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28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days

302 points · 364 comments · rubatrejo

  1. Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
    This statistic constantly confuses people who haven't done hiring.

    If we decide we're going to grow headcount by 10 senior software engineers, we don't copy and paste the same job listing 10 times. We leave it open and collect resumes through that. At a large or fast growing company, we might never stop interviewing and hiring senior software engineers. The listing stays open for a year or more.

    There are also specialty roles where hiring takes months. I've had niche roles open where we didn't get any applicants with any experience on the topic for over 90 days on multiple occasions.

    1. alightsoul · · focus · HN ↗
      So you should apply to old job postings? Consensus in LATAM seems to be, they just forgot to take them down and they already have someone or in Latin America if you repost the same opening over and over the consensus seems to be the company is toxic they have a turnover problem, maybe you should say outright you're looking for 10 people
      1. Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
        Some common sense goes a long way. If the job listing is from a company with 10,000 people, you can assume that they're always hiring. Submit away.

        If the listing is generic like "senior software engineer" and all of the requirements are generic like being able to program or do teamwork, it's probably a generic listing.

        Applying anyway is a safe bet, but I wouldn't invest as much energy into tailoring your resume if it's a 6 month old posting from a 50 person company with a website that looks like it's from 2009. That company probably forgot to take the listing down.

        > maybe you should say outright you're looking for 10 people

        This wouldn't help because you have no way of knowing if they've already hired 9 people or 1 person.

        The target can also change constantly. At a large enough company you continuously lose people for natural reasons, like retirement, moving for a spouse, moving to be closer to family. Past a tipping point you're just always hiring.

        1. alightsoul · · focus · HN ↗
          No this is not common sense. No company in LATAM has 10000 people. Large companies just aren't a thing here. Most companies here are the 50 people companies you mention so the normal thing is to hire occasionally. And LATAM never had an industrial revolution so software positions are just rare unless the company is larger than the local average. If you do find one, it's not a pure one or is service oriented, not to build a product. What I mean is, building a technological product is rare let alone as a product company in LATAM and most technical positions are service or outsourcing oriented. If you find a technical product role like being a mobile developer, it's often not at a company that offers a technological product but a service in another industry like a bank
          1. alt227 · · focus · HN ↗
            I googled and literally the first result was LATAM Airlines who have 44,000 employees.

            <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;LATAM_Airlines" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;LATAM_Airlines

            1. alightsoul · · focus · HN ↗
              Airlines and state owned companies seem to be the exception
              1. alt227 · · focus · HN ↗
                ok, that statement seems a bit different than your previous one of &quot;No company in LATAM has 10000 people.&quot;
                1. rsynnott · · focus · HN ↗
                  Except for the companies who have 10000 people, no companies in LATAM have 10000 people.
                  1. alt227 · · focus · HN ↗
                    Love the logic, have an upvote.
                  2. zormino · · focus · HN ↗
                    So América Móvil doesn&#x27;t have nearly 200k? There are plenty of LATAM companies with more than 10k people.
                    1. hatsix · · focus · HN ↗
                      This was an intentional fallacy for comedic effect, specifically &quot;No True Scotsman&quot;
                  3. bonesss · · focus · HN ↗
                    I think we can all agree No True LATAM company would have 10,000 employees.
            2. mamcx · · focus · HN ↗
              I think he means &quot;software companies&quot;.

              Large companies exist, but pure software companies or with heavy side of it?

          2. benjojo12 · · focus · HN ↗
            Petrobras?
          3. mort96 · · focus · HN ↗
            You don&#x27;t think MercadoLibre has job postings open all the time just to replace the people who are leaving? They&#x27;re around 120 000 people, is each of those people hand-picked for a particular position and not just hired because they know they need to replace some percentage of workers who&#x27;ll leave?
          4. shagie · · focus · HN ↗
            <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_Brazilian_companies" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_largest_Brazilian_comp...

            While the 9th largest is 7,777 people reported... all the others are at least 40,000 people and the largest two are over 100,000.

            Itaú Unibanco <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.itau.com.br&#x2F;download-file&#x2F;v2&#x2F;d&#x2F;42787847-4cf6-4461-94a5-40ed237dca33&#x2F;cd566e80-cd88-2a79-2862-6e39caa2f3f9?origin=2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.itau.com.br&#x2F;download-file&#x2F;v2&#x2F;d&#x2F;42787847-4cf6-446... shows 80,657 employees in Brazil in Q2 of 2026.

            And for tech jobs... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;carreiras.itau.com.br&#x2F;busca-de-vagas&#x2F;software&#x2F;35299&#x2F;1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;carreiras.itau.com.br&#x2F;busca-de-vagas&#x2F;software&#x2F;35299&#x2F;...

            Is it a big list? No. Is it a bank? Yep... but then Capital One is a large employer of tech in the US. Estimates put Walmart (certainly not a &quot;tech&quot; company) at having 20,000 technical roles.

            Discriminating between technology product and technology role at a &quot;regular&quot; industry or service seems a bit biased. I (software developer) haven&#x27;t worked at a tech company for the past two decades (and frankly, while wages are lower than the tech company jobs my job stability is much higher).

          5. xtracto · · focus · HN ↗
            Lol

            Bimbo

            Femsa

            Grupo Salinas

            There&#x27;s plenty more: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;es.tradingeconomics.com&#x2F;bimboa:mm:employees" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;es.tradingeconomics.com&#x2F;bimboa:mm:employees

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