Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

blog.interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#11

Post by xboxnolifes »

ye_olde_gamer wrote: post #7
thrill wrote: post #5

You 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.

Which is great, until every job application reads as the exact same mix of positive adjectives and power words and you learn to skip the first 1-2 paragraphs of every one.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#12

Post by ye_olde_gamer »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #11
ye_olde_gamer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is great, until every job application reads as the exact same mix of positive adjectives and power words and you learn to skip the first 1-2 paragraphs of every one.

Only if you limit yourself to a particular kind of company, I think? I've worked as a dev for decades, but not for proper, actual tech companies... mostly a mixture of small biz and nonprofits. No two orgs were alike, even though my job at each one was very similar.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#13

Post by edmundsauto »

908B64B197 wrote: post #9

The 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 a…

This probably works well for smaller scale hiring. At a medium org, you want to make sure to source diverse candidates and hire without bias. (We all have biases!)

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#14

Post by lnxg33k1 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #8
thrill wrote: post #5

You 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.

Ive lived in the top two tech city in EU (edit: Europe as of now) London and Berlin and there were always ranges in job specs, now I'm in Amsterdam and it's the only city that doesn't seem to like that (along with coding turning on the brain, i would say)

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#15

Post by kthejoker2 »

Four practical "exercises" when writing JDs to help prioritize the knowledge and experiences you expect this person to bring:

1) Pretend you only have 100 words. Simple stuff, but getting ruthless is a good way to prioritize.

2) Write an "anti-JD": the type of person you don't want for the role. A tip: focus on unconscious competencies - things you expect the person to know on day 1.

3) (Similar to Aline's litmus test in the article of "Can most companies say this about the work they’re doing") If you can write "Only an idiot wouldn't ... " in front of the line, it's not a good differentiator.

4) Imagine you were going to ask the person you hire for this role to give 5 lunch and learns their first week on the job. What would the topics be and to what depth would you expect them to go?

Also, at least in my experience, the easiest way to deter "noise" from unqualified applicants is to be clear what the first interview will consist of and how it will be passed/failed.

"We expect you to come prepared to discuss the pros and cons of the following, citing previous work as much as possible: (insert relevant topics from exercises above e.g. computer vision, DevOps, Redux, recent famous papers in your field, etc) Candidates without experience or evaluated below an intermediate level of knowledge will not proceed."

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#16

Post by rualca »

ye_olde_gamer wrote: post #7
thrill wrote: post #5

You 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.

> 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.

If only I had $1 for each time I saw a company showing off foosball tables, game consoles in the hallway, picnics, team get-togethers, people laughing and being cheerful.... And in the end it's the same cubic hellhole where people are no better than anonymous cogs in the machine.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#17

Post by 908B64B197 »

edmundsauto wrote: post #13
908B64B197 wrote: post #9

The 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 a…

This probably works well for smaller scale hiring. At a medium org, you want to make sure to source diverse candidates and hire without bias. (We all have biases!)

Medium org just means you can fly in-out folks/reach other target schools.

Diversity and biases are great, but ultimately what matters is finding out candidates that can scale the business and help it grow.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#18

Post by AdrianB1 »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #14
AdrianB1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got a job description with the salary information, even when I was cold-called, anywhere in Europe.

Ive lived in the top two tech city in EU (edit: Europe as of now) London and Berlin and there were always ranges in job specs, now I'm in Amsterdam and it's the only city that doesn't seem to like that (along with coding turning on the brain, i would say)

A few days ago I was contacted by a British company for a remote job, no salary disclosed. I heard that in UK it is disclosed, but I cannot confirm.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#19

Post by xboxnolifes »

ye_olde_gamer wrote: post #12
xboxnolifes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is great, until every job application reads as the exact same mix of positive adjectives and power words and you learn to skip the first 1-2 paragraphs of every one.

Only if you limit yourself to a particular kind of company, I think? I've worked as a dev for decades, but not for proper, actual tech companies... mostly a mixture of small biz and nonprofits. No two orgs were alike, even though my job at each one was very similar.

I didn't say the jobs were alike, I said the job listings were alike.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#20

Post by avgDev »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #8
thrill wrote: post #5

You 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.

I build a relationship with a few recruiters in the US, and I specifically told them that I don't want to waste their time and to start off with a compensation package any time they have something interesting. I cannot even comprehend discussing a job without salary range.
Post reply on HN