How Nextdoor reduced racist posts - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/340171/how-nextdoor-reduced-racial-profiling/ <comment><USER2> Finally! This was one of the reasons I stopped actively using Nextdoor. My neighborhood in Denver is composed of a large group of elderly white people (who all seem to use Nextdoor somehow) and then a diverse group of people who have moved into this lower income neighborhood as the old people have passed away. The amount of profiling was painful. We had a black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder and she posted to nextdoor that she thought her house was getting cased to be robbed (and the police and Nextdoor have a partnership in our area). Hopefully this helps some.

<comment><USER3> > black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked > a neighbor to borrow a ladder

I think there's a problem with the police, not Nextdoor, here. I mean, ok, somebody asked to check out suspicious person (and police, with their experience, should know how (non-)reliable such reports usually are) and they did. But picking the person up - which I understand means detaining the person - is decision that the police officer responding is making. No reporter can make such decision. And if this decision leads to innocent man borrowing a ladder being detained - this is not really reporter's fault, it's the police being unprofessional.

<comment><USER4> From my perspective as a black man the problem is someone thinking a black man is suspicious for no reason other than that he's black.

<comment><USER5> You are making an assumption that there was no other reason. OP stated the man was mentally handicapped. Isn't it possible he was also acting strangely?

<comment><USER6> A reasonable assumption given that the OP didn't give any other reason. Are you assuming there was another reason?

<comment><USER3> We don't know anything about the reasons - we have only third-party information, which describes that some called the police on a mentally challenged person who had no ill intent, and that person also was black. Maybe racism added to the picture - quite possible, maybe not - it's impossible to tell from just this. It is a fact that there are many cases when black people are treated with prejudice, it is also a fact that there are many cases where mentally ill people are treated with prejudice, and it is also a fact that there are many cases where there are misunderstandings between people not caused by racism or anything like that. If you're a lone elderly woman and see somebody going about your property that you don't know and behaving weirdly, you might feel threatened, whether it's warranted or not. Surely, race _may_ have played a role, but we don't have any real reason to conclude either way without knowing first-person accounts.

<comment><USER7> You're trying really hard to justify how this isn't racism. The poster lives there and knows these people, take it or leave it, your opinion isn't valuable.

<comment><USER8> What he's saying is that we don't know. Innocent until proven guilty, maybe?

<comment><USER7> This isn't a courtroom, it's OP's anecdote. Stop concern trolling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I didn't know what nextdoor was (nor do I live where it exists) but I see what seems to be a fundamental error:

\- They claim to have reduced "racist posts" by 75%.

\- They say they accomplished this by asking extra questions whenever a racial descriptor was used.

In other words they simply made it harder to post when using a racial descriptor than not and claim this is a great reduction in racist posting. As a software developer I'm well aware of one thing: the more complicated I make a feature's interface be, the fewer people are going to use it. Without them having enabled the extra difficulty for all posting regardless of having used the racial descriptor or not, they're simply looking at people who don't post more using race not because they're racist but because they're placing an artificial hurdle associated with that.

Now, if they simply wanted for people not to describe race they should've simply removed it from the options; they seem to be so proud of effectively doing that but in a (thinly) veiled way, as I understand it they're saying that any posts that include race of the individual are racist.

Am I missing something obvious here?

<comment><USER10> Nextdoor "suspicious activity" reports were notorious for racist reports that should never have been made. "Everyone be on the look out! I saw a black man walking around in our neighborhood, possibly looking for houses to rob."

If the UI helps people realize that a black man walking down the street is not suspicious activity and should not be reported as such, then it is doing its job effectively.

<comment><USER11> How exactly does that work, given Google Streetview

<comment><USER12> I really don't understand what you mean by this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had to quit Nextdoor. The same small cabal of loudmouths was overwhelming the forums with strong (yet uninformed) opinions, reflex hatred of anything signalling change, and a general seething that bordered on xenophobia. I expect some NIMBYism, but this was outrageously militant hatred of the future masquerading as quaint pride.

Nextdoor also seems to give people strange priorities for civic engagement. Winning an argument on Nextdoor doesn't change policy...speaking at Council/School Board meetings does, or better yet, running in an election.

Lots of people on our local Nextdoor seemed frustrated that the Council were voting contrary to some conclusion that was reached on the site. They failed to realize they needed to be making arguments where it mattered - at Council meetings, not online in some private forum.

<comment><USER14> Right, exactly! The one thing Nextdoor taught me is that people are truly just as awful as you could imagine. I have lived in nice neighborhoods -- as I imagine a fair amount of HN readers do -- and the blase of outright totally racist posts just... Well, it was just shocking, and I have to say that I'm not shocked by very many things. That some people _know_ that they're posting to their physical _neighbors_ and still saying the things they say... It's almost like they live on another planet altogether. Now, another very weird thing is that I've moved into a new neighborhood literally down the street from my old one, and I was equally shocked to learn that this particular neighborhood is totally reasonable, and I haven't even seen a single racist hate-post.

Nextdoor definitely exposed me to the racist, backwards reality of living among old, wealthy, scared, white people.

<comment><USER15> Use it to lie to them about when elections are.

The thing that's worse about elections being won by idiots and racists is now you know that most people around you are idiots, racists, or happy to stand next to the racist idiots.

<comment><USER14> I regret that I can only upvote your comment a single time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Our company recently did a trial of looking for unconscious bias when we are making decisions, especially in terms of hiring practices. We all took a test to see if we had any unconscious bias toward gender and then discussed our results as a group. What really stuck with me is not that we have these sort of tendencies, but how shocked most people were at their own results. Most men in the room trended toward a bias toward men and women toward women. That shouldn't be that surprising really, but many were very disappointed in their results.

I've been thinking it would be good to do another round of that with the race test, especially considering how predominately white our workplace is. I don't believe everyone is actively trying to be racist or sexist (though some certainly are), but we might not realize that we're doing that on an unconscious level.

The tests are available here if you'd like to give it a try yourself, doesn't take very long. [https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html)

<comment><USER17> Inside the German version there is a test for biases against Western or Eastern Germany. I knew that I had a bias, but I was surprised that I found it that difficult when moving a bunch of Eastern German cities to one group to associate negative things to the group with the Western German cities.

The test might not be totally fair, though. Is it actually a bias if it is based on facts? Soviet architecture, higher unemployment, high rate of extremism, lower buying power, less people, people moving to the West, the list goes on and on. I think stereotypes and preconceived notions are bad most of the time, but I see no reason to get rid of the ones that are actually true for political correctness.

<comment><USER18> What is the german version of nextdoor? I've never heard of such a thing.

<comment><USER19> I think he's referring to the german version of the implicit association test

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This could work on HN too. A simple list of combinations of keywords (such as "Node.js" and "shit") detected in a comment submission could trigger a confirmation dialog: "Are you sure this is a meaningful contribution?"

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure Node.js is a meaningful contribution, no. :)

<comment><USER22> That's the joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's interesting how different neighborhoods can be in the same city. In Seattle, my old neighborhood's board (First Hill) was vastly different than that of Ballard, to the point where I wasn't sure my friends who lived there were talking about the same site. The latter sounded like it was filled entirely with militant, yet simultaneously skittish NIMBYers, while mine was filled with park get-togethers and lost puppies. And since you could only see one neighborhood, the other experience was invisible to me.

<comment><USER24> I live in the Central District of Seattle and a friend, who made an account and lets me log in so I can read, lives in Wallingford. The differences are appalling. The CD has its share of minor crime but reports of suspicious activity are accompanied by descriptions beyond race or, sometimes, security camera output. This is mixed in with posts about giveaways, contractor recommendations, and Metro bus reroutes due to construction.

Meanwhile, my friend's account showed lots of posts like described here. Oh, and the slagging on the homeless was just vile. I have screenshots of several examples but I don't want Nextdoor to go all Erica Barnett on me and ban accounts so I leave them out. But the police department had a lot more "community forums" on the Wallingford part of Nextdoor than the CD's...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Washington Post covering the same story:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2016/08/26...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2016/08/26/how-this-social-network-for-neighborhoods-is-trying-to- fix-its-racism-problem/)

\----

And also the WP covering a similar problem in Georgetown (a wealthy district in Washington):

* The secret surveillance of 'suspicious' blacks in one of the nation's poshest neighborhoods

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the- secre...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secret- surveillance-of-suspicious-blacks-in-one-of-the-nations-poshest- neighborhoods/2015/10/13/2e47236c-6c4d-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html)

* The black man arrested in Georgetown because he looked like a shoplifter

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the- black...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-black-man- arrested-in-georgetown-because-he-looked-like-a- shoplifter/2015/10/16/0a93fd00-7409-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html)

* Georgetown social network accused of racial profiling is suspended

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/georgetown-social- netwo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/georgetown-social-network- accused-of-racial-profiling-is- suspended/2015/10/19/7a8865a2-7674-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html)

(Wow. What is the shortest possible Washington Post URL?)

</comment><comment><USER26> Side note, brilliant marketing. This is such a hot-button topic, that although I disagree fundamentally with their solution, it will definitely have a lot of people talking about it.

I wish he had gone into more details about what counts as a "racist post." He seems to imply that people were just saying "black dude walking around." But would "black man peering into parked cars" also be flagged? And do those extra barriers, existing solely because of the word "black", lower the reporting rate of those kinds of posts?

<comment><USER27> Or "man peering into black cars".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great to see design changes that have a positive social impact.

I really like Nextdoor, it's one of the few social networks I feel good using.

</comment><comment><USER29> While I laud the goals, it's sort of disappointing to see such adherence to the idea that suppressing the expression of racism is going to fix it.

<comment><USER30> A racist crime report will have real world consequences though - it's not just thoughts in someones head.

It will involve other people and potentially the police.

<comment><USER21> Remember, these kinds of racially biased reports can get people _killed_. That's not insignificant.

<comment><USER3> Reports don't get people killed. People (usually, police) shooting other people get people killed. Reporter has no control (unless they specifically and purposely misrepresent the situation, e.g. falsely reporting somebody firing a gun when they have none) over police actions. The police should bear the responsibility for the outcomes, not reporters or online platform or any other factor that did not actually make a decision to pull the trigger.

<comment><USER31> Are plane crashes are only caused by gravity, or is that engine that caught fire somehow related?

Please, don't be pedantic. Police make mistakes, and have their own biases, to boot. If you call them on some random non-white person in your neighborhood, and disaster ensues, you're partly culpable.

<comment><USER3> It's not pedantry. Gravity has no will and no choice, thus blaming gravity is useless. Police does have will and choice - it's not a law of nature that if you call the police they'll kill somebody, police is not a gun or any other mechanism that you just fire. These are people, who have free will, minds and responsibility for their actions. That's the whole point, only humans can take blame, and when their choices result in bad results, they _should_ take blame for their choices, not redirect it to others.

> Police make mistakes, and have their own biases, to boot.

You say it as if it's some kind of excuse. It's funny that for reporter have biases is a culpable offense, but for the police it comes out as a defense instead. It doesn't work this way. In fact, random civilians have full right to be wrong, police are (or supposed to be) trained professionals that are paid to be better than civilians at this. So for them to behave worse than a random civilian should be a firing offense, not an excuse.

> If you call them on some random non-white person in your neighborhood, and > disaster ensues, you're partly culpable.

Nope. The police function is to protect people. If they instead hurt innocent people, this is their fault, not somebody's that called on their direct and proper function. Their refusal to perform the function is their fault. Just as if you walk on the street and get mugged, you are not "partly culpable", because you could've walked on other street or stayed home - people who mugged you are fully culpable, because it was their choice to do it.

If you assign blame at the wrong place, they only result would be that people that need to change won't change, and you get more of the same problem. Which we are amply witnessing right now.

<comment><USER31> But the sad reality is whether it's a mistake or prejudice, police wield deadly force, so calling them always has the possibility of someone dying.

Should they be held to a higher standard? Yes. But many aren't, and until that happens, thinking otherwise is wishful or naive. If you call the police, and it spirals out of control, you DO bear some measure of responsibility. Not as much as the actual police, but it's not zero, either, especially if your call is racially motivated.

Mugging isn't a counterexample, because the mugger and the muggee have completely opposite desires in the situation. Nobody calls up a mugger and invites them to their neighborhood. Whereas, when you call the cops, you're somewhat in alignment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, it looks like they define racist post as:

The company decided to define it as descriptions of criminal behavior that don't have sufficient description, i.e. "dark-skinned man broke into a car" or a detailed description of someone, including race, that fails to describe them doing something sufficiently criminal.

I.e. it is a description that mentions race and lacks either: a) specific criminal behavior or b) other non-race details.

In this case, no wonder that forcing people to provide these details reduces number of such posts - it's practically guaranteed by the very definition!

I also wonder about this:

Nextdoor is aware of "two instances of racial profiling that had slipped through its algorithms in the last few months."

Nextdoor is a pretty large network. And they have quite a lot of people there, tens if not hundreds of thousands at least. And only _two_ cases of profiling in several months, less then one case per month over whole network? It's either nextdoor users actually are nearly saints in this regard, at least compared to regular population, or they are humblebragging, or the problem itself is really minuscule, or they are blind to it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is Nextdoor wise to pursue this end? (pdf) [http://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna- cdn.com/wp-c...](http://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Color-Of-Crime-2016.pdf)

Synopsis: [http://www.amren.com/the-color-of-crime/](http://www.amren.com/the- color-of-crime/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I understand that it's racial bias to assume that someone is more likely to commit a crime given the color of their skin, but at the same time given that thats a reasonable assumption, I also think it's very reasonable to put your own safety above social progress.

Are my priorities not inline?

</comment><comment><USER34> I didn't even know Nextdoor was a thing until I saw this post. Where, once logged in, would I look to see random people being reported as suspicious by my neighbors?

<comment><USER35> Well, you can't get an account until you validate your postal address, then you only get access to posts from your neighborhood and adjoining neighborhoods.

Once you've signed up, if you install the app, you can configure push notifications about crimes in progress. You can also get emails for urgent things, if you prefer.

Whether this improves, or diminishes, security and quality of life relative to reading your local newspaper's coverage, is unclear to me. Even when it's not subtly racist or ageist profiling, I've never found the alerts to be actionable.

But the hyperlocal idea is at least an interesting one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Who decides what 'racism' is?

It's a pretty tricky thing.

Should our corporate overlords be making this decision?

Outside of hate speech, which has some legal parameters, this is pretty tough.

Especially if it's people's personal communications.

Some people think that speaking out against 'Black Lives Matter' is racist, while others think that 'Black Lives Matter' is in fact racist.

It's a thin line.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if they're just scanning for the word "black" or other races too.

Edit:

I answer my own question pretty quickly but it led to a second thought. I'm curious if the reduction is just people not reporting things because there are more steps now.

<comment><USER38> It says right on the article.

"Others actually had their posts scanned for mentions of race (based on a list of hundreds of terms Nextdoor came up with)"

Edit: You edited your post. Your original comment I was replying to said something along the lines of "I wonder if they're just scanning for the word "black" or other races too."

<comment><USER37> Shoot sorry about that, I hadn't seen your comment. I'll revert my post.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Hate Tech Recruiters - <AUTHOR> http://obsceneart.net/quotes/578 <comment><USER4> I hate how recruiters use a lot of words tell you absolutely nothing about the position and make up lies to make you feel like you're special. Below is a boiler-plate message I got from a lame tech recruiter, followed by my snarky response.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

 _My associate forward me your contact info. and the hiring VP of Engineering is interested in your technical background for a senior position._

 _The company I'm working for is very successful, profitable and well funded by several top VCs. Also can you please email me your current resume in word so I can forward it to the hiring VP of Engineering so he can review it, the resume he has is a bit dated..._

 _The compensation is excellent with great stock options, bonus, 401k and comprehensive package. I can call you with all the details on the position and company, please let me know the best # to call you at._

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Let me see if I get this. You're telling me that an unnamed associate told you that an nameless VP of Engineering at an unspecified company thinks I'm great and has a job that pays an uncertain salary.

Please call me at my undisclosed phone number so we can discuss my unmentionable thoughts on this matter.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if you could send them a resume like

      Your Name
      United States

      Education:
         Really relevant degree from a top rated university

      Experience:
         5 years doing excellent work at a company that has
         a strong reputation for this kind of work. I used
         skills that are in the most demand by top companies.
         Responsibilities included delivering really innovative
         products on time and under budget. Received many
         awards from peers and management.

         3 years as a rockstar engineer with a company that
         made the cover of a widely read technical journal.
         Papers that I wrote were given best paper awards at
         some of the best industry conferences.

         Interned with one of the leading Internet companies
         that reach out to a significant portion of the billions
         of people that use the Internet. Applied the latest
         software development tools and methodologies to the
         companies most profitable product.

<comment><USER6> I think I am going to start answering a couple of offers this way once in a while just to blow some steam :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do hope that I'm not alone in taking the opposite position as a default. I love recruiters, the sincere ones at least, and the insincere one's have never been a particular bother to dispose of. What remains, in my mind, is at least a little flattering.

I had a long comment I was making so I turned it into a post. I hope this sort of thing isn't improper on HN, but here is why I love recruiters (and a couple of exampels of the replies I give to them):

<http://simonsarris.com/blog/626-why-i-love-recruiters>

(or if you wanted to discuss) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4434048>

<comment><USER8> I agree wholeheartedly. That there are lazy recruiters should be no more of an indictment of technical recruiting than the current state of iTunes is of software development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having been both a developer and a hiring manager, I've come to the uneasy acceptance that recruiting is necessary a lot of the time. However, recruiters that I've dealt with I've personally vetted as being decent folks who don't resort to this type of spam.

I become truly depressed when I commiserate with other hiring types. When I bemoan the general horribleness of the recruiting industry as exampled by these bottom-feeders, the other party simple sighs and goes "yeah, but that's just how it is" Why is this acceptable? Why hasn't this industry been disrupted yet? It's a huge, HUGE market, yet I haven't seen any significant innovation in it except for yet another job site that pops up occasionally.

<comment><USER10> The problem is that disruption generally means automation, and there's no good way to automate the developer recruitment process. To really be good, recruiters need to have enough of a technical background to understand what they're looking for and take the time to do research and personalize each pitch. Sites like Github are the most useful and potentially most disruptive recruiting tools, because they take work that used to be hidden away or scattered all over the Internet and make it public, centralized, and easily searchable. Most recruiters don't know how to use those tools effectively, though, because they can't understand the data they're looking at, and aren't good enough storytellers to make just a few pitches per day and be confident that some of them will land.

<comment><USER11> Based on the quality of recruiters I've dealt with I honestly think you could automate their job comPletely. They seem to do key word searches to find my resume and have zero idea about development tools, process, and technique. At least a computer would know the difference between Java and JavaScript or that asking me if I prefer VB.NET or ASP.NET is a nonsensical question.

<comment><USER12> Actual recruiter cold-call question in 2011: "So Rails, is that like Java?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My company has been using a recruiter to try to fill two openings; one for a Rails developer, and one for embedded work. Weeks passed, and they hadn't sent us a single résumé. They claimed they were just being really thorough at screening out unqualified candidates.

A few more weeks without résumés passed, and we finally confronted them about the lack of candidates. They explained that despite their best efforts they couldn't find any embedded device developers who were also senior Rails developers.

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

</comment><comment><USER14> I probably get 3-4 inquiries a week from recruiters. About 2/3 from LinkedIn. I suspect that most software engineers in the Bay Area (and other hot markets) share my experience.

I usually politely ignore them. I changed jobs a few months ago and during that process I talked with a few. Not surprisingly, there are good ones and bad ones. That's the final word on it I think. Not all recruiters are idiots and scumbags. Not even most of them.

The worst ones, to me, were the ones that just spammed me with any remotely- related job instead of curating and sending me what I'm looking for. I also loath it when they give me pep-talk style, "Just be on time and don't sound too arrogant or cocky." Seriously? I'm a professional with a decade experience. This is a highly paid job. You're not talking to a University Career Fair candidate.

For some, I cut off contact. For others, I told them to remember me and contact me if they had anything that matched very specific job descriptions or outlandishly high salaries. Others I worked with pleasantly.

The best, to me, were internal recruiters and recruiters working at VC firms. Both of them have a deeper interest and better connections.

<comment><USER15> I've got what seems like a good solution. At the very top of my resume and on Linkedin I have a link titled 'Note to recruiters'. It is pretty trivial to tell if the recruiter actually read it (after all the majority are clueless/useless). I also add their domain to my email server blocklist. (After all if the recruiter is unable to recruit competent recruiters - <USER2> own industry - then why would I trust them for anything else?)

The content also helps ensure I am the right person for good recruiters - <USER3> example it points out I only want to work for small companies/startups and why.

Some of the things I put down are that I want the company names (so I can google them), I'm not sending a resume in Word format, phone calls won't happen until there are enough details, and including long details about industry concepts that can be googled (eg virtualization) is useless. <http://www.rogerbinns.com/recruiters.html>

<comment><USER8> SPELLING PEDANT IRONY: you (rightly) upbraid recruiters who use sloppy spelling, but you misspell "hustle" in the same letter.

<comment><USER15> You are the first person to notice in the many years that has been up. I am of course ashamed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You should have posted your question in an attachment labeled 'resume'. Hopefully then he will have read it.

If instead he blindly sends it to the client you won't have to worry about him much longer;<).

<comment><USER17> He definitely _read_ those mails. He just doesn't care, in the slightest, if he happens to annoy you. So he sees no reason to respond.

<comment><USER5> And worse if they _told_ you the source then you would figure out how to make that source stop giving our your information and might even tell your friends and a that would make his life less fun. Clearly the OP isn't actually interested in the job so not responding is the best strategy.

<comment><USER18> I've found that it's more blatant than that. Often their "source" is LinkedIn or Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> On the bright side, you have a skillset that is highly in demand. There are worse problems to have than being bombarded by job offers :)

<comment><USER20> Recruiter spam != bombarded by job offers. Far from it, in fact. The majority of third-party recruiter emails I receive are for openings that have very little to do with my actual skillset[1]. Even the ones that do match never worked out for me.

Getting bombarded my emails from internal recruiters at major companies is a different story, but still far from being offers.

[1] I'm particularly tired of the ones who were sending me 6-month contract Django developer openings just because I put Python on my resume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The worst recruiter experience I ever had was in 2000-- admittedly the height of a very tight labor market. The recruiter sent me a pile of resumes. One of them was the resume of a person we had recently hired.

I don't know where the recruiter got the resume. But he wasn't aware that we had already hired the guy. Recruiters used to do things like that-- hang on to your resume and send it around even if you aren't looking for a job. The results could be embarrassing. I think social media has at least helped them avoid that mistake, but it tells you a lot about how much they care.

I used to always say, avoid the recruiter and ask for a signing bonus. If you don't come from a recruiter employers can afford to pay that fee to you. I think everybody knows that now.

<comment><USER22> How does one avoid the recruiter?

<comment><USER23> There are few things you can do:

* don't leave your CV (especially in word format) in any job board

* send your CV directly to the companies/startups via email

* buy a twilio number, setup call forwarding on that and use it as a disposable phone number in your CV. After you've got a job, you can delete the number.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> i got 99 problems but recruiters spamming me with job opportunities ain't one.

given the economy and the unemployment rate, i'm thankful for what i've got.

just a bit of perspective

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't stand recruiting houses like this, but I _love_ working with in-house recruiters. The times I've worked with a recruiter who's actually employed by the company I'm interviewing at, they have:

\- Asked intelligent questions \- Followed up in a timely manner \- Helped out when flights were delayed traveling to an interview (arranged hotel) \- Been unfailingly polite and helpful

On the other hand, I have never once had a good experience with a dedicated recruiting firm. So maybe all the good ones are working for tech (or other domain) companies?

</comment><comment><USER26> tl;dr: While not all recruiters are bad, I was better off just directly applying to companies and avoiding recruiters as much as possible.

A couple of months ago, I was interested in what the SF market had to offer, and I started responding to some of the emails coming my way.

Over the three month period, I've probably been approached by 3 retained recruiters and 10 contingent recruiters. All the retained recruiters (i.e. internal company recruiters) were thorough, thoughtful, and curated the opportunities to my career goals. Not only did they make sure that I was a qualified for the job, they made sure from the get go that I'm a good cultural fit and the position aligns with my personal goals.

Contingent recruiters, on the other hand, rarely asked what I wanted to do. Every single interview that they'd supposedly set up for would fall through, either because they didn't double check the position's needs or that they had communication problems with the hiring company. Additionally, the recruiters' coworkers would call me in the middle of the day several times a week to tell me about some new opportunities. I was still working at the time, and it was annoying to constantly step out of the office to hear nothing substantial. The whole process left me feeling like I was just a piece of meat.

In the end, I had a much better experience just getting a list of companies that were hiring from the recruiter and directly applying with the companies I was interested in myself. When the HR asks how I was referred, I'd usually mention the recruiter out of karma. If I were to do it again, I'd probably avoid the recruiters altogether and go directly for the companies I actually care about.

</comment><comment><USER27> When they answer this question, my experience is that the answer is "it's a trade secret."

Even when you start with, "look, the only way to get this number is by scraping it from my online resume --"

"I'm sorry, that's a trade secret and I can't tell you where--"

"No, look, I don't care, but _take me off your list_."

"Oh. Right."

</comment><comment><USER28> This sort of thing is exactly why we're creating matchist (matchist.com). If you've ever worked as freelance developer with a recruiter to help you find gigs, you've probably had the recruiter propose some Java work because you had Javascript on your resume.

#facepalm

</comment><comment><USER22> My personal favorite is the recruiters that don't seem to go past the skills section on a linked in profile.

"I noticed your profile - you have a nice background in software engineering, specifically in core production environments. I have clients looking for Senior Engineers who know the cutting edge technologies, and have a passion for making great software."

I'm graduating next year, my last job was an internship, and I do mobile development (seriously everything on my resume is an app or mobile website). Its like they don't spend more than 2 seconds on your profile.

</comment><comment><USER29> I recently a got from a recruiter asking me if I had 8 years of Android development experience. I laughed so hard on the phone, she got offended

</comment><comment><USER30> _1607 E. Big Beaver Road, Suite 250, Troy, MI 48083_

Good old Big Beaver Road, coincidently, Exit 69 off of I-75 :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Mee too, but this is nothing, recruiters spam call me at Office phone at the middle of the day :(

</comment><comment><USER32> I LOVE recruiters. They are working hard to get ME a job. Do I talk to them? All the time.

I got some of my best jobs through recruiters.

The recruiter "spam" is not to try to con you out of money. They are trying to get you more money.

Seriously what is wrong with you people.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've found recruiters often use Domain Tools to look up historically available WHOIS information. I'm not sure if it's legal for Domain Tools to cache that stuff if it's been removed by the owner.

</comment><comment><USER34> Boo hoo, someone didn't reply to you within 6 working days during holiday season. Obviously they are idiots!!

</comment><comment><USER35> Their emails (and by extension yours) are probably getting picked up in their spam filter.

</comment><comment><USER36> You need to call. Recruiters are verbal. Reading? Not so much.

<comment><USER37> Recruiters want to get you on the phone because it's in their tactical interest, not because they are illiterate.

<comment><USER38> Actually, my personal, unscientific, experience indicates a fairly high correlation between being a recruiter and not being able to send an email without spelling or grammar errors (unless it is a pre-existing template, in which case it'll be damn obvious cause they are so poor at adjusting the font of the mail merged part appropriately for it to not blatantly show.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Recruiting : The one industry in dire need of disruption.

My bet is on LinkedIn

<comment><USER18> I'm not convinced. To me, LinkedIn is exacerbating the problem rather than providing any help. Instead of trolling Monster and spamming anyone with a resume out there, they're doing keyword searches on LinkedIn and spamming anyone whose name shows up.</comment></comment>


An exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-157_Chandra_Update.html

<comment> DanI-S Does anyone know how this compares with NASA's usual routine for announcing cool discoveries? The internet seems to be getting all excited about this, but if this kind of vague press conference announcement is just their standard way of announcing a new funky-looking cloud of gas, a lot of UFO hunters are going to be disappointed...

Edit: Not that I don't personally find funky-looking clouds of gas fascinating, but if you google 'exceptional object' right now the top results are all conspiracy theory websites.

<comment><USER2> It's Nemesis.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(star)>

<comment><USER3> Do you have some insider information or you made this up? I believe it's a possibility, since Chandra is able to detect brown dwarfs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd say it was the two galaxy sized bubbles immediately above and below the plane of the Milky Way that were just discovered but they used the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope for those.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8125127/Giant- space...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8125127/Giant-space- bubbles-baffle-astronomers.html)

<comment><USER5> So what did NASA announce after all?

Edit: Apparently, this: [http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-299_CHANDRA.h...](http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-299_CHANDRA.html)

"Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence of the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood"

"The 30-year-old object is a remnant of SN 1979C, a supernova in the galaxy M100 approximately 50 million light years from Earth."

Well, pretty underwhelming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centred in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the centre of our galaxy. "What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and south of the galactic centre," said Doug Finkbeiner, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who first recognised the feature. "We don't fully understand their nature or origin..."_

Source: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoft...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8125431/Pictures- of-the-day-11-November-2010.html)

<comment><USER7> The press conference seems to be about a discovery by Chandra (X-ray), not Fermi (Gamma-ray), so it's probably about something different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My guess would be a nearby black hole.

<comment><USER9> That would be bad news, not that there'd likely be any danger of being "sucked in." That would be bad news because black holes can release large amounts of energy very quickly. A nearby black hole would greatly increase the risk of an event wiping out the human species or our biosphere.

<comment><USER10> think about how much tragic suffering occurs every day on this planet. think about how much lies behind and ahead of us. it's unfortunate every moment that humanity isn't wiped out.

<comment><USER11> Think about how much transcendent joy occurs every day on this planet. Think about how much beauty there is, how much to see, how much to experience. Every single moment is incredible, a (for lack of a better word) miracle defying the odds that we arose, gained intelligence, and lived long enough to think about it.

It's all a matter of perspective. (and no, I didn't downvote you)

<comment><USER10> this is a selfish appeal. think about how much profound suffering occurs every day on this planet. now consider that people who do not exist clearly cannot be bothered by not existing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could be a brown-dwarf-sized companion to our star, a possible answer for the relative scarcity of objects beyond 50 or so au.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hope "exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood" doesn't mean "big astereoid coming our way" ;)

<comment><USER13> That would be an earth shattering announcement if there was one. :-)

<comment><USER14> But probably not something an X-ray observatory would be announcing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> More information URL: <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html>

<comment><USER16> So much for what they announce as unusual:

10.26.10 "NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has observed an unusual galaxy cluster that contains a bright core of relatively cool gas surrounding a quasar called 3C 186. This is the most distant such object yet observed, and could provide insight into the triggering of quasars and the growth of galaxy clusters."

Stop the presses. :)

<comment><USER8> Hmm "the most distant such object yet observed" does not sound like something they would brand as "in our cosmic neighborhood".

<comment><USER16> I've made an argument about what wording they use about their discoveries, I haven't claimed that quote to match the currently announced one. It's just their latest news item on the page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Aliens!

</comment><comment><USER18> I take it this means "something exceptional that is not an iPad."</comment>