Ask HN: Biggest pet peeves with job posts?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6887574

by chidevguy • 13 years ago

4 6 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What are your biggest pet peeves with job posts? For example, one of mine regarding programming jobs is when they list a bunch of technologies that you "need to know", but in reality the company only uses half of them.

On the flip side, what makes a good job post? How do you make your company stand out to potential employees?

Thanks!

chrisbennet• 13 years ago

I like to see a salary range. Just putting "Salary: competitive" means your probably aren't.

I like skill requirements broken out into "should have" and "nice to have". Even better are the jobs that list "nice to have but we know you can learn our stack".

Totally hate any job board that wants your email to see their jobs. I use their own email address (info@topjobs.com) when they ask. Let them spam themselves. :-)

Could care less for the "We were voted blah blah. With more than three decades of experience and innovation in the sales, use and value-added tax (VAT) tax-compliance arena, Bloatware stands as the leader in providing automated solutions..."

wlmeldmanfloch• 13 years ago

"Entry Level" in title, 3-5 years experience in requirements. Fuck me

codegeek• 13 years ago

A good job posting in my opinion must include:

- LOCATION or REMOTE. You can talk all about your great company, awesome team, great perks but if you don't tell me where do I need to go, it is really not very useful.

- COMPANY NAME: I hate it when recruiters post "Fortune 500 client". Really ? Could you be any more specific ? </sarcasm>

- SALARY RANGE: "Market Rate Salary", "Salary: Competitve", "Salary: commensurate on experience" is all bullshit. Give me a range. I understand that the exact salary could depend on how good you are but every employer has a range. Specifically big companies.

- TEAM DESCRIPTION: Describe the team as much as possible without necessarily revealing personal info. I would rather like to read "We are a team of 5 people spread across the globe where 2 of us do the back end dev in NYC.......". Don't give me generics like "Excellent motivated team working on world changing projects looking for the next ninja to join our awesome team". Really again ?

- WHY ARE YOU LOOKING TO HIRE: This is a must for me. Is this position open just because you have some cash to burn to show good to the management that you are "growing" the team or is there really a pain point that can be addressed by hiring. What problems are you facing currently that could be solved by this hire ? It is better to be needed than being a nice to have.

- BENEFITS: This one is a nice to have. But again be specific if you can. You offer 401K ? awesome. now tell me what the match percentage is. Or at least link to your HR benefits site if it is externally available. I am always surprised to see how little you know about benefits until you are hired. In the US, health insurance is a big deal. I want to know upfront what kinds of plans are offered which could impact my salary requirements as well.

On a fun note, I wish we could do the same to the bad job postings. Want to know how much Java I have done ? "Depends on the salary range being offered" and so on...

collyw• 13 years ago

Show us an example of your work.

All of my stuff is in house. If I have a side project, I will be looking to earn some money from it, so I don't want to put it on github. And I have other hobbies so I don't have the time to contribute to open source (though I would like to).

bbissoon• 13 years ago

I hate seeing requirements for college degrees - creativity begot know-how, not the other way around.

memracom• 13 years ago

They don't say what they want. Why can't they say something like "We have developed 5 or more web apps using J2EE technologies and we want to upgrade them to Spring related technologies. 30% of your time will be on upgrading, 70% on adding new features based on customer requests".

No need to list a bunch of technologies without explanation.

Ask HN: Biggest pet peeves with job posts?

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