Please don't spam people looking for employment. It's just cruel
Earlier I posted in a “Who wants to be hired?” thread, looking for a place where I could apply my experience in hospitality, food tech and automation. A couple hours later I received an email: “Hi Ilia, I saw your comment on the June Who’s Hiring thread. I build production-ready TypeScript and Python systems that integrate LLMs into real workflows, with particular focus on RAG, agent orchestration, and clear blah-blah-blah” Come on. I am a forced immigrant with a wife, a cat, rent and crushing debt, who’s been unemployed for 6 months. I am naturally an extremely optimistic person, but boy is energy on the low by now. And every e-mail in my inbox, especially one starting with something related to my job search, is a glimmer of hope. Just to be crushed by what comes next. Yes, it’s a minor cut, but those compound. Please just don’t do this. Maybe add a skill to your Claude Code called “empathy”? You can have your Claw access a “be considerate of other people’s experiences” MCP server! Or just ask your “Daily Grind Reminder” Telegram bot to recommend a good book of fiction from time to time. Just to develop some humanity. Sorry for venting.
Discussion Highlights (20 comments)
xingped
That's horrific for people to even think of doing that and I'm sorry that's happened to you. You have my condolences. Too many people in tech are so utterly shameless, unfortunately.
Zak
I got one of those too, from "Alya", which seems to be an LLM-based tool the creator describes as his daughter. Beyond the usual rudeness of spam, that's a little creepy.
ramon156
I've gotten at least three, and I haven't replied to those threads in a while. Safe to say it's a problem.
Hamuko
So wait, are they trying to sell something to unemployed people?
bjord
my sincere(!) sympathies, but realistically this won't reach anyone relevant. best of luck in the job search.
Rendello
I've been getting a lot of job spam in my email the past week or two, not sure if it's from here or Github mostly.
randomdev123
I got a recruiter that is apparently AI. Get Clera is the name. I already banned their domain to spam. If you are coming to me as AI, I will ban/mark spam you. Period.
ibejoeb
I just started getting a barrage of these last month. They're just scraping those threads. I don't think there's much to do about it. These aren't "real" hn folks that actually participate here.
stavros
You can filter a few of these by asking that they include some specific word in the subject. These spammers won't, and you can just delete those.
rideontime
Name and shame.
ed153
As a general rule, if someone ever posts any kind of career troubles on any platform, the only correct responses should contain sympathy or a relevant career opportunity. Anything else is so callous. Hang in there Ilia, you're not the only one hurting, and don't apologize for venting. Most of us in the HN community are far more supportive.
josefritzishere
The primary use of AI seems to be spam. It's so gross.
andrewzeno
My email is filled with junk from cybersecurity "experts" telling me that my open source project is "very compromised" and that they will gladly reveal to me what the issue is, if I commit to paying them a bug bounty. I get at least a few every week. I hate them, but I feel like we are well past the point where in any place where there is money to be made, the majority of cold outreach will be from semi-personalized AI agents. You just have to accept that most of the time your get contacted by someone, it is likely not a human.
pluc
Have you gotten the "hey, wanna be a North Korean proxy?" offer yet?
boesboes
Yeah, recruiters already were complete assholes in general, now they can scale their cuntiness..
CodeCompost
Not to troll but what is a "forced immigrant"?
cmrdporcupine
Another trend I've seen is what I would term .. bottom-feeder ... services trying to take advantage and exploit people's hardship. AI generated e-mails that then do things like this (and this is only one of these kinds of things I've received): "Right now, we are running a $35,000 API Hackathon. If you build the best tool on our data, we acquire your codebase for up to $20k. But here is the real hook for your job search: To get API access, you must pass our Architectural System Design Audit. If your submission clears our technical bar, you don't just get an API key—you get instant VIP access to our job pipeline, and I will personally bypass HR to pitch your profile to hiring engineering leaders." a) Written by AI [LLM shibboleths all over it] b) Getting people to do interviews for things that aren't jobs. c) Trying to get fire-sale "purchase" on people's IP assets / work? d) Acting like a recruiter, but actually gatekeeping for jobs that... may not exist. People are using the HN hiring forum posts to produce these. Be careful out there people.
GodelNumbering
I was once suggested creating a 'fake job posting' to promote my startup, didn't do it for the same reason you described. Also the reason I have deep hatred for operators trying to exploit jobseekers or the ones trying to scam already indebted people.
Jeremy1026
Honestly, could just stop at "please don't spam people". Good luck on your hunt OP, hope you find something soon.
ramshorst
Marketers ruin everything ;)