That Stack Overflow thing we launched a year ago? It's been going pretty well so far.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/11/stack-overflow-careers-amplifying-your-awesome.html
This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/11/stack-overflow-careers-amplifying-your-awesome.html
So Jeff, if I get this straight you want to charge me 29 USD if I want to post my resume on a new free service called Beta Careers?
Tell me Jeff, are you just joking around or do you really believe the community you helped foster is made up of complete idiots where you can just use the same decades old marketing weasel tactics and it not getting noticed?
I would tell you “good luck”, but there’s no need. You already hit jackpot. You created a large community and now are trying to get your money for it. I just wished in the meantime you hadn’t spent a few years talking to us about sharecroppers, corporate evil and shoddy business tactics. Because what it means is that you created a community on false pretenses. You fooled us.
Kind of disappointed with this post, I feel like I’m being “sold” something here rather than reading about your thoughts.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with Dice (apart from the poor styling), so why should I pay for something with WAY less employers that look there?
Keep up the great posts (not this one)…
“This sounds less promising than eternal-earthbound-pets: <a href=“http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/””>http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/"
Shock! Horror! Jeff is starting a for-profit website, and advertising it on his blog! How dare he use his time and effort to make money? Nobody else has ever done such a thing!
Welcome to capitalism. Vote with your wallet, and stop whinging.
Great work!
You could get more people to post their resumes if they could hide their resumes from their current employers :p.
For those who are unclear, I’ll update the post:
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Creating a public CV is and will always be 100% free. For an example, see Konrad’s, who posted his earlier, at http://careers.stackoverflow.com/klmr .
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Opting in to the private hiring manager search, if you want to, involves a small annual fee. This service is currently $29 for 3 years, and will always be free for students for 1 year.
So there is a free, public component and a private annual subscription component. The private subscription is only relevant to those actively seeking work, so why wouldn’t it be optional?
What we object to is what I think is a perception that we’re being deceived
There’s no deception. You can take your SO effort and turn it into a public CV, linked to your SO account, totally and completely free. That’s the intent – for programmers to be able to leverage the time they’ve spent on SO.
A few more examples:
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jongalloway
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/brandan
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/brentkeller
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/mfoord
None of these people needed to pay us a dime to post their CVs.
As for why we charge for the private employer search component, that’s explained in the faq:
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/faq
When hiring managers search through CVs, they want to know that they’re looking at active, serious job applicants. If it were free to post a CV, a lot of applicants that weren’t looking for jobs, or who knew that they had no reasonable chance of getting a job, would post them, making it harder for the employers to find serious applicants.
That’s why we charge a nominal amount to post. It is, however, absolutely guaranteed, and if you’re unhappy or don’t get the result you want, just let us know, and you’ll get your money back on the spot.
And if you don’t agree with this, there is no reason to use it. It is in no way required.
@Tom,
I think it’s a credit to Jeff that we’re bothering to complain.
If [insert evil company here] were to enact some policy I didn’t care for, I wouldn’t bother to complain. They were evil to begin with, and I wouldn’t be giving them money anyway.
But we thought Jeff was, well maybe not our friend, but at lease our fellow traveller. And we suspect he would like to continue to be. So, it makes sense
Hi Jeff,
Any plans to support hResume for the CVs?
hResume: http://microformats.org/wiki/hresume
-Jamie
Any plans to support hResume for the CVs?
Excellent idea, can you file it at http://meta.stackoverflow.com ? I’ll vote for it there.
Shameless self-promotion: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/klmr
Not complete by any means, just wanted to play with it a little. In my opionion, the free-form text fields invite to babble. Not something which has any place on a CV.
So the “engineers who like to solve difficult problems” phone number is: 01.876.8000. Or have I just totally, and very publicly embarrassed myself? 
Funny thing is, that doesn’t look like a valid phone number. So what’s the deal?
Come on, Jeff, you’re not charging because hiring managers want to know people are looking, you are charging because you can SELL the notion that the ones who paid are “prequalified” as being in the market and thus you can charge the buyer WAY more. Don’t insult our intelligence any more.
There is a MUCH stronger argument that people who are desperate will pay money - so you will get lower quality applicants. This is similar to the Twist thing Jason Calicanis ranted about - startups paying to pitch to angels. Granted, the cost here is kind of low, but the logic is incredibly flawed.
Since when did someone NOT actively looking ever stop good prospects and good companies from finding a match. Most time the best hires are people who aren’t looking. Also, the BEST applicants aren’t going to need your service - they have plenty of offers - so even though you can blow smoke up the asses of the hiring managers who are naive enough to believe what you are selling them - they won’t EVER get their hands on the best people if you charge any kind of fee.
Even with all the flaws of craigslist, monster, dice, etc, I prefer them (and my network of friends) over the a bait and switch feel of “stack overflow beta super-duper low price of only $29.99 and if you act now you get 4 turnip twaddlers for free” nonsense.
You’re alienating a host of people here. I hope the fees you collect from the buy side are worth it. But, please, spare us the song and dance about why you are charging users. There are better ways to work around the (non) issue of hiring managers thinking that they are better off with “pre-qualified” job searchers.
Really, how much time could it take to send an email to someone and ask if they are looking for a job or if they are willing to discuss an offer? Most of that can be automated. Unless there is something in the business model of how SO sells resumes that is totally brain-dead this should be a non-issue. If these companies were that good and that enlightened (like Jeff is trying to claim) then they’d have something to sell us and even if we weren’t actively looking then perhaps we’d be interested.
That brings up another point - many places are more interested in people who have jobs. For some reason those who are not employed or are looking are actually LESS desirable to companies than those who are happily employed. So this nonsense I hear from Jeff is just that - nonsense.
Keep ignoring the general unhappiness, Jeff. I suspect that you will do fine with charging companies lots of money to look at resumes. It is my hope that no one (except the desperate) will pay your $29.99 or $99.99 and that line that you feed to the hiring managers will begin to be shown for what it is.
I am reminded of the sleazy folks who patrol malls and other places and convince parents and kids that their little darlings have a shot at a modeling career but, first all they have to do is pay (some amount) for head shots or other stuff and then the future is theirs.
No thanks. I’ll be fine with the way hiring worked for me for the last 16 years.
Kind of annoyed I have a great job so I can’t (shouldn’t) use it 
Also agreeing with Mike, as in, I’m placed and have no use for it - at the moment. I can foresee howls of derision, scorn and “sell out” coming your way Jeff, but I hope not. I too am tired of dealing with employment ages who just throw acronym soup at you without realising how it all hangs together… Good luck with it!
Excellent idea, can you file it at http://meta.stackoverflow.com ?
Done!
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/28375/should-http-careers-stackoverflow-com-support-hresume
-Jamie
Jeff,
There’s nothing wrong with making money off a popular web site that you helped set up, even if it was off the backs of a willing community. However, surely when it’s at the expense of your own reputation it’s too high a price to pay. I think you are beginning to sell out on your own ideals.
Yes, we all have to make a living. Yes, we all need to pay the bills but you have something in this blog that money can’t buy - admiration, trust and respect. This is slowly being whittled away.
Stop for a moment focusing on the making money bit. Even if you made millions of dollars off this new venture you might end up losing yourself and us along the way.
There are tons of people who have made a lot more money than you and Joel could ever dream of making and I couldn’t give a hoot what any of them have to say. But I make a point of interrupting my busy day to listen to you.
You are worth much more to the world than another toss wad millionaire.
Don’t forget what is really important? Don’t sell yourself out.
There are already thousands of other smart people walking this planet who have made this compromise.
So what licence is all this CV info under?
@tim @disappointed do you have any concrete suggestions for how Jeff and the StackOverflow team can make a fair income while not “Selling out”? There’s nothing wrong with making money and I don’t understand exactly what your beef is.
Here’s one possible suggestion. I wonder if people feel this is less/more evil.
- Make CV completely free. Get rid of any fees for job posters.
- Remove search engine indexing of the CVs.
- Have employers pay to use the private search tool.
This seems to address the major complaints. Job seekers never pay a dime. Employers pay to search. The only downside is your CV is not publicly indexed by the major search engines. That seems fine to me as I can always send the link to my CV if I’m actively seeking a job.
re desperation:
It’s a truly desperate individual that can’t afford $9.67 a year. That’s about two beers at London prices. Or three decent golf balls. If, in the next three years, my $29 gets me one good job possibility then I’ll consider it money well-spent. I can’t begin to count the number of wasted trips I’ve made and pointless hours spent in interviews for inappropriate roles over the years. The chance that a potential employer is serious enough to identify SO as a potential source of quality candidates (and that they might consider me to be one such) is more than worth a trivial sum.
And if nothing happens? I’ve lost three golf balls, which is about par for the course.