This is not quite what you're asking, but seeing there are no replies yet regarding the whoishiring thread I will include my anecdote detailing my not getting hired (or even an interview). I haven't since applied for any jobs through the monthly whoishiring threads.

I am a fresh college graduate. The job posting seemed appropriate for someone like me in my current situation (and was the only one in any whoishiring thread I felt was a great fit and not merely a good fit). I did a six-month internship in the same domain, using many of the same technologies as requested for the job. A perfect fit and the obvious next step, I thought. I would be doing what I had already measurably succeeded at, while also being able to use some of my public speaking experience I gained in school to present the modeled data I would be working on. I submit the application, noting all of this. I hear nothing back. A week later, I follow up with the email listed in the post. Still nothing back. I simply assumed they filled the position, however...

I see them post again the subsequent month in the whoishiring thread, still hiring. I do not get it.

I totally feel your pain! I always wondered if people were looking at my resume so I built a.i. RESUME. Now I am notified the moment someone looks at my resume and I can see the stats on a graph which is fun LOL. I would love to give you a free a.i. RESUME if you are interested.

Have you found a programming job elsewhere?

No, but to be fair I have not been looking. I am continuing my education: going for my MS in mathematics likely followed by a PhD beginning this fall.

I initially didn't expect Who Wants To Be Hired to be useful. It seemed like a big spammy list, but I put up a quick summary of myself and got contacted by more than a handful of good companies (many of which I'd heard of before, so not obscure companies either). I decided to only pursue an interview with one of them (I received an offer, but ultimately decided on another company I'd been introduced to by a friend).

I got a job through "who wants to be hired": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127238

An employee from the company saw my post and reached out. Really enjoying the job so far.

We (CircleCI) have hired a lot from the whoishiring threads, where we have posted on-and-off for the few years they've been running. We found our first engineer there, and made somewhere in the range of 5-10 hires from it total.

I got an interview and an offer from a company that I found via http://whoishiring.it/ (featured a couple weeks ago, puts all the whoishiring posts on a map). In this case they took a while to reply because of the holiday week / weekend, but I've also had (non-HN) applications that just disappear into nothingness.

I just hired (like signed an offer yesterday) by making a "How to" blog post on my blog two months ago.

I posted this post in a couple of relevant linked in groups and that's it.

As it happened the company was looking for an expertise in the exact thing that I've posted.

Just sharing ...

The old 'you make your own luck' phrase applies to you.

I didn't get hired from the monthly thread, but I did get a job at a YC startup through an HN post. Since then, we've found the quality of HN candidates to be overall strong. I definitely recommend it as a way to connect with companies and possibly bypass the standard application flow.

"who is hiring" actually had some of the best quality job posts I encountered in my job search.

I didn't try posting in "who wants to be hired."

Nobody. I am tempted to think it is a giant scam by some marketeer to get people to post email addresses that they can send spam to. That means by extension all the people here saying "yes" are the same marketeer that is harvesting emails.

Sounds like you had a bitter experience.

Yes an individual job post could be a scam, for example a recruitment company instead of the hiring company. This would be super-rare I'd think.

However the whole system is clearly not a scam, and is amazingly beneficial to the community.