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Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

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Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#21
A photograph of my desk.

Most tech jobs I've seen don't have any photos at all. When they do, it's usually the lobby and kitchen and ping-pong table. Why are you trying so hard to hide the place I'm going to be spending 95% of my time? You wouldn't buy a car without ever having seen the driver's seat, and I spend way less time in my car than at my computer.

When I saw photos of Fog Creek's offices (with programmers sitting at their own desks), I didn't need to read any marketing fluff to know that programmers are treated better there than at any tech company I've seen in Seattle, and if I lived near NYC I'd be beating down the doors to work there. They're not architecturally 'pretty' but seeing 20 desk-level outlets per person shows they've thought about all the little annoyances that developers have.

Of course, on the hiring side, this only works if your workspace is a differentiator for you. If it's a generic open-office floor plan, then it's not, and you probably should hide it from applicants and push salary/benefits and "interesting problems" instead.

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#22
post #11

Company - Address - (Remote Allowed?) Job Title - Department Description of Company Description of Job Tech Stack Requirements How Interview Works Salary Range Benefits [Click to Apply without having to retype your whole resume]

Excellent list. I'd just add a brief overview of the interview process to be totally complete.

As someone​ currently interviewing for software positions, this x100. I mean, why do I have ask about this every single time?

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#23

For tactical positions like programming, required skills and optional skills are probably a minimum. However, I have found that the most attractive job ads are those that talk about the culture of the company in addition to what they expect of me. I like ads that communicate that I would be an appreciated member of the team. Dry lists of bullet points are a turn-off; they give the impression that the company just wan…

> For tactical positions like programming, required skills and optional skills are probably a minimum.

True, but you have to be a little careful with "required skills". At my last job, the CTO asked me to check out a job posting, and the "required skills" list had our entire tech stack (maybe 20 items, including several rare ones). We were literally asking for a single person who knew as much as our entire company did!

This can be especially problematic because not everyone sees "required" the same way: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#24
post #11

Company - Address - (Remote Allowed?) Job Title - Department Description of Company Description of Job Tech Stack Requirements How Interview Works Salary Range Benefits [Click to Apply without having to retype your whole resume]

It's also important to be honest about what tech makes up most of your stack. Lots of companies say "We use a mix of {sexy_tech} {sexy_tech} and {unsexy_tech}", when 90+% of their codebase is in {unsexy_tech}. I see this frequently, and it's misleading.

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#25
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't upvote this enough. Even if it's a really wide range, it rules out companies with unrealistically low pay scales. It also makes it slightly more equitable, since employees are no longer reliant on playing salary poker in order to determine their pay rate. This tends to reduce the salary gap.

One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

*good recruiters

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#26
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't upvote this enough. Even if it's a really wide range, it rules out companies with unrealistically low pay scales. It also makes it slightly more equitable, since employees are no longer reliant on playing salary poker in order to determine their pay rate. This tends to reduce the salary gap.

One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

Have any tips on finding good recruiters to work with? Most of the people that reach out to me are clearly not giving a level of care to their search that I'd be comfortable working with (for instance, I was a PHP dev with some JS for a while and would frequently get requests about Java positions). I'd love to work with a recruiter that cares specifically about placing me somewhere good, but I've never met a recruiter like that.

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

Have any tips on finding good recruiters to work with? Most of the people that reach out to me are clearly not giving a level of care to their search that I'd be comfortable working with (for instance, I was a PHP dev with some JS for a while and would frequently get requests about Java positions). I'd love to work with a recruiter that cares specifically about placing me somewhere good, but I've never met a recruite…

I had great results with this company http://www.bincsearch.com/

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#28
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence why companies rarely include it.

That’s silly and bad strategy though, hoping you can “trick” someone into taking a lower salary by getting them to the end of an interview process. Just biases your pool for the least valuable candidates.

In general trying to underpay any employee is a dumb strategy and I don't understand why it's so universal. If you pay any in-demand role under market, you're providing them with a strong incentive to move elsewhere right out of the gate.

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

Have any tips on finding good recruiters to work with? Most of the people that reach out to me are clearly not giving a level of care to their search that I'd be comfortable working with (for instance, I was a PHP dev with some JS for a while and would frequently get requests about Java positions). I'd love to work with a recruiter that cares specifically about placing me somewhere good, but I've never met a recruite…

They don't need to know anything really. Their role is only lead generation. All they really have to do is a keyword search.

Re: Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

#30
post #11

Company - Address - (Remote Allowed?) Job Title - Department Description of Company Description of Job Tech Stack Requirements How Interview Works Salary Range Benefits [Click to Apply without having to retype your whole resume]

Excellent list. I'd just add a brief overview of the interview process to be totally complete.

Added. Good idea.
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