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You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

talent.works

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Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#231

Post by pmiller2 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #105
rossdavidh wrote: post #68

I think many people write their job description's requirements, as if it were the opening stage of a negotiation. You list everything you want as if it were a requirement, and you will only get about half of that. But the problem is, it isn't a negotiation, it's a minimum spec (especially if you put the word "required" next to that line), and so many quite good candidates won't apply. However, typically, I see 20-30…

so many quite good candidates won't apply. Shame on someone for writing unrealistic or unnecessary "requirements", but also shame on the engineer who doesn't even apply because of them. I wonder how truly good a candidate is if they get discouraged so easily. Maybe a hidden requirement 1 is showing a willingness to try to punch above one's weight or displaying some self confidence during the application process. Afte…

I'm not sure if this is the best place to drop this anecdote, but I looked at a position where the responsibilities included working on the backend API and partner integrations, third party integrations, machine learning, internal tools and reporting, devops, and Postgres administration (including query optimization, horizontal partitioning, and reliability).

Since it was a small-ish company, I thought maybe this was just their generic "senior software engineer" posting. Nope. I asked them. They actually expected people to be able to work on all of those things. By my count, that's about 5 different teams that should be working on those things... except that this place has ~15 engineers. I self selected out of that process because, although I could certainly do the API and integrations stuff, if I'm the best person you've got to work on ML, your company is in bad shape.

I probably could have applied and gotten an interview anyway, maybe even gotten the job, but I know it wouldn't have been someplace I could do my best work. I'm very glad I'm not there.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#232

Post by rv-de »

carlmr wrote: post #47

I've only once ticked of roughly 95% of job requirements. I didn't get the job. They actually cited the 1/20 requirements I didn't fulfill and said they can't hire anybody who doesn't have that. They wanted a 100% candidate. Looking through the list of the things they listed as must haves and that they wanted an internal candidate I showed them it is statistically very unlikely they would even find a better candidate…

Maybe matching 95% made you too confident salary-wise. Maybe they just want a 50% who they can haggle down to working for peanuts as a junior because of those missing 50%.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#233

Post by rv-de »

mszcz wrote: post #19

https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 I'm not a fan of HR in general and it's frustrating that they are often the clueless gatekeepers.

I just applied via a recruiter for a position as a director for software development.

He told me the HR lady would like to see my abitur certification (sth like a high school diploma) ... I am 34 years old for christ's sake. I seriously considered not applying. Ah - and according to the recruiter an asset of mine is not being older than 40 - what?

In short - a lot of HR people are causing serious damage to companies and the industry in my opinion.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#234

Post by bausshf »

chaosite wrote: post #106
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. "passionate about software development", "good communicator" Yeah, this is where bias and other cruft comes creeping in. "Passionate about software development" usually means, "our PM sucks, but he's the CEO's nephew, so you're going to work late to meet deadlines".

Or it could mean "our HR dept likes flowery language in job postings". I.e., it means literally nothing.

Both are synonyms

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#235

Post by growlist »

carlmr wrote: post #47

I've only once ticked of roughly 95% of job requirements. I didn't get the job. They actually cited the 1/20 requirements I didn't fulfill and said they can't hire anybody who doesn't have that. They wanted a 100% candidate. Looking through the list of the things they listed as must haves and that they wanted an internal candidate I showed them it is statistically very unlikely they would even find a better candidate…

There's a company in my town that have been advertising for a C++/C# dev since I moved here (around 4 years). What are they thinking? 'Give it another 4 years and we might get lucky'?! Also they post this job on job boards, which must be costing them hundreds a month. Something doesn't add up.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#236

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

geezerjay wrote: post #194
alain94040 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Having been on both sides of the hiring table, I can tell you that the candidate has no idea what we use to make decisions, because the candidate has no visibility into our internal issues. Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some ki…

> Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some kind of clue. Which is 99% wrong. I've applied to jobs that required a long and tedious hiring process and in the end unfortunatley I didn't get hired, but I also had nice HR drones contacting me to prov…

Frankly, I don't want the interviewer's feedback. There's a lot of superstition in hiring people because of how much luck is involved, meaning that there's a good chance that the reason they decided not to hire you is completely meaningless.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#237

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

mbesto wrote: post #137
logfromblammo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying for a job costs time and effort. All other things being equal, I will prefer to apply to a job posting where I meet more of the requirements than one that is a looser match. Adding requirements that aren't actually requirements is a good way to get your posting sorted to the end of my applications queue indefinitely, or ignored entirely. I will apply to the closest matches first, and stop when I pass a time…

I don't blame you and I agree with you. My point is that this is not how the market works. You argument is like asking for women to stop being so demanding about all of the qualities they want in a man. Sure you can take a stand against that and say "I'm only going to meet women who match my exact profile and seek those who have realistic set of expectations". This is just simply not how it works and anyone who has i…

I think it is more like recognizing that all the qualities women say they demand in a man are indicative of their unrealistic expectations so they're a waste of your time.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#238

Post by [deleted] »

wtracy wrote: post #199
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR doesn’t really conduct interviews beyond maybe a quick high level screen. They select candidates, but also only as a high level screen, it’s up to the engineering team to screen more deeply and do interviews.

Of all places, Facebook had a pretty clearly non-technical person screen me over the phone. Apparently they gave her a list of questions and answers. The questions were structured so that none of the answers were open-ended. ("What is the OSI seven layer model? What is a Unix signal?") So, yeah, I'm not sure I would call it a real interview, but sometimes HR does get called upon to screen candidates.

[deleted]

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#239

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173
mcv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HR has no idea what the job means, they also shouldn't be the one selecting candidates and conducting interviews.

HR doesn’t really conduct interviews beyond maybe a quick high level screen. They select candidates, but also only as a high level screen, it’s up to the engineering team to screen more deeply and do interviews.

[deleted]

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#240

Post by ido »

zid3nt wrote: post #178
indigochill wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company is really hiring and paying market rate, what's the situation leading to positions open for over a year? Unicorn-hunting? I've been part of a hiring process that took a couple months (and by the end had management breathing down our necks to just hire -someone-), but that was because we were hiring into an out-of-the-way location that generally lacked the skills locally that we were looking for. Neither…

Maybe they're willing to hire in depth for those particular positions?

The company I work at has an ad for "Senior Full-Stack Developer" and if 5 amazing candidates show up they'll probably hire all of them (or if just 1 shows up and gets hired the ad will remain online).
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