Great idea. Potentially more useful alternative: rank the posts strictly by the time they were posted, so that it's easy to see what's new since you last looked. (Perhaps allow posts to be downvoted but not upvoted?)
I was reading the hiring threads regularly for a number of months, and I picked up the habit of scrolling past the first N postings each time: they were highly-ranked HN users posting jobs for their companies, often repeated month to month. Good jobs, no doubt, and good people, but I didn't need a monthly reminder that (e.g.) Matasano is hiring in cities far away from me. :)
I'd like that too, but I'm constraining my suggestion to things I think team-HN might actually implement. They can randomize thread order (or make upvotes on job threads not count, or something like that) very, very easily. It's low hanging fruit, and they should pick it!
I was reading the hiring threads regularly for a number of months, and I picked up the habit of scrolling past the first N postings each time: they were highly-ranked HN users posting jobs for their companies, often repeated month to month. Good jobs, no doubt, and good people, but I didn't need a monthly reminder that (e.g.) Matasano is hiring in cities far away from me. :)