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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

#91

Post by MrDom »

MichaelCrawford wrote: post #45
Retra wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But we have bean bag chairs!"

I just looked at the Jobs page on the site of an actual employer - not a job board post - where they had photos of them all getting drunk. I have had some experiences with alcoholics I do not wish to repeat. A recent employer was a raging alcoholic, I mean to the point that there were hundreds of beer bottles in the recycling bin, one-liter bottles of expensive hard liquor presented on display in the break room. The…

> the guy bet the farm on a technology without looking into whether that technology actually worked.

> When I had not gotten it working after just two hours, he started raging at me about how it was all my fault that it didn't work.

This is how most mid-sized non-technology companies operate when it comes to making technical decisions. If you have a couple of months to spare (the guy is verbose), I recommend reading the Gervais Principle[0].

[0] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

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

#92

Post by pavel_lishin »

turar wrote: post #78
pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is quite cruel that the name of the employer is usually not provided: "We are a hot startup in the cloudspace" rather than "Example.com is a hot startup in the cloudspace". This has the result that I apply to a lot more companies than I otherwise would, because there is no way I can learn more about the company _before_ apply. There's a workaround for this. Take a few sentences from the job description - some of…

I wonder how effective that is vs going through the middleman. I'd guess if the "end company" is small enough without the bloated HR structure, it's more effective to get in the door by contacting them directly. On the other hand, if it's a behemoth like GE or similar, it might be more effective to go through a middleman to get past clueless HR. I'm struggling with these decisions currently, as I see the same positio…

Does going through a recruiter typically mean that you bypass HR? I always assumed that HR would be involved regardless.

I've only worked for one company large enough to have a dedicated HR team, and they don't seem clueless to me so far.

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

#93

Post by cek »

MrDom wrote: post #90
cek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? ;)

Of course, and yes: http://www.amazon.jobs/results?searchStrings[]=alcc

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

#94

Post by cek »

Someone1234 wrote: post #88
opk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Actually, in all honesty, when I wrote "could care less" I was more stoopid than I am now.

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

#95

Post by turar »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #92
turar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how effective that is vs going through the middleman. I'd guess if the "end company" is small enough without the bloated HR structure, it's more effective to get in the door by contacting them directly. On the other hand, if it's a behemoth like GE or similar, it might be more effective to go through a middleman to get past clueless HR. I'm struggling with these decisions currently, as I see the same positio…

Does going through a recruiter typically mean that you bypass HR? I always assumed that HR would be involved regardless. I've only worked for one company large enough to have a dedicated HR team, and they don't seem clueless to me so far.

My understanding is that some (most?) recruiters work directly with hiring managers.

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

#96

Post by Immortalin »

Someone1234 wrote: post #88
opk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Not true, "could care less" is american english while "couldn't care less" is british english

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

#97

Post by Avalaxy »

Immortalin wrote: post #96
Someone1234 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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).

Not true, "could care less" is american english while "couldn't care less" is british english

They mean completely different things.

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

#98

Post by Mimu »

In all honestly I don't think this is just jobs ads. Just look at this place (hacker news) for example, everybody is using the term "hacker" to designate anything.

Today putting lettuce and meat together to create a salad is hacking.

I agree that this is ridiculous though, also I currently work in a company that was hiring a "Jedi angularJS developer", I had 2 days experience with the framework when I signed (they knew, long story short they didn't want me, the recruiter pass me a test that was not for me and I did way better than the original guy).

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

#100

Post by GeoffreyKr »

davidgerard wrote: post #48

Joblint is now available as a service! http://joblint.org/ - Test tech job specs for issues with sexism, culture, expectations, and recruiter fails. Library source: https://github.com/rowanmanning/joblint

Nice project :) (I just lint job spec and the analysis seems right)
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