Ask HN: What do you expect or hate to see in a job offer decription?
Here is my list:
Pros
- which kind of technologies are used
- involvement in open source community
- description of a typical day of work
Cons - a low level description of the role - annual salary missing
66 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadAnnoys the hell out of me.
software stack
policy about open source software
Salary Range (allowed to be wide)
Con:
If you are trying to hide the company name, I dislike this but understand you are likely a recruiter working on commission.
In order to attract people who are passionate, you need to include the work domain. If you don't post the work domain, then you are wasting my time.
Why is it bad?
Additionally job descriptions full of filler text trying to make the job seem more important than it is. The usual blabber about team players and competitive compensation, etc.
Isn't this also to do with working hours? If you want synchronous communication with remote employees you'd probably want them to work similar hours to local employees (unless you were a multinational company).
Cons: - Anything about culture (it's always bullshit), team player, or being emotionally mature - Useless fluff about "loving to work in a fast company", or how you were #1 2012's disposable ezine of the week's company to work for. - Not saying what the job is, but just saying what tech you will be using, as if that is enough. - You can't tell the description is any different between Intern/Junior/Senior/Architect level roles other than "years of experience"
At one of my last roles, we actively tried to expand the team with people who weren't caucasian males so that our inter-team communication may get better (amongst other pros.) Mind you that company in question also had rules about having to interview females for every role.
I understand requiring frameworks (i.e. Anguar, React), but jQuery? Come on.
It's something you can learn on the job, but requirements are there because employers ideally want someone who can hit the ground running.
This is the biggest con for me. Being able to hit the ground running depends much more on the employer than the future employee. Without knowing details about the state of the project (clean or spaghetti code) you can't possibly say if you can hit the ground running or not.
They may as well say "we only hire liars".
That bares no resemblance to reality.
Here's some free advice, if you don't know jQuery, and you keep seeing it in job adverts, just learn to use it. Blaming recruiters for looking for it will get you nowhere.
Exaggerated, but not by much is:
Con: Blanket requirements of conflicting language paradigms. Like, expert in (enter no less than 6 JS frameworks and build tools), also python, ruby, C#, and some Erlang is a plus. Oh, you also know AWS, and every RDMS and noSQL technology, MS SQL Server experience a plus.
Without getting into politics, due to South Africa's past, businesses are under pressure to appoint employment equity candidates (as defined in http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/employment-equ... ) to address the inequities of the past. The short interpretation of this is that white candidates aren't eligible. I understand the reasons, but being white myself, seeing such a statement in an ad is very discouraging. The general concensus is that a company under pressure to correct their numbers would rather not appoint at all rather than appoint a non-EE candidate.
Cons: Guru, Ninja, Rock Star and Passion. I am 55 with a shit pension and your 'Uber for salads' is not something I am passionate about. Never will be.
Complete put off: Other than the cons is reading the ad and not knowing what the job or company is about. If you can't spell it out your are either incompetent or deceitful.
Con: Anything about fun company events and free drinks. I'm looking for work, not booking a cruise.
Consider rephrasing to "PhD with publication record, or MSc with 3 years of work experience, or BSc with 7 years of work experience, 3 of which at {a specific advanced level}".
I understand if the job requires a certain minimum education background, but how can you possibly consider holders of all three of the above degrees, without stating the specifications for each degree? Can I still apply if I'm just about to get a BSc, or would you require some amount of work experience? Am I competing directly with PhDs? Confuses the hell out of me. I once applied for a SWE I position that had that kind of degree requirement during my senior year. Passed two phone screens, even handled questions about computer vision and deep learning well during the on site round (answered beginner and intermediate level questions well, was honest to admit my limits when asked about advanced topics). Two days after the interview I went back to check the job posting, and it was somehow changed to say Principle Computer Vision Scientist then I was like "oh there goes my chance". Needless to say I wasn't selected. It makes sense for them to select candidates with advanced degrees if they are really looking for a Prin. Scientist. But please, spell out the requirements so that candidates make informed decisions about whether to apply. It saves both parties valuable time.
Cons: OSX, Windows, advertisement industry, bank, legacy systems, COBOL, calling the company "high-tech" when they mostly do what everybody else does, e.g. writing CRUD systems or do elementary data plumbing.
- Stack
- Salary range
- Remote possibility
Cons:
- Any kind of synonym for rockstar, ninja, hero
- We are hiring (but actually not hiring, just wasting others time)
Also hate it when ads describe the company ad nauseum and not much about what the actual work or tools are.
fullstack development or test eng.: MSc required