Ask HN: review our startup's first job posting

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4313636

by AshleysBrain • 14 years ago

8 4 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Our startup is now at the stage where we're looking for a skilled technical employee to join us. Hiring is hard, so we're looking for feedback on the job advert we've taken out. Is it appealing? Does it look interesting? Or is it boring and just like the rest?

http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/22447/asp-net-c-sharp-and-javascript-developer-fast-scirra?a=qwii82k

Thanks for any feedback! We've been working for ourselves for such a long time now there may be obvious things we've omitted or overlooked.

Please do also share any of your experiences/results with job listings and hiring!

bcambel2• 14 years ago

> Open to the possibility of interesting side projects if you have any ideas Rather than saying a generic sentence, you might also say "Work on your side projects 4h per week" or whatever your hour constraint will be.

No future plans to use a NoSQL db ?

What do you mean by separate JS app ? Node.JS app or ASP.NET C# app with a single page ?

You mentioned your website. Which one ? The app or the front end ?

"Highly proficient with ASP.net c# development" Are you using ASP.NET 1.1 or cutting edge ASP.NET MVC ?

Request a GitHub account on the listing or CodePlex..

"are willing to pay a competitive salary to reflect this."

You're looking for your first employee, you don't offer stock options, you don't look for a great all hands developer which you'll not pay over the "competitive" salary. I believe You are calling for B/C programmers ( where A+ won't apply )

For the employee this is a risky job, if I were looking for a job, I would't apply.

I hope my tone was positive and constructive..

TomGullen• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback!

> No future plans to use a NoSQL db?

No, but I'm curious as to why you would mention this?

> What do you mean by separate JS app ?

A new software project (I'll clarify this)

> Are you using ASP.NET 1.1 or cutting edge ASP.NET MVC ?

.NET 4.0 webforms

> You're looking for your first employee, you don't offer stock options, you don't look for a great all hands developer which you'll not pay over the "competitive" salary. I believe You are calling for B/C programmers ( where A+ won't apply )

We have a lot of cash in the bank at the moment, and are willing to pay a competitive salary if we find the ideal candidate. We feel like we are in a comfortable position (good revenue history, and an angel who would be willing to invest more into us and very little out-going expenses), and we're not going to expect the candidate to work like a dog and after hours, the atmosphere is relaxed and there isn't a lot of pressure like earlier stage startups. Therefore don't need to offer equity. Is this a reasonable position?

Thanks for all your feedback, very helpful and constructive - exactly what we are after :) I'll make some edits and talk to my brother about some things you raised.

bcambel2• 14 years ago

> No, but I'm curious as to why you would mention this? stay on the top of the tech. Your employee's next job might require experience on MongoDb, Cassandra, Redis, etc.. And there is a lot difference using in production vs playing at home. Would you like to have a dev who only had experience with JS, ASP.NET or MSSQL on his projects ? No. And believe me as developers we learn best when we are working on things for a long time on production systems ( you're probably a dev as well, so you know these things )

> We have a lot of cash in the bank at the moment.. Great, explain this in adv. as well. You mentioned an angel investor might invest more, which means he already invested in. Make this clear, mention this, all of it. Be very open.

> don't need to offer equity Why not ? If you are making money, share some more with conditions. Offer some kind of compensation of somebody's hard work. Would you like somebody to work for you 6m vs 2y ? Offering equity of course is more complicated. You can "vest" his equity. Talk to your lawyer/advisor about this if you don't know what vesting is.

Let me clear what I mean, you need to look for more long term employees with offering more salary, giving more responsibility, placing some nice options, and this new "tech" stuff makes you imho more attractive. Much better developers, less dev time, more happy employees, successful business, more money in your pocket. This is a very crucial cycle.

Good luck Tom, if you have any more questions, don't hesitate. Cheers

l3amm• 14 years ago

FYI: thoughts based on posting/studying CL ads, so application to SO may be limited.

Title > ASP.net (c#) and Javascript Developer (Fast Growing Startup)

Straightforward title, like the inclusion of the type of company and type of work you will be doing (fast growing startup)

Job Description

> We're looking for a talented ASP.net (c#) and Javascript developer to work with us in our SW London office based in Twickenham.

Would probably include 'fulltime.' Would also suggest a short description of what the company does. You are kind of burying the lead by not saying "We develop a Windows program that lets anyone make HTML5 games." As a start up employee WHAT I'm working on is as/more important that what I'm doing in code.

Roles

> Develop our website

This is vague, are they working on a team? Make this more specific, are they in charge of design too? Do you have a designer?

> Help to develop a large separate Javascript web application

Also very vague, what would their role be here? How large is the team they would be working with?

> Perks > > Lots of opportunity for creative solutions to interesting problems > We'll let you spec your own working computer! (within reason, we want you on the best stuff though!) > Our website gets over 100k uniques per month and 1.2m page views, you'll often receive immediate feedback from our awesome community of game developers > Pizza on fridays

These perks are rather vague/straightforward/drab. This is your chance to show your personality as a company (reframe in casual language you would actually use). For example: Instant feedback: with 1.2mm page views, if you push shitty code you'll know in seconds! (purely an example, do not advocate the word shitty)

> How we operate > > We're HTML5 evangelists! > No dress code at all (as long as you wear something!) > Highly flexible working hours (you might prefer 12-8 instead of 9-5, we can work with just about any hours you want) > Open to the possibility of interesting side projects if you have any ideas

> You will be our first employee working at our fast growing startup! We're looking for quality applicants and are willing to pay a competitive salary to reflect this.

Again this is your chance to be quirky. "No dress code at all" could easily be "Wear what you want. We love nudists, just not at work."

You are hiding the salary talk at the end of the ad. This could easily be put as a bullet at the end of "how we operate" like: "Salary: we want the best and we'll pay you like we mean it." By hiding it down here, it is hard to find and I might miss it.

In general the thigns that people want to know:

- What I will be doing - Who I will be doing it with - Am I going to get money or equity?

Those should visually be easy to pull out. Roles does the first, you need to give them the other two.

> Skills & Requirements > > Must Have > > Highly proficient with ASP.net c# development > Highly proficient with Javascript development > Experience with Linq > Experience with SQL Server > Easy to get along with and love what you do!

Again a chance for personality. The more specific the better people with filter themselves out. Do you want someone with JS MVC framework experience, JS is a pretty big language with a ton of subtlety.

> Nice to Have > > C++ for Windows Development > Enjoy making and playing games > A sense of humour! > About Scirra Ltd

Spice this up as well. Why is C++ a nice to have "we want you to help us write the games too!"

> Scirra was established in 2011 and we've been growing fast. We develop and sell Construct 2 in house, a Windows program that lets anyone make HTML5 games. To date, it's been downloaded over 200,000 times. > > Since day one of selling we've been profitable and revenues are continuing to grow. We're now looking for our first full time in-house employee!

Spice this up it sounds corporate.

Ask HN: review our startup's first job posting

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