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Job Descriptions Should Be Better

blog.professorbeekums.com

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Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#41

Post by brad0 »

movingtooz wrote: post #31
Sophistifunk wrote: post #23

It'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…

Any advice for finding dev jobs in Australia? Moving to Melbourne from London in a few months and I've only been told to look on seek.com.au. Is this where you're having issues with recruiters?

seek.com.au is a good start. If you're looking for a mobile role you could try Outware Mobile http://www.outware.com.au/working-at-outware/. I worked there some years ago (in Edinburgh now).

EDIT: Another place to take a look at is REA. http://careers.realestate.com.au/

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#42

Post by daurnimator »

movingtooz wrote: post #31
Sophistifunk wrote: post #23

It'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…

Any advice for finding dev jobs in Australia? Moving to Melbourne from London in a few months and I've only been told to look on seek.com.au. Is this where you're having issues with recruiters?

After almost a year searching for a job in Melbourne, I now work remote (in melbourne) for a bay area company.

I found locally there was very little that paid well that wasn't in a C# shop.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#43

Post by s3nnyy »

Hiring engineers is truly a sourcing problem. Bad ad-copy is part of this problem.

When I interview companies, I almost always find something that makes them special (young engineers, exceptional tech-stack, real engineering-driven culture etc.). This is what I pitch to potential candidates.

Maybe ad-copy of (great) company is often bad, even if engineers write them because authors ca not see the peculiarities of their company compared to other companies. (In German we call this "Betriebsblindheit" and there seems to be no translation to English (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betriebsblindheit). Maybe this is one reason why recruiters / staffing firms still exist. Good recruiters know the companies in their market well, can judge them more or less neutrally and match accordingly.

Full disclosure: I am well-connected tech-recruiter in Zurich and if you're thinking of moving here and getting a tech-job, feel free to contact me - you find my email address in my HN profile. Also you can read my blogpost "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT": https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#44

Post by philipov »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #39
Dayshine wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's half the stack... Who specialises in the lower parts?

You aren't full-stack unless you are writing the Verilog for the chips that run your other code. Seriously though the term full-stack is pointless as everyone has a different definition of what that means but still wants to say "I am full-stack"

The size and contents of the stack might change from application to application, but it has a consistent definition as, "Whatever it is we need to hire developers to do, I can do all of it."

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#45

Post by ryandrake »

philipov wrote: post #44
quantumhobbit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't full-stack unless you are writing the Verilog for the chips that run your other code. Seriously though the term full-stack is pointless as everyone has a different definition of what that means but still wants to say "I am full-stack"

The size and contents of the stack might change from application to application, but it has a consistent definition as, "Whatever it is we need to hire developers to do, I can do all of it."

The parent poster's point was, if you're going to credibly say you "can do all of it", you need to list expertise in x86 assembly and VHDL on your resume. Otherwise, you're only a "most stack" developer.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#46

Post by vonmoltke »

philipov wrote: post #44
quantumhobbit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't full-stack unless you are writing the Verilog for the chips that run your other code. Seriously though the term full-stack is pointless as everyone has a different definition of what that means but still wants to say "I am full-stack"

The size and contents of the stack might change from application to application, but it has a consistent definition as, "Whatever it is we need to hire developers to do, I can do all of it."

That's not consistent at all, since what companies need isn't consistent.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#47

Post by JBlue42 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #22

In my very limited experience companies often don't know what they are in need of, and therefore end up writing all sorts of things.

It would probably never work but if someone is leaving a role, they're probably the best person to write the job description. I used to say a supervisor instead of HR, but then realized that a lot of supervisors (or equivalent) had a limited view of the day-to-day. HR usually has no clue.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#48

Post by garysieling »

beekums wrote: post #6
jldugger wrote: post #3

Lot of heat in this one with only a little light. > > We are an engineering driven organization and we are proud of our engineers. Come join them! > Thank goodness. Every other company is ashamed of their engineers. There's a scene ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6xK0Hefsq0 ) in IT crowd where upper management is celebrating the completion of a major project. It's hyperbole, but there's plenty of programmers worki…

Your statement is very fair. However, even though there are definitely companies that don't value their programmers, I would be surprised if any of them actually said that in a job description. How do you tell the difference between a company that does value their engineers from one that doesn't if both companies say the same thing? It is not an easy thing to do for sure, but generic uplifting statements don't solve…

I think it would be more informative to write a listing that characterizes what the team does in relation to the rest of the company. E.g. engineers are responsible for building new products, doing consulting work, executing internal IT projects etc.

Someone who has worked a couple places should be able to infer from that whether they are going to be part of a cost or profit center, and whether that environment is something they want.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#49

Post by garysieling »

Singletoned wrote: post #20

My 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…

> solve problems from beginning to end: everything from product conceptualizations to engineering implementations.

If you prefer to be specialized, a warning that it won't happen is a positive feature of the listing, so that both you and the hiring company can save some time.

Re: Job Descriptions Should Be Better

#50

Post by hyperhopper »

ryandrake wrote: post #45
philipov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size and contents of the stack might change from application to application, but it has a consistent definition as, "Whatever it is we need to hire developers to do, I can do all of it."

The parent poster's point was, if you're going to credibly say you "can do all of it", you need to list expertise in x86 assembly and VHDL on your resume. Otherwise, you're only a "most stack" developer.

Not at all. Most companies will never need to write assembly, or anything at that level, so its not part of the stack.

If you want to be that pedantic, do you need to forge the metals you use in your computers since thats part of the stack as well?

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