Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
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Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
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Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#2I agree with a lot of these points. I hate how most job descriptions are written, a lot of people that want x years of language and y years of framework, which I think that should be relatively rare.
What I want in a job description is "We work on X project with Y framework and Z back end", just say what you are working on and if I am interested in that. Then for the requirements make it X years of experience in domain, Y years of being a lead. Unless you are really needing that specific subject matter expert, having those requirements doesn't make sense. If I am hiring a senior developer for a Java position I don't really care if you have 5 years of Python, C#, C++, Ruby or whatever, but 5 years of backend experience could be helpful.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#3Most effective way I've found of keeping out the noise is to put a few screening questions in place. Easy ones, maybe even a three line code sample (something that's almost fun to write).
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#4Frequently the primary audience for a job description is recruiters.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#5You know how a cool job description is written? Salary and equity first, very short list of mandatory technologies second, nice to have third, and nothing about how cool the company is. If the first three items attract someone then they're going to google the place and figure that out.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#6Company: we offer very competitive salaries
Candidate: then why are you hiding the salary on your job description?
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#7You know how a cool job description is written? Salary and equity first, very short list of mandatory technologies second, nice to have third, and nothing about how cool the company is. If the first three items attract someone then they're going to google the place and figure that out.
I would hate to work for a company that treats me as commodity labor, bidding for my time but none of my values or interests.
That's not to say salary should be secret (dear god, no), but how cool a company is IS an important metric in and of itself.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#8You know how a cool job description is written? Salary and equity first, very short list of mandatory technologies second, nice to have third, and nothing about how cool the company is. If the first three items attract someone then they're going to google the place and figure that out.
I never got a job description with the salary information, even when I was cold-called, anywhere in Europe.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#9The trick to writing a great job description is not to write it at all.
I've seen HR depts with spreadsheets and lists of acronyms and frameworks and really none of that matters. and "very competitive salaries" but absolutely no numbers anywhere.
You want to find the person you're going to hire, then write the job description. You're looking for fast learners and innovators, they can learn a framework in a few days at most.
For college hires, just sponsor a prize at your local school's hackathon. Anyone you meet there with an interesting project just bring onsite for an interview. For more experienced devs, better go with internal recommendations. Your top performers all have friends, and some of them might be bored right now.
And be upfront with the numbers; You'll waste less time. I knew someone who wasted 5 rounds of interview with someone (this was outside the Valley) before revealing compensation. The candidate just flat out said he needed 3x or it just wasn't worth his time.
Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions
#104 pieces of anecdotical data:
1. I stopped writing good job descriptions when hiring because HR always killed it: they cut mine to half and add their crap all over. I had open positions for SQL DBAs for 9 months, all candidates were developers in the best case and BI in the worst
2. From time to time I receive calls on LinkedIn with X years of experience required, where X was even 15. When I asked about it (I had more, I was just curious) they said the real number is X/2, but they wanted to cut off people with very low experience that are rounding up.
3. No job description in Europe that I've seen included any useful info on salary. All the discussions in the past 2-3 years ended when I found they were offering below the market and below current level. All this time could have been saved on both sides if at least some range would have been offered. This applies even for positions where they made me 1 offer per week with increasing salary (a few percent) for 2-3 months in a row, which is incredibly stupid.
4. In the past 2-3 years I never saw a job description that looked really professional and interesting. The positions were more interesting than the descriptions.