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Comment by FroshKiller | Hacker News Reader

It may be, but I'm more concerned with the poor treatment the kid got initially, getting ignored like that. Even if you didn't think he was serious, would it have killed you to refer him to what you thought would have been a more appropriate channel rather than ignoring him?

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I sympathize with your sentiment, but the amount of mails academics get from people who says they want do work in their group is just overwhelming. Mostly it is Chinese and Indians who want to do a PhD or a postdoc in the group. Those who doesn't make it clear that they understand more than superficially what your position is and what the research group is doing will be rudely ignored.

That's like saying every software engineer in the Bay Area should respond helpfully to every email from recruiters, directing them to more appropriate candidates rather than ignoring them.

I don't know. I think I understand the viewpoint. I get emailed by random people all the time. I usually reply to them, and try to be encouraging, unless I'm super harried and it just slips through the cracks. But, as far as I can tell, none of them have really turned into anything. Usually, they end up ignoring my email. There's been dozens over the years and it probably would have been a better use of my time to ignore them.

Could you send a form letter inviting them to verify that they are serious?

He didn't pass the right signaling… maybe they're better off by not working with those who dismissed them so easily?

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