tptacek, patio11 and Erin -- I'm disappointed re: Starfighter, I was rooting for you.

I ran 0x41414141.com [1] for about 4 years. It was a set of CTF-style challenges of increasing difficulty with submissions via "secret" email addresses, a sendmail autoresponder and me - operating under the pseudo cavalier@0x41414141. It's singular goal was recruiting.

At the time, I was working with a totally badass team in a firm with a decidedly not-sexy brand for us security-types. We were hiring as fast as we could and _always_ had positions open. When we got someone good into the pipeline, we generally had no problem hiring them - the team and the work made that easy - but our candidate funnel was just too damn small. We had exhausted our referral pool, we were bringing on as many fresh grads as we could train, but it wasn't enough to keep up. We needed to broaden the funnel. Enter 0x41414141.com.

It was completely and totally unsupported, unrecognized and unreported through the official corporate recruiting channels. It was me, on my own time and my own dime with the quiet support of a few other guys in the shop. It had a singular purpose: to meet like-minded hackers and see if there was any chance they'd be interested in joining our merry little band of hackers.

Within the first year, I established the equivalent of a "repeatable sales process." There's the natural stages of the challenges themselves, but then the more delicate stages of transition:

(1) from the impersonal interaction with the service to the personal email exchange with cav,

(2) ...to a serious discussion about a new job

(3) ...to an IRL phone conversation

(4) ...to an open and honest talk about who we were, what we're doing and next steps

(5) ...to getting introduced to an actual corporate recruiter

Of course, like any "repeatable sales process" each stage is not only the continued progression but also qualification. The funnel was disappointingly ruthless, and that was just to get an intro to the recruiter. In any given year, I had:

(1) thousands of folks start challenges,

(2) several hundred make notable progress,

(3) traded personal email with dozens,

(4) got serious with 10s,

(5) interviewed a few,

(6) hired a couple

In the end, the results just didn't justify the effort.

To be clear - I loved running 0x41414141.com. I met a lot of great hackers and even hired a few. Many are HN'ers. (hi guys!) Many of the "security community rockstars" stumbled across the site and ran through the challenges as a fun exercise on a Sunday afternoon. I also watched - and coached - many clear newbs through the process, and was impressed with their grit, creativity and determination. I even hired a couple complete newbs, including a female, recent PoliSci grad working as a nanny who turned out to be an OUTSTANDING reverse engineer, when given the right support and environment to grow. She single-handedly kept my enthusiasm for running 0x41414141.com up for at least two years, even when the resulting hiring numbers made it clear it wasn't worth it.

I was really, really, really hoping Starfighter could "level up" the initial volume into that funnel, maintain (or improve!) the rough filtering percentages and have the resulting "hired" volume be higher and turn CTF recruiting into a sustainable business model. I'm disappointed it didn't work.

P.S. - this is the first time I've associated my real self with 0x41414141.com and the cavalier alter-ego. Congrats HN, you just got the scoop for this tiny little corner of history. While we're here...

Hello Internet, this is cavalier. If we connected
via that moniker, please reach out and connect
with my _real_ one. deets in my profile.

1 - https://web.archive.org/web/20090204175328/http://0x41414141...