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Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

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Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#81

Post by scmoore »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #79
davidgerard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it have any effect whatsoever on the flow of spam? (I was nominally responsible for a Clearcase installation for six months in 2001. I mentioned it on my CV in 2002. I still get the occasional ping from those last, last few Clearcase shops, desperate for someone who will admit to ever having touched it.)

I learned this the hard way as well. If you've worked with some technology or product, but don't ever want to work with it again, don't mention it in your resume. I mentioned doing some ColdFusion work because, well, that's what I did as part of a previous job, but when I started looking for a new job, I quickly found I wanted to take that out. Of course, if word gets out you're a software developer looking for work,…

I'm a week into a ColdFusion job (also in VA) and this is a little unsettling -- pretty sure I'll want to leave this stuff behind me when I move on.

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#82

Post by davidgerard »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #79
davidgerard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it have any effect whatsoever on the flow of spam? (I was nominally responsible for a Clearcase installation for six months in 2001. I mentioned it on my CV in 2002. I still get the occasional ping from those last, last few Clearcase shops, desperate for someone who will admit to ever having touched it.)

I learned this the hard way as well. If you've worked with some technology or product, but don't ever want to work with it again, don't mention it in your resume. I mentioned doing some ColdFusion work because, well, that's what I did as part of a previous job, but when I started looking for a new job, I quickly found I wanted to take that out. Of course, if word gets out you're a software developer looking for work,…

I mostly find it hilarious. Of course, the flow of recruiter spam started as soon as I hit a magic 5 years' Unix experience and hasn't stopped.

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#83

Post by opk »

cek wrote: post #41

Best job description I ever wrote. This was while I was a Microsoft building a new team. Are you a lazy program manager who could care less about PCs, devices, networking, and other technologies in the home? Have you always dreaded working on a product that you would LOVE to use? Do you yearn to work in a huge, lumbering, group working on the same old stuff forever? If so, have we got a job for you! We are looking fo…

Don't you mean to write "couldn't care less" in the first sentence.

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#84

Post by cratermoon »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #21
vonmoltke wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low hiring bar? Kitchen sink "requirements" give me the impression that they are looking for a magical unicorn.

Have a look at the ads wanting several years of experience coding in Swift. (Apple has only supported it for about three months now.) When MS first shipped C++ for windows, quite commonly the recruiters wanted candidates with five years of windows C++ experience.

That sort of thing seems to happen when the folks writing the job posting attempt to take the actual requirements from the hiring manager and rewrite them to some standard format. A manager might want "someone who knows C++ for Windows" and "someone who is intermediate in experience". The HR person will look up "intermediate" and see "minimum 5 years" and then glue it onto the technology.

Has anyone ever had a favorable experience working with a hiring company or recruiter that is especially particular about how many years of experience a candidate has in some technology? Exactly how much a programmers knows isn't directly dependent on how long the programmer has been working with the tool. There is such a thing as "1 year of experience 5 times".

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#85

Post by manifestsilence »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #28
MichaelCrawford wrote: post #20

I'm looking for the kind of job where I can stare out the window all day long, but then write one single subroutine that just works the very first time, and that not only is compliant to spec, but exceeds expectation. Rock stars blow their royalties and ticket sales up their noses, sleep with groupies, trash hotel rooms and die young.

back in the day, some clueless manager posted to usenet that he was looking for a coder who could - I swear I'm not making this up! - "write 1000 lines of code per day". I'm sure you can visualize all the responses that were posted.

Clearly they were looking for this guy: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/Got_Time_0x3f_

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#86

Post by MichaelCrawford »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #79
davidgerard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it have any effect whatsoever on the flow of spam? (I was nominally responsible for a Clearcase installation for six months in 2001. I mentioned it on my CV in 2002. I still get the occasional ping from those last, last few Clearcase shops, desperate for someone who will admit to ever having touched it.)

I learned this the hard way as well. If you've worked with some technology or product, but don't ever want to work with it again, don't mention it in your resume. I mentioned doing some ColdFusion work because, well, that's what I did as part of a previous job, but when I started looking for a new job, I quickly found I wanted to take that out. Of course, if word gets out you're a software developer looking for work,…

I'm looking for work in Portland, Oregon.

The recruiters seem to be catching my drift in a rather oblique way, in that just since yesterday, they've been sending me inquiries about jobs in Portland, Maine.

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#87

Post by tunap »

duderific wrote: post #17

"Gamechanger" is the new "rockstar"

"Gamechanger"=same shit, new wrapping

"rockstar" or "ninja"=naive or gullible

"hybrid"=1 to do work of previous >1

These are the people I would not work for even if they paid me enough; considering they're using silly buzzwords to attract warm bodies(not = talent) assures me their "competitive wage" puts the starting salary right on par with 'fry cook'.

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#88

Post by Someone1234 »

opk wrote: post #83
cek wrote: post #41

Best job description I ever wrote. This was while I was a Microsoft building a new team. Are you a lazy program manager who could care less about PCs, devices, networking, and other technologies in the home? Have you always dreaded working on a product that you would LOVE to use? Do you yearn to work in a huge, lumbering, group working on the same old stuff forever? If so, have we got a job for you! We are looking fo…

Don't you mean to write "couldn't care less" in the first sentence.

"Could care less" is the sarcastic form of "couldn't care less." It works much better in speech than online (since the sarcastic tone on "could care less" does not travel over text).

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#89

Post by MichaelCrawford »

IvyMike wrote: post #12

Postings that use phrases like "ninja", "rockstar", "crush code", etc, tell me something very, very important about the company. Specifically, that I'd probably hate to work there.

"ninja" and "rockstar" seem to have faded in popularity. Now one is expected to be "passionate".

I like to stay awake for days on end, writing. I mean like essays, articles and stories.

Sometimes I even write poetry!

Re: Things I wish people who write job postings would stop writing

#90

Post by MrDom »

cek wrote: post #54
dsr_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't realized that Microsoft encouraged that degree of honesty or introspection. Did you actually post that anywhere?

Yes, I posted this to several mailing lists that had thousands of people on them. I got about 500 responses. Most were of the "LOL" variety. One said "I found this to be in very poor taste." I got 11 solid leads, and 2 of those turned into hires. More here: http://ceklog.kindel.com/2011/10/27/my-best-hiring-stunt-to-...

Were they quality hires? And are you still hiring at amazon? ;)
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