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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

Not only does this disincentivize HR from running fake vacancies or stringing multiple candidates on just to keep their options open, but it also solves the problem of unemployed people job-searching effectively working full-time for free. The fact that companies would have to pay to hire workers would mean they try to make the selection as short and effective as possible.

Edit: From the business POV:

  • Businesses would have a limited budget for hiring so would limit process to 10 applicants and would have to pick those randomly. Less time spent on interviewing but also might miss the ideal candidate. Although the difference would fall sharply with larger pools.
  • And 000s of people now stuck wo any appls at all (although better than writing fake, futile appls), and no money. Not enough jobs on the market would translate into not enough paying applications for them to be able to substitute unemployment benefits.
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[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Love it.
Unfortunately, then there would be professional candidates who just never accept a job.

Edit: I've had a lot of great replies pointing out that it likely wouldn't be a big deal anyway. I'm just used to finding fault in anything that sounds good lately.

There’s no way that would be a viable career.

  1. You’d have to reliably get interviews, which is hard enough as it is.
  2. It’s a lot of work to do sustainably—more work than many jobs imo.
  3. You get none of the other benefits of accepting the job.
  4. Eventually you would run out of companies for which you were qualified, and you’d probably stop getting interviews.

Your argument sounds similar to anti-welfare arguments. Sure, some people may abuse the system, but it wouldn’t pay that well, and the positives to society would greatly outweigh any abuse.

[-] bizarroland@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago

Exactly, for every one person who abuses the rule to get 10 hours of labor paid to them in exchange for doing no work, you'll have 999 people that are actually using the system as intended.

Are you really the kind of person that'll fuck over 999 people just to make sure that one person doesn't get ahead in a sneaky way?

[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 22 points 1 day ago

Not to mention, some companies right now are abusing interview candidates to get free work with "trial project" type assignments, or "How would you fix this problem, if you were hired?" type of free consultations. If some candidates abused the companies in return, I'd call that fair play.

[-] prole 4 points 1 day ago

Are you really the kind of person that'll fuck over 999 people just to make sure that one person doesn't get ahead in a sneaky way?

Are you sure you want to see people's actual answers to this?

[-] ttyybb@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

But think of the shareholders. Who's helping them out?

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

I agree with all of that actually. I'm just used to trying to find the failure mode of anything that sounds good lately.

Yeah if it could be enforced I think it might be viable.

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Wouldn't limiting the interview pay to be below minimum wage/below the hourly salary of the job alleviate this?

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It would, I was just overthinking it.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Then there would be professional candidates who ~~just never accept a job~~ start getting blacklisted really quickly from a means of income that's vastly more difficult, less fulfilling, less stable, and less efficient than just having a stable job.*

FTFY

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Ah, so you are thinking there would be a centralized system to track applicants* (perhaps the same one that handles payment) - this sounds feasible, the infrastructure mostly already exists (in the US) in state unemployment departments.

*(without it centralized, each company only sees a person once and doesn't know if they accepted another offer or whatnot)

The rest of your points are also good, I don't actually think it would be a big issue, I just had the knee jerk reaction to think about how any good idea would fail these days.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You could probably do a professional interviewer job for something like restaurant work in a major metropolitan area (but restaurants probably won’t do this and would just start hiring through referral or from resumes instead), but most industries are small enough that companies would talk. I haven’t worked in my previous field for five years, but checking now, I still know people at all of the major companies for it. If I were to apply at any of them, someone would see that I’d worked at companies X and Y, then they’d ask all of the people at their company who’d previously worked at company X or Y, to see if anyone knew me. If I were to try to be a vocational applicant like this, I’d develop a reputation pretty quickly.

Companies would just get even more suspicious about long resume gaps or people trying out a new field.

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, that makes sense.

[-] starlinguk@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago
[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

No. All news lately tends to focus on the negative (which there is plenty of), not just tabloids. So knee jerk reactions like mine are easy to have.

[-] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ok, the money goes to a local college, using companies inability to find candidate to fund producing better candidates seems fitting.

Maybe calculated as 1.5 days labor for the posted salary or median compensation for that job, whichever is greater.

this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
567 points (100.0% liked)

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