Ask HN: Does this kind of arrogance get job applications?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346423

by redguava • 15 years ago

46 54 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I just saw this job ad posted on Hacker News:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346308

It comes across very arrogant to me, including this statement "VC funded yadayada". Working at a company is a big commitment for a person, it's where they are going to spend the majority of their waking life. Doesn't this deserve a bit more respect from employers? I don't care how fast the growth or how cool they believe themselves to be, it's an attitude that turns me off immediately. I am sure it's not doing them any favors. Does this job ad entice you to apply?

waxman• 15 years ago

It's essential that startup teams have great chemistry.

If you don't appreciate their sense of humor (or vice versa), it's probably not a good fit. That's fine.

It's better to establish these things sooner versus later in the interview process, so you're not wasting each other's time.

To this end, I think it's productive when startups post job listings like this that genuinely reflect their culture and personality. It can serve as the first of several mutual filters to weed out potential candidates who wouldn't work well with the team.

redguava2• 15 years ago

I agree with your sentiment, but I just don't see how this particular ad would make anyone say "Yes! That's the company culture for me".

I guess that's what I am asking here though... does it inspire you to apply (or would it if you were looking)?

apsurd• 15 years ago

the post didn't bother me at all so I guess it's just a personal taste kinda thing.

To me I like that they got straight to the point. They are basically saying "we are worth betting your time on because ..." they are growing really fast and what not. I think it's refreshing actually.

Now on the the other hand I am extremely annoyed by posts that use marketing speak and overly-memetic prose. It's like they are trying really really really really hard to be hip, cool, and funny all at the same time.

This post comes off as straight to the point. The yadada thing is not big deal to me because I take it like: "we will cover all that stuff later... if you are interested"

feralmoan• 15 years ago

Maybe its an 'East Coast' delivery but I appreciate the candor, particularly if its an up and coming high profile company. The only lasting sentiment is that they're in it to win it and may take the highest close out offer sooner rather than later. Not a bad deal for a Ruby Genius, really.

meric• 15 years ago

Not a "Rails Genius". If I was interested in such a job I would send "something you’ve built in Rails and any other work you’re proud of", but not spend a lot of time on it.

mikeleeorg• 15 years ago

I didn't find it that arrogant, but I think it's possible to get a glimpse of a company's culture through their job ad. If you felt their approach was a turn-off, it's likely you'd feel the same way about their culture & team as well.

So for better or worse (they could argue better, you could argue worse), their job ad is filtering for people that would fit them.

overcyn• 15 years ago

What company is this? I cant seem to find it.

mjdwitt9• 15 years ago

That seems to be the point. I'm guessing they're trying to be "stealth."

Timothee2• 15 years ago

But if they're that big and growing that much, they can't be that stealth…

Unless the "stealth" part is the fact that they're a YC company. By that I mean that it could be a company/product that is well known but it's unknown that the company joined YC last summer. Though I'm not sure if a secret like that could be kept easily… (e.g. TurnTable.fm could fit the bill of some of the details: NY, music-based, Facebook API, game dynamics, crowdsourced content, VC-funded… but they're not part of YC AFAICT)

Another example is COLOURLovers which was big long before joining YCombinator. (so much so that I was very surprised that they did)

NB: if it turns out, I'm right about TurnTable.fm, remember that you've read it here first :)

alexwolfe6• 15 years ago

I think most would view this as some kind of joke or scam. Knowing that anyone can create a line graph and a gmail account I would have no reason at all to think this is a real company.

Anyone growing that fast shouldn't be afraid to post a real email address, just doesn't add up for me.

If this is some kind of style or joke I think it is better served to save that for when your having coffee. As laid back as our industry is, most would like to consider themselves professionals. This job posting doesn't seem very professional on any level.

mjdwitt9• 15 years ago

Considering that the only companies allowed to post job ads here are YC alumni, you can trust that they are a real company. If I saw an ad like that posted anywhere else, however, I'd have the same reaction.

Doubts of their existence aside, I still agree with the OP; ads like this make me think that I'd hate working for the founder posting them. If he wants me to try to prove my worth as a candidate, I want to know that its even worth my time to send him a portfolio/resume/cover letter.

bmelton3• 15 years ago

I don't think he was doubting their existence, but was just doubting whether or not the traffic graph was real -- it might have been a joke.

alexwolfe6• 15 years ago

I didn't know that only YC Alumni can post jobs and I'm guessing I'm not the only one, thanks for pointing that out.

I think we both agree this job posting is not very appealing especially considering the amount of positions currently available for developers. Most good developers I know do just as much if not more screening than the companies hiring them. I know a number of companies in need of good developers that have great working environments. I think its important for people hiring to be respectful and kind if they are serious about attracting good talent.

citricsquid• 15 years ago

only actual YC participants can post these job postings.

kls• 15 years ago

Right, I think the issue at hand is the pendulum has swung too far the other way. People are going so far out of the way to display that they are not just another corp gig that the message can come off as unprofessional, amateur and even suspect of deceit.

I look at these post as the rock-star and ninja posts that used to have flooding the boards a few years ago. Me personally, if I was going to post an ad, I would post one explaining why we love the technology we use and some highlights about how team members where empowered to do great things. Something along the line of "Jim joined us and built out an entire REST facade in Node", "We like Node because it is event driven", "if you know Node we would love to talk to you". Give people a personal connection with the company and the people they will be involved with, most else comes off as corporate, gimmicky, or worst yet arrogant.

MichaelApproved• 15 years ago

Clickable link to job post in question http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346308

astrec• 15 years ago

No, it doesn't entice me to apply. Intentional or otherwise, I think that's a good thing for both parties.

The ad is a window into the soul of their company, unfortunate perhaps, but hardly arrogant.

syaz12• 15 years ago

I find this very profound.

syaz12• 15 years ago

Not sure why I was downvoted. I meant to say I found GP's post to be profound:

    The ad is a window into the soul of their company, unfortunate perhaps, but hardly arrogant.

dangrossman3• 15 years ago

From the numerous hints in the ad, I'm betting this was posted by Rap Genius.

http://rapgenius.com/

whalesalad• 15 years ago

Other job postings for the same company:

~160 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2736780

~130 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2863043

My gut keeps telling me it's turntable.fm

dangrossman3• 15 years ago

The traffic graph is several orders of magnitude off for turntable. I think it's Rap Genius. Goes with the "Rails Genius" title, traffic graph matches better, describes their app (from what I can tell), and I think that's their dropbox ID.

klochner• 15 years ago

turntable isn't a ycombinator company

mjdwitt9• 15 years ago

Timothee has an interesting theory about that: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346641

danilocampos2• 15 years ago

I don't see the arrogance, and I'm very sensitive to douchespeak.

Here I read a posting by a person who's confident in their company's direction, knows what they're looking for, and assumes the potential hire knows the drill after reading a bunch of these job ads after awhile. They're also pretty clear on what the product is and why a given engineer might enjoy working on it.

This was nice, too, as flexibility is anything but arrogant: "Preferably NYC, but we’re flexible."

Arrogance would be "we're in NYC. If you're not, don't bother writing." Or some such.

Dunno, man, with the clarity of language and the refreshing brevity, this is one of the better specimens, to my mind.

alexwolfe6• 15 years ago

I don't think what they are saying is arrogant but it is not very professional.

They offer no name and a graph that you are supposed to take on good faith. In return they expect you to write them (what most would) a cover letter, including probably a resume, and a project you've built in rails that you are proud of.

This is a tremendous amount of information and a effort to expect when they have given very little. By contrast they cannot provide a company name, a legitimate email address, or information on who is running the company.

Granted the graph may be impressive but what about the company culture, location, work space, size, etc? Those seem like more important things to talk about for someone planning to commit the next year or two of their lives to a job.

mjdwitt9• 15 years ago

It'd be interesting to respond to the ad with an entirely anonymous resume and portfolio from some one-off email address. See if you get a response/request for more information.

danilocampos2• 15 years ago

Maybe they're in stealth. That limits how much of the kimono they're willing to open. Or maybe they're in the open but they want to brag about the traffic graph without having to spoil some press they're saving for later. (Though anyone who pays even a little attention around here would probably find it easy to suss out who these guys are. I have a good hunch.)

I don't think it would be out of line to offer an equally pithy summary of one's work experience, along with a resume, and let the conversation go from there. They're signaling that they're not stuffy suits – I don't think the expectation is for an applicant to respond to the ad like they would a job at IBM.

As to professionalism, eh, screw it. I'm exhausted with corporate bullshit and I know I hate when scrappy companies try to emulate it. They're "keeping it real," as the kids say, and that's a lot more pleasant to me than the stiff, stuffy, dull alternatives.

ig1• 15 years ago

It's pretty common not to identify the company, companies don't want to reveal their funding or their growth until they're ready to use it for PR.

S4M• 15 years ago

I don't see the problem with that. Any job seeker should have an updated CV at hand, and he'd better have some Rail project to show off if he is a Rail developper, so dropping a standard "Hi, please find my cv enclosed, here is something I built..." is not a great deal for someone looking for a job.

skurry• 15 years ago

Sounds like it was written by someone in a hurry. Or maybe by someone who had made the observation that the time invested in crafting a thorough job posting does not correlate significantly with the quality of applicants to said ad? In any case, I didn't strike me as that arrogant.

moocow01• 15 years ago

I'll agree that most job postings make me puke a little bit and are typically very poorly done across the industry. This certainly isn't all that great but it gets much much worse. One of my favorites was a job posting that started off bragging about what kind of cars everyone drives on the team. It literally had a long paragraph listing the types of cars everyone on the team drove (BMW, etc., etc.) before any of the job requirements. I personally would be more enticed by an ad that says everyone is required to roller blade to work.

Mz4• 15 years ago

It comes across very arrogant to me, including this statement "VC funded yadayada".

Given that other people here are saying that only YC funded companies can post a job ad here, maybe it's a "yeah, you knew that already, let's not waste any more time on that stuff" type sentiment. Of course, there are other people saying they didn't know that, so perhaps the main sin they are committing is assuming that the audience is as "in the know" as they are -- ie they are assuming everyone on HN is as aware as they are of how all this ties back to YC, only that's not an accurate assumption.

It's often really tough to figure out how to make sure you are including enough information to inform your audience without including so much as to insult their intelligence. This becomes more complicated as audience size and diversity grows and HN is quite heavily trafficked these days. Perhaps it is better for this company to write the ad so as to not insult the intelligence of the more in-the-know types who realize the ads here are only from YC funded companies than to over-explain. It may be better to offend and alienate the relatively "clueless" than to insult the intelligence of the types of people they hope will actually apply. I mean if someone not in the know concludes they are arrogant pricks and "I wouldn't want to work there", hey, probably no loss. It might even be saving them wasted time (by reducing the number of applications from clueless people). But talking to the highly qualified like they are uninformed 5 year olds who need everything explained, well, there goes your best potential candidates. Good luck filling it now.

alexwolfe6• 15 years ago

Regardless of how "In the know" you are, I doubt your going to feel awesome sending your cover, full resume, and project to HugeMeme@gmail.com

Mz4• 15 years ago

I'm not saying they got it right. Just that there may be another explanation for the specific line that was being criticized as "arrogant". That struck a chord with me because of how often I get accused of arrogance. I don't think I am arrogant. If you really are dramatically better at something than other people, owning that fact is a socially uncomfortable but somewhat unavoidable part of life. (If you try to say "no, no, I'm nothing special" when you really are that much better, that gets called "false modesty" and people heap flack on you for that as well. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.)

redguava2• 15 years ago

I think it would be naive to assume "person that knows all about hacker news" = "great candidate". It could be argued spending too much time on hacker news is not what you want in your employees.

Back to the main point, the real issue I have is they are too busy to write an informative job post actually encouraging people to apply, to me that isn't respectful of your audience. They wan't someone to join and be a part of their team, do they really want to start the conversation like this.

Mz4• 15 years ago

It could be argued spending too much time on hacker news is not what you want in your employees.

That doesn't really make sense to me, personally. Check the leader board. Almost everyone on it appears to be an extremely competent hacker. (Though I think at least one is an extremely competent lawyer.)

I personally generally hate job listings. I think they all make little sense. I work for a large company and I find the job postings there completely unfathomable. It's one of the reasons I am still stuck in an entry level job: The job board at the company I actually work for is almost completely illegible to me. The last job I applied for I only applied because a senior manager clued me it was a job on her team and encouraged me to apply. I didn't get it but I at least had some fucking clue where it was, who it was with and what it entailed, information I cannot ferret out from the official postings. (Note: I still didn't know what it paid, information I would have liked to have.)

I think most job postings completely suck. Is this worse suckitude? I don't really know. I just don't think there is any reason to conclude that it sucks "because they are arrogant".

jabo• 15 years ago

I think we should have comment threads enabled on job posts on HN!

gsivil• 15 years ago

Hacking challenge: can somebody use google correlate and find the company unambiguously?

jmitcheson• 15 years ago

These jobs ads are probably written by co/founders who are still in 'pitch mode'. They've internalized introducing their company in terms of line charts and hyperbole. Give them a break :)

Ask HN: Does this kind of arrogance get job applications?

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