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Comment by mahmud | Hacker News Reader

This is must be a new trend of ego-stroking stories on HN: first there was the "Interview your potential employer" story, then yesterdays "Ask them for code samples", and now this.

Look, if you're unemployed in this market, you can play coy all you want and "tease" would be employers, but that will not in anyway rewrite the power inequality to your favor. If you want "power", start your own company, freelance, or work for yourself in any other form. But right now, going through these lengths to play "hard to get" just makes you look like one of those unattractive people at night clubs who think being obnoxious to you makes them sexy.

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I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the job fair. In my mind, most programmers aren't great at walking up to 20 random new people; it's draining for people who aren't naturally social (I know it's draining for me). Flipping up the natural order aligns the social people (Recruiters) with the social activities (Cold introduction, striking up a conversation).

For perspective, I'm going to the job fair looking for employees (IMVU Inc, we're hiring, we're awesome).

Logistically speaking, it's more efficient to have 20 tables, and 200 people walking around, than to have 200 tables and 20 people walking around. There will always be more candidates than jobs, usually 10x more. This is the efficiency argument.

Saying programmers can't walk up to 20 random new people because it's "draining" to them is both offensive and unfair. Remember, programmers are grown men and women too. It's infantilizing. Capable professionals are more than willing to talk to you, either because they like what your company is doing, or because they have bills to pay.

If you think someone is too socially awkward to speak to random strangers, wait until they have a desk all to themselves, and now the strangers are coming to talk to them.

Who says employers will only bring a single recruiter per company? Most of the companies listed are actually bringing 3-5 company people to help recruit, so it will still be pretty efficient.

Also, I'm hoping that we have at least 50 candidates or so, it seems like the job market here in the Valley is really strong so it might be hard to find people looking to switch/find new jobs. So far we only have 30 candidates confirmed...

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