8 ms·
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
- probinso 10y agoPro: 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.
- avodonosov 10y ago> If you are trying to hide the company name, I dislike this but understand you are likely a recruiter working on commission. Why is it bad?
- supercoder 10y agoBecause you don't know what company you're applying for?
- kabdib 10y agoYeah. I once had a recruiter tell me to show up at a company that made sewing machines. Mechanical sewing machines. I don't think there was a single computer on the premises. The recruiter and I had a good laugh, then I fired him.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoI'd settle for information about the industry the company is in, sometimes I see job adverts that lack even this basic information (I'm picky about the industries I work in, so perhaps this isn't a big deal for others).
- probinso 10y agoIt's just little bit frustrating to not have a clear idea of what you're going into. The bigger concern is not having any idea of the work domain. There Are Places I would be willing to work for any idea of the work domain. It is not enough for me to be working with " smart people who are doing all of the interesting things that have ever been done. Super super slick and way future. Comparable to Google and Enron"
- wsc981 10y agoSometimes in Dutch vacancies for freelance roles, I see the following remark with regards to hourly rate: "scherp aanbieden" (=> "offer sharply"?) I see this reasonably often in mailings of recruitment agencies. I hate this and I wouldn't be very tempted to apply.
- gigatexal 10y agoI have applied to a bunch of positions and I can pretty much tell what posts are cookie cutter posts: a developer position opens up and the listed languages to be proficient are all the popular ones with vaugaries at best on the exact nature of the role.
- mud_dauber 10y ago"The applicant shall..." God, I hate that HR crap.
- gorbachev 10y agoWhat really turns me off is acronyms about internal systems nobody outside of the company offering the job knows about. 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.
- Mc_Big_G 10y agoRock star. My boss writes job descriptions like this and it annoys the shit out of me.
- kapauldo 10y agoAgreed, so patronizing.
- nicomfe 10y agoor ninja.. haha
- softwarefounder 10y agoOr "Unicorn"
- fapjacks 10y ago"Remote" positions where you can work from home every other Friday. If a position is under a butts-in-seats management style, the word "remote" should not be found anywhere in the description. Some remote positions have geographical limitations, which can be understandable from a tax perspective, but I also don't like to see "remote" positions open only to people in a specific timezone.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago>"I also don't like to see "remote" positions open only to people in a specific timezone" 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).
- kyriakos 10y agoTimezone shouldn't be a factor. If I want to work overnight is my problem. Or I could easily just be available for meetings during the desired time zones but you can't exclude me as a candidate cause of my time zone.
- cbanek 10y agoPro: - What tech you actually work with. Don't list equivalents. If the people knew the area they would already know if they have equivalent skills. - Salary range and years of experience. - What kind of actual real world user problems are you solving? 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"
- TurboHaskal 10y agoCulture is always bullshit until you get rejected with a line such as "unfortunately we don't see a good culture fit here"
- wott 10y agoNote that it is still bullshit at that point.
- jackgolding 10y agoI got through to the final offer stage of a job, and sent through a few questions to ensure I was making the correct decision. One of those was "are you okay with me being involved with the local X community by doing things like giving talks". The company actually didn't like this at all and revoked their offer (offer was verbal not on paper at this stage.) I consider that to be "not being a good culture fit" 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.
- softwarefounder 10y agoHaving a requirement for knowing utility libraries. i.e. jQuery, underscore.js, MooTools, etc. I understand requiring frameworks (i.e. Anguar, React), but jQuery? Come on.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoWhat's wrong with listing jQuery? If it heavily used somewhere it's natural to want someone who's used it before. It's something you can learn on the job, but requirements are there because employers ideally want someone who can hit the ground running.
- flukus 10y ago> 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".
- ZenoArrow 10y ago>"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.
- flukus 10y agoI was referring to the "hit the ground running" phrase, not jquery. Just because I know jquery and they use jquery does not mean someone can hit the ground running, there could be a lot of spaghetti code to untangle.
- kyriakos 10y agoListing jquery means that if you stopped using jquery 5 years ago you shouldn't apply for that position. It's actually good to know so you don't waste your time.
- brett40324 10y agoPro: link to company career page with overview of hiring/onboarding process. 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.
- kyriakos 10y agoNot exaggerated at all. I've seen job ads including those and something irrelevant like photoshop on top, i.e you might be needed to fill in for our designers from time to time.
- flukus 10y agoI did a search for rust recently, just to see what the local market was like. All I got was a bunch of python web dev jobs that had a random listing of other languages.
- fapjacks 10y agoIf a position's salary varies from what is typically expected in the industry for an area (roughly different than the average salary found on Glassdoor, just as an example), then the salary or a warning should be listed in the description. Nothing pisses me off more than going through the motions only to get a lowball offer by a company hoping to rip me off. It is super demoralizing, even when I have other offers that are good.
- drakenot 10y agoA "fast paced" and "dynamic" environment is a huge red flag for me.
- igitur 10y agoCon: "Preference will be given to EE Candidates"
- billyzs 10y agoI'd actually prefer if employers are candid about their preferences, as much as they may disappoint me. At least I know what to expect.
- PascLeRasc 10y agoCan I ask why? I've never seen this (unfortunately, since I'm an EE).
- igitur 10y agoAre you asking why it's a con for me or why these exclusions are there in the first place? 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-equity/employment-equity-act 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.
- kyriakos 10y agoWhat's EE?
- peterhi 10y agoPros: What the actual job is, the industry sector and the pay 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.
- TurboHaskal 10y agoPassion reads to me like "unpaid overtime"
- avg_dev 10y agoPro: Salary, salary, salary
- swerner 10y agoPro: a description of not only what work you expect me to do, but also who I'll be doing it with. Team size, experience level of other team members, my role in the team. Con: Anything about fun company events and free drinks. I'm looking for work, not booking a cruise.
- lj3 10y agoThis. Who my manager is and who I'm potentially going to be working with on a daily basis is far more important to me than which version of Angular they use or that they have a ping pong table. But, I've never seen that in a job ad. I usually have to ask for names and even then it's a 50/50 shot whether they'll tell me.
- billyzs 10y agoCon: a Bachelor, Masters or PhD in {a specific field}. 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.
- amelius 10y agoPro: Linux, scientific computing, not-for-profit organization, high-tech (if it really is), contributing to open-source 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.
- tuyguntn 10y agoPros: - 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)
- Glyptodon 10y agoI despise seeing "salary - DOE" like nothing else. Also hate it when ads describe the company ad nauseum and not much about what the actual work or tools are.
- PascLeRasc 10y agoWhen they try to hide that they want you to work for free with something like "get in at the ground level of a rising star company"
- new299 10y agoSpelling mistakes.
- czep 10y ago"Senior Software Engineer"... "2 years experience."
- tempw 10y agoCons: Unrealistic and nonsense requirements e.g. fullstack development or test eng.: MSc required
- jamestimmins 10y agoCons: Below market salary AND tiny stock options. If you're offering a Sr. Engineer a $50k-$70k salary, then offering 0.1%-0.25% of the equity is unacceptable.
- jwatte 10y agoEverybody are taking about job ads. A job offer is something else entirely (and a legal document!)
- squalo 10y agoI thought the same but the OP also starts listing the things he hates to see in a job posting so I think he screwed up the wording.
- g0tham 10y ago[PRO] - Detailed Job Description, including: Company Info + Role Responsibilities + Salary + Benefits [CON] - Entry level salary requiring 3+ years of experience
- chris_7 10y agoPros: $ listed up front Actual details on health insurance. Cons: Anything about dogs, beer, snacks, ping pong, or company outings on weekends or after hours. The word "startup".
- synicalx 10y agoPro: Concise and to the point, no waffle or any of that new age "growth hacking, rockstar" nonsense - don't try and dress a job up as something it's not. Tell me roughly what salary range you're offering in, and tell me what I'll be working with. I want to know about your product/s, and how the job I'm looking at relates to it. Cons: Babbling on and on about your 'culture' or how much coffee you all consume. Being vague, and not actually describing the job. Not listing other requirements like excessive travel, on call, the fact that your office is 200km away from civilisation etc. Not relevant to me now, but in general - don't call something a 'Junior' position and then ask for 5+ years of experience, and then don't follow that up by saying "Oh but it's the most Junior role in our company". That's bullshit, and you know it, you're just looking for an excuse to pay someone less.
- squalo 10y agoPros - detailed listing of day to day work the candidate would be performing. Cons - In the age of gaming the system in favor of H1B candidates I see a lot of ads where they throw in requirements that have nothing to do with the job but the H1B they want to hire does have. Not allowing experience in place of degree. Intern jobs that want 2-5 years of experience in a specific technology. Any position that says "this is not a remote position" or anything similar automatically gets added to my twit filter. Anything with the words DevOps or Agile.
- Existenceblinks 10y agoPros: Whatever tools, back-end lang/framework I like Cons: Whatever tools, front-end lang/framework I hate. (Yes, React and friends) Not a joke, this is my real struggle. I love backend, and I love working with ui designers, elegant elements, so love frontend.
- kyriakos 10y agoCons: jack of all trades positions. The ad generally lists technologies/skills the company uses, might use in the distant future or the CTO has heard about in the last conference he attended.
- angry_napkin 10y agoI hate almost everything relating to culture. I have bills to pay and I don't particularly care that you have some flavor of Street Fighter II. Tell me what stack you use, the pay, and if you'll pay for my gym membership.
- probinso 10y agoconsensus: the word 'startup' is a swear word