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

Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#51

Post by runjake »

Random bits:

- What company the job posting is for. There's a surprising number of job postings missing this tidbit. It might be fine in a job hungry market, but it's never been fine for me and I usually ignore these postings.

- A real description of the duties. What do you actually want me doing? Will I be working alone or within a team?

- What tools will I be using? It's alarmingly common to go into a job posting for J2EE and find out they're really migrating to .NET (or vice versa). I know a hell of a lot of programming languages, but I've truly mastered only a few.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#52

Post by wariola »

wccrawford wrote: post #41

The top-rated comments have a lot of good info, but I'm going to boil it down for what I look for: 40 hour workweek. Overtime only happens during an emergency. That means you NEVER schedule overtime. Accurate requirements and bonus skills. Don't ask for 7 years in a language that has existed for 4 years. Make it clear if experience in other languages is acceptable, and the candidate can get up to speed on a relativel…

Unit testing. Without unit testing, life is a LOT harder. Why don't people truly subscribe to this practice? It makes so much sense to put "bracers" around your work to insure its integrity. Check out this white paper if you want more information, I found it useful: http://www.parasoft.com/jsp/products/article.jsp?articleId=2...

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#53

Post by bugsy »

cageface wrote: post #46
lzw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I knew that was a group of arrogant douche bags who are probably incompetent before I even got to the puzzle. I didn't bother to look at the puzzle, it oddest matter how difficult it is, it's presence is just icing on the douchcake.

I think you've got the sensitivity on your douche detector cranked up way too high.

I'm not sure that he does, I thought the same of the ad and didn't say anything but I was glad someone did.

Reading in the graph and putting it in a tree structure is a reasonable problem, but not a 10 minute interview one.

Traversing the graph to find the optimal path? Wow, that's known to be a tricky problem. Brute force search will work but will take a while. Now, undoubtedly there must be some very clever proof that discards most of the searches for the special case of a triangle structure. And if you've seen that you're all set. If not, hopefully you have your copy of AoCP at hand to start looking for it. If you are in an interview and haven't seen it, you just need to recreate the conditions from 1 million BC to 1950 or whenever someone had the right insight to come up with a proof. Not really a reasonable assumption. In those circumstances it's only a test of if you've run into this issue before.

And figuring out the answer is necessary to determine the email to submit a resume? How foolish that hiring manager is. If he was Google, yeah, you can put the question on a giant billboard ad as a challenge and get some responses. He's not Google.

Reasonable question is if someone can parse some data and put it in a tree or graph.

Reasonable interview question is to bring this up and talk about approaches. Person mention's Djikstra's algorithm, well he's heard of Djikstra and knew he was big on optimal path searches. Mentions AoCP, he knows a good place to look for clever algorithms. Knows how to solve it on the spot? Probably pretty clever. Finding the optimal 100 node long path in a graph as a screening method to send in a resume? Funny stuff there.

Being a bit clever myself though I'll go a bit further here. I'd say you might be the person who posted that ad. But I think more likely is you want to apply for the job and have no idea at all how to solve that problem and are hoping by coming here and pretending it is trivial someone like me will give you some hints. Because if you really knew your stuff, you wouldn't be claiming it was trivial for any competent practitioner to solve and a reasonable screening question.

Sure, there is an easy answer out there for doing this search, that's almost certain. That everyone competent would figure it out easily? Nah.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#54

Post by cageface »

bugsy wrote: post #53
cageface wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've got the sensitivity on your douche detector cranked up way too high.

I'm not sure that he does, I thought the same of the ad and didn't say anything but I was glad someone did. Reading in the graph and putting it in a tree structure is a reasonable problem, but not a 10 minute interview one. Traversing the graph to find the optimal path? Wow, that's known to be a tricky problem. Brute force search will work but will take a while. Now, undoubtedly there must be some very clever proof t…

Reading in the graph and putting it in a tree structure is a reasonable problem, but not a 10 minute interview one.

Traversing the graph to find the optimal path? Wow, that's known to be a tricky problem.

This question wouldn't be appropriate for an interview, but I think it's just right for a pre-screen. It's not hard if you realize they're not asking for the optimal path, just the biggest total.

It's not my question, but I did take a second look at this company and I probably wouldn't have based on the rest of the posting.

The Quora challenge problem, on the other hand, seems like very hard one: http://www.quora.com/challenges

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#55

Post by bluehat »

AmberShah wrote: post #49
dotBen wrote: post #13

Random thoughts from when I write job reqs: Make sure there is a clear description of the job itself and what the challenges the company and the role itself are trying to solve ("Looking for Ruby on Rails devs, call us!" doesn't explain what problems you'll be solving, etc). GOOD developers don't look for a new job using X, Y and Z languages, they look for a new job tackling problems A, B, and C. Don't include requir…

Most of this is good except for the: don't use rockstar and other terminology. I don't behave like a rockstar but I often look for that as an indicator to apply since at least I know that I would be valued there. It's not so important to use it, but if you are truly looking for a guru (and most other people have failed the technical requirements so far) then it doesn't hurt to post it.

I think it does hurt. Especially in startups when you'll be working absurd numbers of hours and spending an incredible amount of time with these people I'd prefer the slightly-less-talented-but-very-good to the absurdly-brilliant-but-completely-intolerable. I definitely glaze over the word "rockstar" at best. Besides, I would think it goes without saying that anywhere I'd seriously consider working would expect all their employees to be damn good at what they do.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

cageface wrote: post #21
lzw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I learned nearly 20 years ago is that it sucks to work in shops where the engineers are arrogant, because the more arrogant the less likely any good engineering is tolerated. These kinds of puzzles communicate arrogance to me. They say "We're more interested in excluding you based on a trick question than in getting to know you".

I guess it depends on the question. If it requires previous knowledge of some kind of gimmick then I agree it's a turnoff. A good puzzle that challenges your thinking and tests some basic algorithmic chops is a good sign though, I think. For example, the puzzle in this ad is a good one: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sof/1927765905.html

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#57

Post by bluehat »

cageface wrote: post #18

It's actually a huge plus for me if the company takes the time to put a novel programming puzzle in the post. It says a few things: 1. this wasn't posted by a recruiter or somebody clueless in h.r. 2. engineers at this company still care about hiring 3. a lot of buzzword bombing b.s. artists aren't going to be applying 4. the company recognizes that raw aptitude is more important than bullet list bingo In other words…

I think these puzzles may be useful, but they do not respect the candidate's time. Candidates apply to many jobs, and it is unfair to expect them to each put half an hour into a problem they may or may not be interested in for a job that may never call them.

You can give your candidates this problem during an interview, but only if you are willing to give up time you could have otherwise spent in that interview getting to know the candidate in other ways.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#59

Post by JerryH »

bluehat wrote: post #55
AmberShah wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of this is good except for the: don't use rockstar and other terminology. I don't behave like a rockstar but I often look for that as an indicator to apply since at least I know that I would be valued there. It's not so important to use it, but if you are truly looking for a guru (and most other people have failed the technical requirements so far) then it doesn't hurt to post it.

I think it does hurt. Especially in startups when you'll be working absurd numbers of hours and spending an incredible amount of time with these people I'd prefer the slightly-less-talented-but-very-good to the absurdly-brilliant-but-completely-intolerable. I definitely glaze over the word "rockstar" at best. Besides, I would think it goes without saying that anywhere I'd seriously consider working would expect all t…

Agreed, I actively avoid people who thing they are as it's synonymous with "arrogant twat" and getting things done is about team work, not prima donnas.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a job posting attractive?

#60

Post by bugsy »

cageface wrote: post #54
bugsy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that he does, I thought the same of the ad and didn't say anything but I was glad someone did. Reading in the graph and putting it in a tree structure is a reasonable problem, but not a 10 minute interview one. Traversing the graph to find the optimal path? Wow, that's known to be a tricky problem. Brute force search will work but will take a while. Now, undoubtedly there must be some very clever proof t…

Reading in the graph and putting it in a tree structure is a reasonable problem, but not a 10 minute interview one. Traversing the graph to find the optimal path? Wow, that's known to be a tricky problem. This question wouldn't be appropriate for an interview, but I think it's just right for a pre-screen. It's not hard if you realize they're not asking for the optimal path , just the biggest total. It's not my questi…

The biggest total requires the optimal path for the stated constraints, those being the path must yield that biggest total.

They aren't asking for a good enough path, but for the best possible path, the one that gives the biggest total. That's the optimal path for this problem.

Probably a brute force search is the way to go, I certainly can't think of any way to thin this problem out without doing research, especially given the requirement that the optimal (maximum value) solution is required.

99 levels below the top, each time a binary decision, there's 2^99 = 6.34 * 10^29 paths only, won't take too long relative to the life of the universe since 2^99 nanoseconds is only 20 trillion years. That's the answer, might have a little problem with the sun burning out before the computation completes, but by that time you should be able to relocate using a warp drive. Good luck on the interview.

edit: Ah I just figured out the pruning algorithm that will solve it. And that's the answer too, I just gave it to you in the previous sentence if you read carefully. Obvious once you think of it, not until then. I doubt many people would figure it out without a hint. And with a hint only clever ones could get it. As a screening to send in resumes? Pretty useless. If you do get a response who's to say they didn't ask for hints on a message board or pay someone to solve it on rentacoder.

Post reply on HN