<story><title>Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it</title><text>We&amp;#x27;re a fairly typical run-of-the-mill mid-size enterprise software vendor trying to hire for fully-remote SWEs in the &amp;quot;DevOps&amp;quot; software space (Linux, containers, k8s, yadda yadda). We post in the usual places including Who&amp;#x27;s Hiring but we haven&amp;#x27;t even managed to backfill a retirement from six months ago, and we&amp;#x27;re junior-heavy already. Benefits and salary are good (though salary isn&amp;#x27;t posted in the ad), and the people are great, though the work requires a reasonably deep understanding of the underlying platforms which a lot of people seem to dislike.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m wondering if the work being a higher percentage non-code is what&amp;#x27;s causing us trouble, if we&amp;#x27;re just rubbish at hiring in general, or if it&amp;#x27;s something else.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s everyone else&amp;#x27;s experience attracting applications from senior talent in this market, and what is everyone doing to increase their attractiveness?&lt;p&gt;Current hiring process:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Resume screened by in-house recruiter
  - 30m call with them
  - Resume passed up to engineering
  - Hour-long call with hiring manager (typically the engineering manager of the team the candidate would join)
  - Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate&amp;#x27;s choosing
  - Presentation of technical assignment to the team
  - Offer&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>s0rce</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don&amp;#x27;t want people primarily motivated by money...</text></item><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>POST THE SALARY.&lt;p&gt;Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment.&lt;p&gt;Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs.&lt;p&gt;They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an offer half of what the candidate is currently making.&lt;p&gt;You have to stand out from this, or you’re perceived as the same “waste of time” category.&lt;p&gt;You’re not hiring starving students. You’re hiring people with options and responsibilities.&lt;p&gt;Respect their time and value and they’ll consider your offer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>__d</author><text>Respectfully, I think that&amp;#x27;s nonsense.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s called &amp;quot;work&amp;quot; because it&amp;#x27;s what you do to get money.  It&amp;#x27;s not a hobby, nor an idealistic crusade (both of those are fine things, but they&amp;#x27;re different to &amp;quot;work&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;The reason you work is to get money.  That&amp;#x27;s the only motivation.  You might choose between different work options on another basis, but the reason you&amp;#x27;re there at all is money.&lt;p&gt;Anyone trying to recruit people who doesn&amp;#x27;t accept this will fail.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it</title><text>We&amp;#x27;re a fairly typical run-of-the-mill mid-size enterprise software vendor trying to hire for fully-remote SWEs in the &amp;quot;DevOps&amp;quot; software space (Linux, containers, k8s, yadda yadda). We post in the usual places including Who&amp;#x27;s Hiring but we haven&amp;#x27;t even managed to backfill a retirement from six months ago, and we&amp;#x27;re junior-heavy already. Benefits and salary are good (though salary isn&amp;#x27;t posted in the ad), and the people are great, though the work requires a reasonably deep understanding of the underlying platforms which a lot of people seem to dislike.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m wondering if the work being a higher percentage non-code is what&amp;#x27;s causing us trouble, if we&amp;#x27;re just rubbish at hiring in general, or if it&amp;#x27;s something else.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s everyone else&amp;#x27;s experience attracting applications from senior talent in this market, and what is everyone doing to increase their attractiveness?&lt;p&gt;Current hiring process:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  - Resume screened by in-house recruiter
  - 30m call with them
  - Resume passed up to engineering
  - Hour-long call with hiring manager (typically the engineering manager of the team the candidate would join)
  - Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate&amp;#x27;s choosing
  - Presentation of technical assignment to the team
  - Offer&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>s0rce</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don&amp;#x27;t want people primarily motivated by money...</text></item><item><author>jiggawatts</author><text>POST THE SALARY.&lt;p&gt;Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment.&lt;p&gt;Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs.&lt;p&gt;They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an offer half of what the candidate is currently making.&lt;p&gt;You have to stand out from this, or you’re perceived as the same “waste of time” category.&lt;p&gt;You’re not hiring starving students. You’re hiring people with options and responsibilities.&lt;p&gt;Respect their time and value and they’ll consider your offer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LargeWu</author><text>If I&amp;#x27;m making $XXX,XXX, why am I even going to waste my time if I think there&amp;#x27;s a decent chance you&amp;#x27;ll offer $XXX,XXX - 20,000?&lt;p&gt;I think what you&amp;#x27;ll find is that people aren&amp;#x27;t motivated by money, per se, but they have obligations: mortgages, car payments, retirement savings.  An established standard of living. Especially the more senior they get. I don&amp;#x27;t do better work for money, but at this point in my career you can be damned sure I&amp;#x27;m not going to lower my standard of living just to work at a company with free soda and a ping pong table. I&amp;#x27;d put up with a lot of bullshit in my current situation before taking a pay cut.&lt;p&gt;The unlikely exception would be a mission-driven company (if your company is for-profit, this is not you) that is highly congruent with my values and truly makes the world a better place.</text></comment>