In particular, I consider this worthwhile for resumes submitted at various career fairs. The process employed there frequently comes down to handing over a paper resume and being told "Thank you for your resume, we'll digitize it and put it into our system." This is far from reassuring, particularly after the first few times you get clear proof that your resume was never digitized at all. A form note simply acknowledging the submission provides your applicants with confidence that their resume is truly in your possession and a better feeling than applying to a black hole.

It's the same with client relationships: we may be neck-deep in server fires at the moment, and know there's no way we'll be able to fix something today, let alone before the end of the week, but simply having someone reply "Yes, we'll handle this, and I'll take care of following up with the development team for you and get back with you shortly" goes a long, long way to putting a client at ease.

Isn't it a fundamental startup-culture tenet that the CEO should be a "whatever needs to be done" actor within the company?

To borrow Spolsky's yacht analogy, the captain has 40 people running around below deck to ensure that the engine keeps running, the beds get made, and the meals show up on time. You don't want your customers (your developers and your designers) to have to think about anything besides where they want to go and what to have for lunch.

But it'd be a pretty inefficient boat captain who tried to rebuild the engine and cook a 5-star meal at the same time.

I think you're taking this too far.

your statement is true if they have nothing else to do.

However, if the company needs money and the choice is between your CEO fundraising or answering emails then I'd rather have my CEO fundraising.

There are only so many hours in a day and you can't expect your CEO to do all tasks that no one else wants to do.

Is this allowed in the US? In several European countries, legislation on interns is very strict: they need to have a specific project to work on, that is not part of the day-to-day functions of the host company. This is to stop companies depressing the wage market by using unprotected interns instead of salaried workers.

So you can take an intern to design and launch a new recruitment process, or other "project" work, but not just to offload recurring tasks.

Well, do tell others. Where are the names?

If you ask 500 freelancers to spend a day making a quote for a months work, you just cost many times your contract value.

A suggestion:

A better way is to describe the contract, and provide a brief 'pre-qualification questionnaire' where a candidate proves that it is worth both your time proceeding.

After that, you invite bids from the top say 6 applicants, and work with them to get the best bid possible.

As an aside for freelancers, I recommend following Brennan Dunn's work:

http://brennandunn.com/ http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/the-blueprint

He does _so_ much for the freelancer community.

Part of doing business is servicing those who may not be paying customers. You must have that time margin built in. Is it rude for potential customers to not follow up, even to let us know nothing's happening? Maybe. I'd never call a lot back to let them know I was just prospecting, either.

If your freelance practice can't bear to lose time like this, you need to rethink your pricing or your chosen profession.

When someone calls and asks for days or weeks of my time to put a quote together (pre-sale & often without pay). And then, if the quote moves forward to billable work, there's an expectation that I'll immediately block off months of my time to hold up my end of the bargain.

I think the relationship is quite different than someone merely "selling something", and should be treated as such.

It's not just YC, it's founders all over.

I am often willing to give decent sized discounts for people who communicate well. I'll take the cut in pay for someone who is courteous and responds in a somewhat quickly manner. I should NOT be more excited and engaged about your project than you are. It has gotten to the point lately I will turn down sizable jobs because of their lack of communication. It isn't worth the hassle.