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Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

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Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#21

Post by cageface »

lzw wrote: post #20
cageface wrote: post #18

It's actually a huge plus for me if the company takes the time to put a novel programming puzzle in the post. It says a few things: 1. this wasn't posted by a recruiter or somebody clueless in h.r. 2. engineers at this company still care about hiring 3. a lot of buzzword bombing b.s. artists aren't going to be applying 4. the company recognizes that raw aptitude is more important than bullet list bingo In other words…

One of the things I learned nearly 20 years ago is that it sucks to work in shops where the engineers are arrogant, because the more arrogant the less likely any good engineering is tolerated. These kinds of puzzles communicate arrogance to me. They say "We're more interested in excluding you based on a trick question than in getting to know you".

I guess it depends on the question. If it requires previous knowledge of some kind of gimmick then I agree it's a turnoff. A good puzzle that challenges your thinking and tests some basic algorithmic chops is a good sign though, I think.

For example, the puzzle in this ad is a good one: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sof/1927765905.html

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#22

Post by [deleted] »

mgkimsal wrote: post #16

I've seen a lot of people asking for a description of the problems the position will be addressing. Discussions with clients over the past couple of years have led me to understand that in some cases, companies don't put out many specifics because what they want you to work on is a bit of a competitive advantage (in some cases this is even justified). Letting your competitors know you're hiring to build system XYZ to…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#23

Post by dotBen »

mgkimsal wrote: post #16

I've seen a lot of people asking for a description of the problems the position will be addressing. Discussions with clients over the past couple of years have led me to understand that in some cases, companies don't put out many specifics because what they want you to work on is a bit of a competitive advantage (in some cases this is even justified). Letting your competitors know you're hiring to build system XYZ to…

So you are exactly right. I spend a lot of time trawling my competitor's job reqs (and even just those of interesting startups) to get a feel for what they are working on next.

I still say that you have to alude to the nature of the problems you are looking to solve - it's better to have A1 suitable candidates and your competitors having some clue about what you are doing rather than be so vague that you miss all the good developers and your competition pwns you on execution.

If you are hot then your competitors probably already know what you are working on from leaks, failed candidates breaking NDAs, etc. But most of the time no one really cares that you are about to spin up a map-reduce datastore and need folks with experience.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#24

Post by ax0n »

Some of TechCrunch's postings have been real winners. Although I probably wouldn't really want to go there, they usually seem to care more about the candidate's passions than their experience and education. I'm sure once you get into the hornet's nest for the face-to-face, the team will grill you to smithereens to see if you can hang with them or whether you're just blowing smoke.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#25

Post by makmanalp »

* No time for bullshit, please just put the salary there. A range that is open to bargain is fine too. Prorated is fine too. We just want some idea as to how much you want us and how much we'll be making. No point beating around the bush. The 5k or so that you might lose from not having bargain space might actually turn a great investment if you end up hiring a better candidate.

* Don't list every technology you may or may not use as required in the job posting. Either post for a specific job or spell it out that you want a fast learner and wearer of many hats, and say "these might be useful".

* Don't require X years of experience. This is as stupid as the drinking age limit: You aren't suddenly much more mature the day you turn 21. What does "experience" mean anyway? Experience in what? Spell out what sort of skills you need.

* What are we going to be working on? What is interesting about it? Hopefully it's something more intriguing than "building a blog engine" for the billionth time. It doesn't have to be cutting edge, but even the most seemingly mundane tasks can have interesting technical aspects if they are nontrivial.

* What sort of environment is it? Can I show up in my jeans and take a break during the day? Do you care what days / hours I work as long as I put in my 40h / week? What are my peers like? Are they young up and comers or grizzled bearded veterans of the unices? What sort of development process do you have? What points of the Joel Test (look it up) does your place pass?

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#26

Post by bugsy »

Actual salary range. Important. A "competitive salary" in 2010 for an embedded systems designer is not the 50th percentile for HTML coders from a 1996 salary survey. If you have incredibly specialized skills that you've been unable to hire for, competitive is going to be 6 figures and not the low end.

No long lists of very narrow technologies each which really only require a few days to get up to speed.

Brief description of work environment such as offices with doors that close, book account or some sort of library, reasonably modern computers with dual monitors each at least 1920x1080 plus a laptop, and no complaints about getting whatever text editor and tools the developer prefers to work with.

Relocation paid. If you are looking to hire someone who is good and with specific skills, he is not in your weird city nor does he wish to subsidize your cost of hiring.

Pay for cost of interviewing for final candidates that you need to come to site interviews. For those ones you'll want to sell the area as well since they have no idea why anyone would want to live there, wherever 'there' is.

Not paying the above two tells the candidate you probably won't be able to make payroll either.

Be very willing to receive screening calls that ask lots of personal specific questions and answer them enthusiastically, just like you are trying to sell an expensive item to a very important customer.

And finally, don't rely only on ads. For specialized skills you need recruitment, and there's no way to figure out who you want to woo unless the recruiting is done by someone who knows development, not some know-nothing recruiter from an agency, nor some HR drone. Again, recruitment has nothing to do with recruiters. Recruitment is saying you need someone with the ability to build System X, then you find someone who is already doing that and pay him $20 million to buy his company as a talent acquisition.

I am no longer an employee but an owner. When I was an employee I looked at ads but found them useless for many of the above reasons. As an owner I write ads and do recruitment and we have little difficulty hiring exactly the talent we need. Pretty much all companies that have problems finding talent aren't offering enough money and are not good places to work in many ways. Places that pay competitive and are good places to work have no shortage of highly qualified applicants. Yes, you'll also get a lot of unqualified applicants, but how to tell the difference is a topic for another day. (In short, if you can't tell the difference you're doomed since you'll hire a bunch of duds and then the few with actual talent will leave because of the clustering effect: very talented people hate to work with idiots.)

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#27

Post by makeramen »

attractive to whom? know your audience. even among HN members, there's a huge range of what "attractive" means.

figure out who you want to target, very specifically, then figure out exactly what they want out of a job.

The following is my paraphrase of dotBen's comment, with "if statements" instead of "dont's":

if you want people who care about degrees, require a degree.

if you want people who care about the exact number of years they worked at some job or with a language, add it to your requirements.

if you want honest down to earth people, then be honest and down to earth.

if you want people who are cocky enough to label themselves as "rockstars" or "ninjas", then ask for it.

... list goes on

I personally think this is common sense, but as they say, common sense isn't common.

The most important thing? Hiring is a two-way street. You're shopping for employees, we're shopping for employers. Your job description is like an employers resume. If you want honest applications, then give us an honest description of what you want. It would seriously MAKE MY DAY, if there was a job listing that said straight up what you were going to do, i.e.:

"we need someone to work with us on a team of 5 to implement our new web API within 3 months and provide support afterwards. If you suck, we'll fire you. If you're good, we'll move you on to whatever new stuff we might need help on like a potential mobile platform..."

at which point it would be very easy for me to say "yeah that sounds awesome! i can do that for you!" or "fuck that i got better shit to do." either way, we'll both get exactly what we want, and I won't be trying to fake my way into a job I don't deserve, and you won't be questioning whether I'm actually good enough.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#29

Post by blasdel »

cageface wrote: post #21
lzw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I learned nearly 20 years ago is that it sucks to work in shops where the engineers are arrogant, because the more arrogant the less likely any good engineering is tolerated. These kinds of puzzles communicate arrogance to me. They say "We're more interested in excluding you based on a trick question than in getting to know you".

I guess it depends on the question. If it requires previous knowledge of some kind of gimmick then I agree it's a turnoff. A good puzzle that challenges your thinking and tests some basic algorithmic chops is a good sign though, I think. For example, the puzzle in this ad is a good one: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sof/1927765905.html

A bonus question requiring previous knowledge can be fantastic as a shibboleth if crafted well — it reinforces to the potential applicant that there is a clever compatriot on the other side, and makes the job of screening resumes easier.
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