Here's a list of job descriptions that some may find handy; check the IT part for example: https://resources.workable.com/job-descriptions
Job Descriptions Should Be Better
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#22In my very limited experience companies often don't know what they are in need of, and therefore end up writing all sorts of things.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#23It's far worse here in Australia. Almost every job ad is written by a slimey salesman in a recruitment company, so:
a) The ads are deliberately vague so you can't go direct to the client
b) A single job / employer will be listed in several vaguely-worded ads from competing rent-seeking-middlemen
c) For the invaluable work of obfuscating the description and wasting everybody's time, these people will take 10-20% of your gross wage.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#24It's far worse here in Australia. Almost every job ad is written by a slimey salesman in a recruitment company, so: a) The ads are deliberately vague so you can't go direct to the client b) A single job / employer will be listed in several vaguely-worded ads from competing rent-seeking-middlemen c) For the invaluable work of obfuscating the description and wasting everybody's time, these people will take 10-20% of yo…
Hear hear!
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#25> The whole point of them is to provide a candidate a description of what a position is like. The trouble is I don't think its possible to know what a position is like until you start it. At least it has been thus with all my jobs so far. Best you can do is tell the candidate what (a) skills are needed, and (b) what the team is doing. I guess a lot of these job descriptions are doing a poor job of (b) by trying to be…
I asked a few times to be allowed to lurk around the offices, either directly one the day of the interview, or for a day prior to my starting date (but after having signed a contract, though). Helps to get a feel of the place at least, if not necessarily of your day job (but obviously, looking at your future team's activity is recommended here).
Generally it was positively received, although in large companies there was some deflection with "non-issues", like:
- "oh but you know, our insurance does not cover for you being here" (oh yeah? So I was totally covered during the interview?) - "we'd need to notify security" (hmm, I'm already here) - "you know, everybody is probably too busy" (I'd hope so...) - "not sure where we'll put you" (and when I start in 2 weeks, if that desk hasn't appeared, I also don't show up?)
And even with these casual "non-issues", I actually never was denied this. Usually I stuck for one or 2 hours.
1 company let me stay for a day (they had flown me in for the interview and wanted me to stick around, which says a lot already).
Another one allowed me to attend an entire day of team meeting. After I had received a contract, but still, something like 2 months prior to my starting date. And that actually is what made me accept the offer as I hadn't signed it yet.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#26It's far worse here in Australia. Almost every job ad is written by a slimey salesman in a recruitment company, so: a) The ads are deliberately vague so you can't go direct to the client b) A single job / employer will be listed in several vaguely-worded ads from competing rent-seeking-middlemen c) For the invaluable work of obfuscating the description and wasting everybody's time, these people will take 10-20% of yo…
Another data point for Australia - I recently applied for a job with a description that included quite a large range of technologies, all of which I happened to know reasonably well. Was contacted back only to find out that not only was it not a single position, but it wasn't even for the one company. The recruiters had just pulled together all of the requirements from multiple jobs and put them all in one ad, which would have been fine if they'd made that obvious. Maybe to save advertising costs? Whatever the reason, it didn't leave a good impression.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#27My rule of thumb for writing things like job descriptions is that it doesn't mean anything unless someone else might write the opposite. So "Software Engineers who want to write great code" is meaningless, as is "committed to building the best products". But I disagree with some of his other examples: > solve problems from beginning to end: everything from product conceptualizations to engineering implementations. Th…
>This tends to put me off a bit. Just like "full-stack developer". I agree everyone should be able to do beginning to end when needed, but I much prefer to be able to specialize. And I really don't want to be involved with "product conceptualizations".
Depends where you work. Our company has two experienced developers and we can both do pretty much the full stack - and we need to. We specialize a bit, I am better at Django, the other guy is better at front end but at the end of the day we need to be able to do both.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#28The main thing I want from job descriptions is a salary range. The fact that companies don't post salaries is a strong counter-point to how companies complain about how hard it is to hire software engineers.
The hard thing about salary ranges is that there are multiple levels of an engineer, some of which can't always be factually expressed in terms of work experience or any other variable. Although, a great deal of companies claim to hire the best, in most cases, this is not the case. It's always a mixbag of "Ok-hires", "Brilliant-hires" and "Ok-hires-who-turned-to-be-brilliant".
Taking in account of all three, the salary ranges can be too broad. Yeah, Buffer and StackExchange are doing good but then again, quite a lot of times they have been said to be giving low salaries which also is compensated by the fact that they are super-remote-friendly.
I can't imagine if it'd work for every organisation though.
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#29My rule of thumb for writing things like job descriptions is that it doesn't mean anything unless someone else might write the opposite. So "Software Engineers who want to write great code" is meaningless, as is "committed to building the best products". But I disagree with some of his other examples: > solve problems from beginning to end: everything from product conceptualizations to engineering implementations. Th…
>This tends to put me off a bit. Just like "full-stack developer". I agree everyone should be able to do beginning to end when needed, but I much prefer to be able to specialize. And I really don't want to be involved with "product conceptualizations". Depends where you work. Our company has two experienced developers and we can both do pretty much the full stack - and we need to. We specialize a bit, I am better at…
Ok, that's half the stack... Who specialises in the lower parts?
Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better
#30It's far worse here in Australia. Almost every job ad is written by a slimey salesman in a recruitment company, so: a) The ads are deliberately vague so you can't go direct to the client b) A single job / employer will be listed in several vaguely-worded ads from competing rent-seeking-middlemen c) For the invaluable work of obfuscating the description and wasting everybody's time, these people will take 10-20% of yo…
Another data point for Australia - I recently applied for a job with a description that included quite a large range of technologies, all of which I happened to know reasonably well. Was contacted back only to find out that not only was it not a single position, but it wasn't even for the one company. The recruiters had just pulled together all of the requirements from multiple jobs and put them all in one ad, which…
That would be funny if it wasn't so awful.