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Ask HN: Why have no career network centered around missions and skills only?

by thorio on 10/12/22, 9:53 PM with 5 comments

Hey everyone,

The more I see LinkedIn getting filled up with useless pr spam and overly relatable nonsense, everyone mass-adding later sales prospects via duxsoup etc, I wonder if there can't be a place, that's focused singularly on ones skills and current activity/mission. Without all the cherry picked history of past projects and jobs.

I would love to have a place where I can really find people for certain skills or be informed about their current path. I don't care who has worked for whom, every now and then I just need someone to get a certain job done or that's heading in a certain direction to board ship together.

I feel like the social graph of networks like LinkedIn incentivices streamlined and exaggerated public CVs and bs posts way too much.

Am I the only one?

Best, Thorsten

  • by muzani on 10/12/22, 11:27 PM

    People change missions all the time. Currently I think wealth distribution is the biggest problem in my region, but I'm also down to work on say, healthier eating or climate change. And if someone comes to me with a (well-paid) idea for something less important like making a good mobile game or better job searches, I might switch to that.

    There's a lot of missions I haven't heard of until the interview, like one which was recycling thrown away mobile devices to detect poachers. Another was using apps as a way of distributing solar power in rural areas of Africa, so someone could choose to buy as much power as they had money for.

    Angel List actually provides a good middle ground for this, but I find that the response rate for both applicants and companies are low.

  • by gregjor on 10/12/22, 10:26 PM

    I won't defend LinkedIn, which always seemed useless to me. Recruiters and employers pay the bills at LinkedIn, so naturally the profiles and CVs get optimized for those customers. Get off LinkedIn and do the work, either finding good people for your company, or finding a good job.

    I will take issue with the idea that "skills" and "mission" have more meaning or value when matching people with jobs, compared to experience. When companies recruit they look for people who can add value to their business and work as an effective team member. A track record of adding value and getting along in an organization tells a story. "I know Rust" does not.

    No company goes out looking for someone who can write 2,000 more lines of Javascript next month. And interviewers generally don't care about what "missions" or career goals candidates might have. What they want are people who will contribute and not cause trouble, because the mission comes down to "make more money" (or "attract more investment capital") regardless of whatever high-minded ideals the company fluffs out their Mission Statement with.