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Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#31

Post by ngc248 »

rualca wrote: post #16
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.

> 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.

And actually playing foosball/games are frowned upon Fakecool, all a part of the signalling that companies do to attract talent.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#32

Post by guntars »

rualca wrote: post #28
motoxpro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company describes itself as "cool" because they have pool tables, that's a great thing. It's signal that thats what "cool" is to them. Sounds like a job description that talked about not working in a cubicle hellhole would resonate with you more.

> If the company describes itself as "cool" because they have pool tables, that's a great thing. It's signal that thats what "cool" is to them. No, not really. It just means that HR had a PR budget to sell themselves as cool, and they bought a game as a prop. My point is that this blend of signaling is pure bait-and-switch. The mods operandi is that they sell this false idea that they are all about fun and games but…

Well, yes, they think they're saying something which reveals a lot more to you and you know to avoid this company. I also like to ask myself - who would be attracted by such a job posting and would I want to work with them?

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#33

Post by makeitdouble »

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.

I interpret parent's point in a context where your company has a page where it describes its values, how it sees its impact etc.

Companies with strong values usually have them publicly exposed somewhere, for instance for Cookpad: https://www.cookpadteam.com/careers

If you already have a page about how cool you are, it doesn't need to be repeated in every posting, and candidates for who it matters the most will have more information than shortened descriptions to avoid walls of texts in the job posting itself.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#34

Post by r_c_a_d »

amriksohata wrote: post #6

Company: we offer very competitive salaries Candidate: then why are you hiding the salary on your job description?

Because they don't want their current staff who are earning $X to know that they are hiring new people for similar jobs at $X + 10%.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#35

Post by Gunax »

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 see descriptions of how amazing the company is as being largely fluff. Every company thinks they're cool and amazing.

Sort of like how every candidate thinks he/she is a 'great problem solver' and 'team player'.

It's a goal that we all acknowledge is something we desire, but so subjective that everyone believes they have it and self-assertions to that effect tell one very little.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#36

Post by saimiam »

jstx1 wrote: post #29
saimiam wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask candidates to list three blog posts that they recently read and enjoyed. Seems to be an easy way to filter out non-serious candidates and script kiddies. This has worked with roughly 60 to 70% of the candidates I have interview since I implemented this rule.

Filtering out people based on a question about the blogs they read sounds kind of horrible. You'll get all noise and no signal. I spend some time on HN and other places reading about stuff related to my field or about software in general. If you asked me that question, I would have zero chance recalling the last things I read. And it would raise a big red flag about whether you know what you're doing. Just because yo…

I also discuss the posts they read and shared with me during the interview. If they’re simply sharing random posts without understanding it in context, it becomes obvious very quickly.

This seems to work to filter out people who don’t like their work enough to read anything related to it and people who like to fake their way thru such tasks by sharing the first three Medium articles they find on the homepage.

What makes you question the “knows what they are doing” abilities of someone asking you to name three posts they liked? Is it any different from asking someone what algos they like and why?

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#37

Post by JeffRosenberg »

> And of course we’re always hiring engineers. If you have an interviewing.io account, you can take a look.)

Wait, you need to have an account just to see their open jobs? That seems like more of an antipattern than anything you could put in a job description.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#38

Post by neilwilson »

How many word article was that without mentioning once "how much are you paying"?

I have a thousand open source projects I could use my time on if paying the mortgage and putting food on the table wasn't an issue.

So let's cut the jabber and get the turkey bit out of the way first. Then we can discuss how 'cool' you think you are.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#39

Post by sokoloff »

JeffRosenberg wrote: post #37

> And of course we’re always hiring engineers. If you have an interviewing.io account, you can take a look.) Wait, you need to have an account just to see their open jobs? That seems like more of an antipattern than anything you could put in a job description.

I agree with you, but I suspect that is exactly what makes it a great filter for them to include.

Re: Avoiding the audience paradox when writing job descriptions

#40

Post by BeFlatXIII »

saimiam wrote: post #27
darkerside wrote: post #3

Most 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).

I ask candidates to list three blog posts that they recently read and enjoyed. Seems to be an easy way to filter out non-serious candidates and script kiddies. This has worked with roughly 60 to 70% of the candidates I have interview since I implemented this rule.

Does whether or not they are relevant blogs to the role or industry matter at all to you? My gut feeling is that you would get a better read on the personality of a candidate when they send you links that have little or nothing to do with the job they're applying for. All three links to industry-relevant blogs will tell me is that this candidate aims to please for obvious self-advancement reasons.
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