Would you pay to land a job?
A software program engineer went viral final month after promising to pay upwards of $10,000 to anybody who may also help them discover a related six-figure job. It labored — and now it is turning into a pattern.
Argenis De La Rosa, a pc science undergraduate on the Harvard Extension Faculty, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he would give somebody the five-figure sum in the event that they helped him land a software program developer function.
De La Rosa mentioned that he would create a contract for each events to signal, making certain that every time he began getting paid in his six-figure function, he would repay the $10,000 debt in increments. The deal would solely undergo if he acquired a proposal.
“After I receives a commission, you receives a commission,” De La Rosa wrote in a LinkedIn put up with over 400 reactions. “It is that straightforward.”
De La Rosa instructed Business Insider that he acquired “nonstop” messages from individuals within the first 24 hours after he posted. The messages included mentorship or referral provides from engineers at tech firms, although some have been “very sketchy” gross sales pitches, he mentioned.
He instructed the outlet that he rapidly acquired three job interview provides within the month for the reason that put up went reside, although he’s nonetheless searching for full-time work.
Then, Ryan Prescott, a Maine-based engineer, noticed De La Rosa’s put up and made his own. The one distinction between the posts is that Prescott requested extra particularly for a software program developer function paying no less than $120,000, not only for a six-figure wage.
Prescott’s LinkedIn put up went viral when an X consumer screenshotted it and posted it on X. The put up gathered 1.6 million views on Elon Musk’s app.
i’ve by no means seen something like this earlier than—this takes “open to work” to a completely new stage. pic.twitter.com/nWNGcd2yMJ
— signüll (@signulll) February 24, 2025
After Prescott posted, a startup CEO contacted him a couple of senior front-end engineer function. Prescott went via a number of rounds of interviews and finally landed the function. As a result of his boss was the one who reached out, Prescott will not be paying the $10,000. Nonetheless, Prescott says that the put up helped him get observed in a crowded market.
“I’d actually simply encourage extra individuals to distinguish themselves in unusual and memorable methods,” Prescott instructed BI.
Different LinkedIn members wrote similar posts over the previous month, and a few even elevated how a lot they have been prepared to pay for assist getting a developer job.
Jean-Philippe Lebœuf, a senior product engineer searching for work, wrote that he was prepared to pay $30,000 to anybody who helped him discover a distant job paying no less than $120,000. Ray Morrison, a software program engineer, mentioned he would pay $15,000 in increments of $500 per thirty days for anybody who helped him land a job with a wage of no less than $140,000.
Tech hiring has dropped by no less than 20% in August 2024 in comparison with August 2018, per LinkedIn data. Software program engineering roles are down by 26%, IT by 27%, and challenge administration by 25% in that timeframe.
Associated: ‘Really Hard to Find a Job’: 1.7 Million Job Seekers Have Been Looking for Work for at Least 6 Months
