Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16554197

by gls2ro • 8 years ago

61 57 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

In your opinion how should a job description page look like?

What information should include?

If you were to create the job description page (or careers page) for your company what will you put there?

What information will you add there?

Sonnol53• 8 years ago

Skills required to complete the job. Maybe 1, 3, 6 month goals.

dasmoth• 8 years ago

Make sure there’s a clear description of what the organization does.

For things like programming where there’s a lot of variety, some stuff indication of typical working environment is really nice. Daily standup? Lots of pairing? This isn’t a right/wrong thing but will help people with strong preferences avoid wasting time.

What’s the office environment like? Single offices? Team rooms? Cubicles?

Remote-working policy.

scarface746• 8 years ago

Pay range and what skills would get you to the top of the range.

What are the required skills and nice to haves.

401K match and vesting schedule.

ronilan• 8 years ago

An address of the place in which you will work. Trivial. Hardly anyone does it.

nathanaldensr• 8 years ago

For tactical positions like programming, required skills and optional skills are probably a minimum. However, I have found that the most attractive job ads are those that talk about the culture of the company in addition to what they expect of me. I like ads that communicate that I would be an appreciated member of the team.

Dry lists of bullet points are a turn-off; they give the impression that the company just wants a warm body.

I also avoid companies that rely on hyperbole in their job ads--"rockstar," "ninja," "guru," etc. They give the impression that the one who wrote the job ad and/or the hiring manager have no idea how to truly quantify good talent.

rajacombinator4• 8 years ago

+1 to “rockstar”, “guru”, etc being a dead giveaway of a terrible company.

0x4f3759df• 8 years ago

Also don't talk about the 'free soda', 'nerf gun wars', 'air hockey table' or something else that indicates you treat your employees like children. I also hate the ninja/rockstar stuff.

matfil• 8 years ago

I’ve seen them become unfashionable over the past few years. Is it the implied individualism that gives these words “terrible company” associations?

Is there a good word for an experienced person who is better at shutting the door and working through problems rather that doing things in a team?

ken3• 8 years ago

For tactical positions like programming, required skills and optional skills are probably a minimum.

True, but you have to be a little careful with "required skills". At my last job, the CTO asked me to check out a job posting, and the "required skills" list had our entire tech stack (maybe 20 items, including several rare ones). We were literally asking for a single person who knew as much as our entire company did!

This can be especially problematic because not everyone sees "required" the same way: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

tahw• 8 years ago

Pay, Expected Weekly Hours (especially if it's salary), and Tech Stack are the most important to me.

s73v3r_• 8 years ago

The pay range, where the actual job is, and what the duties of the job would be.

rajacombinator4• 8 years ago

Salary range. Critical info that most job listings don’t have. I’m much more likely to consider a job if I know it has an appropriate salary range.

pjc50• 8 years ago

Can't upvote this enough. Even if it's a really wide range, it rules out companies with unrealistically low pay scales.

It also makes it slightly more equitable, since employees are no longer reliant on playing salary poker in order to determine their pay rate. This tends to reduce the salary gap.

hazza1• 8 years ago

Hence why companies rarely include it.

scarface746• 8 years ago

One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

rb8082• 8 years ago

The problem is we are interested in lots of different levels, if you put a typical range you wont get the best people. If you put a high number out you get every nutter in town applying. As a result we dont publish a range.

Jemmeh5• 8 years ago

Could you show the range and then right before someone submits a resume they have to answer 1 or 2 questions. Like -really- basic stuff would weed out a lot of the bots and "I use computers, I can do it!" people. Just needs to be something that takes like 5 minutes or less.

Just me but I'd rather know salary up front and not spend an entire interview just to be low-balled. Wastes everyone's time.

thomaspaine• 8 years ago

Why can't you publish multiple salary ranges per job post (level 1: $X1 - $Y1, level 2: $X2 - $Y2, etc) or multiple job posts (one for each level)?

Neglecting to publish a salary range seems more like a negotiation tactic on behalf of companies of not wanting to be the first to name a number. Either that or you know your company can't compete on salary, which is my typical assumption when it's a company I've never heard of and I don't see a range provided.

l9k• 8 years ago

Glassdoor is a good start to get an idea of the salaries.

Jemmeh5• 8 years ago

A lot of smaller companies don't have info. Or the info may be outdated.

Jemmeh5• 8 years ago

Company - Address - (Remote Allowed?)

Job Title - Department

Description of Company

Description of Job

Tech Stack

Requirements

How Interview Works

Salary Range

Benefits

[Click to Apply without having to retype your whole resume]

jonny_eh• 8 years ago

Excellent list. I'd just add a brief overview of the interview process to be totally complete.

Cyph0n• 8 years ago

As someone currently interviewing for software positions, this x100. I mean, why do I have ask about this every single time?

Jemmeh5• 8 years ago

Added. Good idea.

jamestimmins• 8 years ago

It's also important to be honest about what tech makes up most of your stack. Lots of companies say "We use a mix of {sexy_tech} {sexy_tech} and {unsexy_tech}", when 90+% of their codebase is in {unsexy_tech}. I see this frequently, and it's misleading.

cuckcuckspruce2• 8 years ago

That's the "put up a group photo" method of describing a job. Hint: unless there are other pictures, assume that the most unattractive person in the picture is the person in the profile.

WDCDev• 8 years ago

Interview Style. Are you going to whiteboard me or do something else?

maxxxxx• 8 years ago

Tell me what the job actually is.

And salary, salary, salary!

Vacation policies.

ken3• 8 years ago

A photograph of my desk.

Most tech jobs I've seen don't have any photos at all. When they do, it's usually the lobby and kitchen and ping-pong table. Why are you trying so hard to hide the place I'm going to be spending 95% of my time? You wouldn't buy a car without ever having seen the driver's seat, and I spend way less time in my car than at my computer.

When I saw photos of Fog Creek's offices (with programmers sitting at their own desks), I didn't need to read any marketing fluff to know that programmers are treated better there than at any tech company I've seen in Seattle, and if I lived near NYC I'd be beating down the doors to work there. They're not architecturally 'pretty' but seeing 20 desk-level outlets per person shows they've thought about all the little annoyances that developers have.

Of course, on the hiring side, this only works if your workspace is a differentiator for you. If it's a generic open-office floor plan, then it's not, and you probably should hide it from applicants and push salary/benefits and "interesting problems" instead.

Jemmeh5• 8 years ago

+1 I find myself poking through Glassdoor looking for office pictures. It's definitely weighed in before.

mrfusion• 8 years ago

atter getting offers I always ask to see my work area before deciding and often they’ll look at me like I’m crazy! I’ve even had employers refuse saying it would be too disruptive! I didn’t take those jobs.

spyspy• 8 years ago

I've come to appreciate job listings that include the actual team/project that I'd be working on. If a company of more than 10 people can't tell me what they actually need me for it strikes me as a company that's wildly disorganized and/or with a lot of employee turnover.

"We don't hire for specific roles, we just hire good engineers" (read: your job is whatever we say it is any given moment).

priyadarshy• 8 years ago

I agree, it's important to be able to visualize something tangible you might work on or build. When it comes time to the interview you also have a real context to talk about things in like why you'd choose X technology, or why you'd implement Y in some particular way.

souprock3• 8 years ago

It can be project turnover. Take mine for example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16283252

It has that attribute you are complaining about, but without the problems you presume. Suppose we hired you. Perhaps a couple months pass between when the job ad is posted and when you physically show up for your first day of work. We aren't going to put projects on hold while waiting for you; we'll assign those to other people. Once you show up, we'll get you started on a project.

That project assignment won't last forever. We may decide that you are more valuable elsewhere, perhaps after you get a security clearance. (another reason we can't say much, along with plain ordinary proprietary information) Projects tend to last a year or two.

It's not as if we have no idea. We can say in general terms what kind of stuff you could work on. Telling you about a project that might be done before you start your first day of work would make no sense at all.

I wouldn't call it wildly disorganized, but the details are not perfectly predictable. There are people managing a pipeline of upcoming projects. They propose things to customers, get feedback, place bids to do the work, get contracts, set things up for doing the work, and then match up employees with projects.

scarface746• 8 years ago

I wish more employees would have the kind of job posting you have in your link. It would tell me I wouldn't want to go anywhere near the company.

Pick Florida or Texas to live in a place with solid gun rights and no state income tax.

Why do I care about gun rights when I'm applying for a job. That implies a culture that is always bringing politics into the job -something I avoid like the plague.

We proudly fly the American flag. One in our cafeteria looks to be about 8x15 feet. Our veterans hold an annual Flag Folding Ceremony in honor of Veteran's Day.

I respect veterans (my father is one) but along with the gun rights statement it still feels like bringing non work related stuff into the job. I just want to do my job and go home.

Many employees choose to go shooting together, but there is no pressure to participate. It's just a normal all-American activity.

Another red flag....

When someone asked about salary range, the response was

We are hiring at multiple levels and in multiple locations, so it's a big range. You don't want an upper bound on it, do you? That would be limiting. :-)

Another red flag....

kornakiewicz• 8 years ago

Well, actual duties. Go and ask two to five people of the same/similar team/level to write down what they were mostly doing last week or month.

One of the hardest time for me is on-boarding a guy or girl who is poorly informed about their role. Not any better when I am the new-joiner.

SerLava• 8 years ago

Pay range. It can be vague of you want, but just add a pay range. Those get top priority every time, even if the job doesn't sound as good.

chinpunkanpun• 8 years ago

Job descriptions as a whole are in need of a major overhaul to start to include more contextual information about the roles being hired for.

A study by TheLadders.com showed that candidates spend on average 49 seconds on a job description before deciding if it's a fit or not. The majority of that time is spent above the fold.

JDs should include the most vital information about the role above the fold. Which languages should the candidate know? What certification is required? Any specialized training? Location? Education? All above the fold. No need to lead a candidate on only to reveal in the last sentence: "Must speak Mandarin".

Salary. Mention salary. Every candidate wants to know. At the very least, give a range.

Once you get past the basics, add in required skills with context. Avoid the temptation to use cliche "communication skills" or "customer service skills" without adding additional context.

Simple formula: You will use [skill name] to [desired result] within/using [time frame/technology]

A great example of a very effective JD is from 37Signals a few years ago: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2544-were-looking-for-an-offi...

It's pretty difficult to read that JD and be confused about the role. They avoid ambiguity at all costs and keep everything tied to specific duties/tasks/outcomes.

Finally, give candidates insight into not just your company, but the people doing the work. Their stories and experiences are tremendously more effective than marketing copy written by legal or a content team.

We're actually working on this exact problem at https://www.Ruutly.com -- converting text-based job descriptions into contextual candidate experiences, above the fold.

edit - formatting

vbtemp• 8 years ago

Salary range and the attributes of what a candidate would need to get to be the top of that range.

Appearances of avoiding or deferring that discussion frustrate me immensely, as it seems like the company is trying to compensate with fluff before getting to the facts of it. This is because - at the end of the day - salary is simply the most important thing. It is how you provide for yourself and your family. It is how you build wealth and stability and safety for your life, and nothing else comes close. When my company provides me, via a solid salary, this financial security, I am 200% invested in making its mission successful, whatever the tech stack or other details of the role.

lynnetye• 8 years ago

I have no idea why job descriptions look the way they do today, but I've devoted the last ~9 months of my life encouraging companies, specifically engineering teams, to provide more information up front about who they are and what it's actually like to work there. Candidates want to know so much more than just salary and tech stack.

https://www.keyvalues.com

Candidates want to know about as much as possible before investing hours/days/weeks interviewing at a company. Who wants to waste all that time trying to get an offer from a company they don't even want to work at?!

Here are things candidates might want to know about:

- office layout

- on call schedule

- lunch traditions

- support for personal development

- organization/structure (ie. pods vs. teams)

- engagement with the greater community

- participation in meetups/conferences/hackathons

- ability to move between teams and change projects

- culture of promotion (external or from w/in?)

- hiring goals for the next 6, 12 months

- composition of team (X frontend, Y backend, Z data, etc)

- interview process

- employee retention

- diversity goals and metrics

- flexibility of working arrangements

- frequency and duration of meetings

- opportunities to mentor interns or junior devs

- code reviews

- post mortems

- tooling (ie. for revision control)

- how often do people pair?

- channels to provide feedback to executives

- contributions to open source

- average age?

- support/benefits for parents

- "busy times" or "peak seasons" for the company

- runway

- hobbies/interests of current team members aka future coworkers

- level/amount of interaction between me and users/customers

- ability to work remotely

- support for IC vs. management tracks

- amount of collaboration between departments

- is this job available because they're fortifying existing teams or spinning up new ones?

- general, day-to-day working hours

The list goes on and on.

I also wrote tons of questions for candidates to ask during their job interviews to get information about all of the above: https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-queries

ken3• 8 years ago

I've run across keyvalues.com before, and it's a great idea, but I found it didn't really help me. For one thing, there doesn't seem to be any way to filter by location (not that it would help me, since they're mostly in California).

But the bigger issue for me is that a "value" for me is either something that ought to be universal (like racial/gender equality), or a deliberate choice between valid options. For most of these values, I have no idea what the opposite choice might be. For example, GitHub picked "CUSTOMER COMES FIRST" (ironically, as their #2 value), but I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Investors come first? Make art, not products? Do any software companies have such values?

You mention on the "About" page an example of a value you originally wanted to search for, "whether they favored speed or perfection when it came to shipping code", which I think is a perfect example of a value I'd want to search for, too. Unfortunately, in the list of 50 values, I can't find any that represent either of these positions. The closest I can find are "HIGH QUALITY CODE BASE" and "FAST-PACED ENVIRONMENT", but they're not exactly opposites, and sure enough several of the companies picked both of these values, in adjacent positions. I don't see any way for companies to indicate they hold the opposite of one of these values.

Here's one possible goal for anyone writing a new software engineering job search site. Every month or so, someone posts a link to "They Write the Right Stuff" here on HN, an article about the Lockheed space shuttle software group. Make a job site that would let me find that as a career, never having heard of it and not having any prior interest in the field. For example, it could have a "speed"/"perfection" dial, and show me aerospace jobs if I turn it all the way to "perfection".

mdekkers• 8 years ago

Salary range; Remote Ok, and from where; Stack used;

Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page?

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