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Ask HN: What's wrong with this jobs page?

3 points by ahmish ↗ HN
Here's the latest iteration of our jobs page:

http://pubget.com/jobs

Traffic can definitely be higher so that's a SEO/marketing problem but our stats hurt:

bounce rate: 75% conversion: 1%

Are we doing something obviously wrong? What turns you on/off about the site?

Any recommendations are appreciated.

Thanks! -=Ahmed=-

12 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] thread
slater
The usual blurb about how great you all are, the awesome environment you provide, and the cool products you create is usually secondary to what job-seekers are looking for. I'm on your jobs page, and you seem to be hiding your open jobs. People are lazy ;)
ahmish
Cool, I'm hearing "too many words/distractions".

I'm curious about the sequence of questions in your head when you land on a site like this. For me it's:

1. What are the problems I'd be solving?

2. Who would I be working with?

3+. Location? Perks? Job desc?

[dead] killnine
Agreed. A bit too much going on. A little more organization would go far. It was a few minutes before I knew exactly what I was looking at, and most importantly, with minimal effort, I still do not know what positions are open.
manuscreationis
Initial feedback - It's a fairly clean page, but it's cluttered, and a little disorganized.

My eye is immediately drawn to the giant orange banner. So it takes me a second to adjust and start looking around. Finally I notice "Positions Available", but it's at the bottom right - literally one of the last places my eye naturally falls. I then need to scroll down to see the whole list, but it sort of blends in with the rest of the page.

I like how you've got a bunch of fun shots of your office, and of the team having a good time (it sure looks like a nice place to work, and the Seaport is a nice enough area, transportation and lunch/afterwork-wise that it would enticing for someone who wanted a job in the city), but to me I had to actually work a little bit to find the content I cared about on the page, so my interest fades fast.

If I had a suggestion for you, it would be to reduce the huge banner, and maybe re-organize the page. Make the actual job listings more front and center, and put the stuff detailing how great your team is below it - or on a seperate page that you actively pimp out from your job postings page... (Now that you've seen the jobs, check out why you should work here! sort of thing).

But I'm no design specialist. So maybe I'm way off base here. Good luck with the company, that sounds like a cool space to be in.

ahmish
Thanks! Super useful feedback...

"I had to actually work a little bit to find the content I cared about"

Does content = job description? We realize Pubget doesn't have brand recognition so we took prime real estate to call out who we are. Do you look for the job description first even when you don't recognize the brand?

manuscreationis
When I'm job hunting?

Yea, I'd say so. After you've intrigued me with the job itself, then I'd go looking at who you were as a company, then probably back to the job description once more to make sure everything fit together.

Not that potential hires shouldn't "care" about who you are - they should. But first and foremost they should care about what the job position is, and do they fit that role.

hkarthik
Don't get disheartened. I'd be surprised if most startup job pages had conversion rates much better than this.

The job market is white hot for programmers right now, and it's easy to get lost in all the noise.

When you're a startup, you're better off actively recruiting folks from local meetups, GitHub, HN, Twitter, and LinkedIn rather than expecting applicants to come to you.

So rather than optimize this, get out of the building and go meet some potential recruits.

ahmish
Thanks, this is true. We do try to attend local meetups and scour the interwebs but can definitely do more.

Like you said, the job market is white hot for programmers... Have you had any experience trying to lure currently employed devs?

pdenya
I thought the section titles "Driven engineers seeking teammate.", "Engaging Workplace", etc were links to blog posts or something. The images overpower that content anyway.

I typically come to these pages wondering what stack you're using, what positions are open, what your company does, and what it's like to work there. Ideally (for me) they'd be answered in that order.

ahmish
Fantastic checklist!

tech, jobs, mission, culture

codeonfire
The ad is sending strong closed monoculture signals. For example the 'our stuff' 'your stuff' job descriptions. Remove every use of the words we, we've, and our and replace them with 'you'. Talk about the person you want to hire and how great the opportunity would be for them.

Prospective employees don't really care about the people that already work there, or what they do, their values, culture, or their bios. If it sounds like the company is full of bad-asses, that's a turn off. Probably a few of them believe this and will make the experience unpleasant.