What Your Job Ad Says About You(talentstuff.com)
talentstuff.com
What Your Job Ad Says About You
https://www.talentstuff.com/blog/what-your-job-ad-says-about-you
96 comments
Hi OP. Interesting points. I get the feeling that most companies simply do not care what their advert looks like these days, since they will be flooded with 1000s of resumes no matter what they post. I've been on both sides of the hiring process, and recently changed jobs. I didn't send a single resume to a single advert to get it. I just contacted people I worked with previously. I share that because my feeling is a job posting is a last ditch effort by a company when all other avenues already failed.
It’s long been the case that networking generally works best. But lately, between the tech job market, the frequent ease of applying, and algorithmic filtering, there’s this reinforcing cycle that tends to make a random application a low odds crapshoot.
I couldn't agree more. The sites like LinkedIn seem like a dating site. They don't make money by pairing you up, that's how they lose a customer :)
I see a huge number of job postings that I am highly qualified for but which scream “not welcome” / “HR nightmare”. I suspect I’m not alone in feeling this way.
It’s just boiler plate. I’ve worked contracts at places with “wtf?” that were great and had the inverse as well, it really just matter what the team/jefe you’re working with is like. Job ads are just a very rough approximation of what they’re looking for.
There are a lot of positions where if the company would tell people truthfully what the job actually involves, hardly anyone would apply.
Good. You’ve eliminated a bunch of employees who will be miserable, and attracted the ones who actually want the job.
I’d imagine it’s the same thing with salary.
Then they need to rethink the position.
Why, if it works for them? My point is that the OP’s claim “hey companies, you will get better hires if you are more truthful” isn’t actually universally true. He’s arguing more from the employees’ interests point of view (as you seem to be as well) than the companies’ interests point of view.
Well, I mean, does it work for them, really? Or has it just not finished failing yet? I think we can't really get anywhere with this trying to inject hypothetical specifics into talk of generalities anyway. I'm sure there are some positions that just suck no matter how you cut it, and maybe for some employers the most effective tactic really is to misrepresent the job and see who they manage to keep. But overall I get the sense that more clear and open communication of needs and offers would benefit all parties. Unfortunately I also get the sense that the problem starts upstream of the candidate interaction points, and may not be easily and clearly blamed. The results are no less easy to see, though, when you can witness the transformation of three different jobs into one -- that they somehow manage to hire someone for -- or watch over time as job role "duties" and "requirements" are snowballed along through iterations of the role. All the while, quite possibly none of the people who are touching it have real insight into what they're actually looking for, or whoever does seems to be the office cryptid.
Anyway, assuming that the core of a given job posting's problem wasn't simply inherited by people who can't do much about it, I must think, at the very least, that being more truthful will be likely to help and unlikely to hurt.
Edit: Saw another comment from someone else about how the companies in general are succeeding as things are. So in that sense I guess I can see wrt why would they change what's working. For some reason I got the sense of the focus shifting unaccountably from abstract to particular but without any actual particulars happening.
At the end of the day, as well as most of the rest of it, I guess I don't really know. I'm definitely not the guy who's going to miraculously fix this problem. I do wonder, though, if companies aren't merely succeeding despite everything -- or maybe a constantly churning majority with a crust of established players plus a bit of sawdust and super glue just manages to give the impression that the practices generally seen are the same ones that generally work.
Anyway, assuming that the core of a given job posting's problem wasn't simply inherited by people who can't do much about it, I must think, at the very least, that being more truthful will be likely to help and unlikely to hurt.
Edit: Saw another comment from someone else about how the companies in general are succeeding as things are. So in that sense I guess I can see wrt why would they change what's working. For some reason I got the sense of the focus shifting unaccountably from abstract to particular but without any actual particulars happening.
At the end of the day, as well as most of the rest of it, I guess I don't really know. I'm definitely not the guy who's going to miraculously fix this problem. I do wonder, though, if companies aren't merely succeeding despite everything -- or maybe a constantly churning majority with a crust of established players plus a bit of sawdust and super glue just manages to give the impression that the practices generally seen are the same ones that generally work.
And, it's crazy that this has to be mentioned: don't post ads for jobs that don't exist.
I had never considered it but its apparently a thing that big public companies post / keep up lots of fake jobs so that web scrapers see a stable/growing job posting count and infer the company is doing well financially.
I’ve heard this but never seen anyone put forward any proof that it’s actually true other than “trust me”. It seems like a an internet tall tale so far in my experience.
Would that be fraud? How would they coordinate that without a trail of evidence?
No coordination required.
It's just individual company not being incentivized to pull down job listings when they no longer have capacity to hire.
The roles suddenly become "opportunistic hire" rather than actual open headcount. Open roles exist in a continuum of "urgent backfill" / "open budget headcount this quarter" / "could negotiate headcount for the right candidate" / "just passively interviewing to see who is out there" / "no chance we are hiring anyone this decade".
Not a clear case of fraud to be made really. Better to have no job listing to send resumes to? Not clear thats true either.
It's just individual company not being incentivized to pull down job listings when they no longer have capacity to hire.
The roles suddenly become "opportunistic hire" rather than actual open headcount. Open roles exist in a continuum of "urgent backfill" / "open budget headcount this quarter" / "could negotiate headcount for the right candidate" / "just passively interviewing to see who is out there" / "no chance we are hiring anyone this decade".
Not a clear case of fraud to be made really. Better to have no job listing to send resumes to? Not clear thats true either.
Systematically offering roles that have already been filled seems like fraud, even if only due to subconscious neglect.
Though I suppose it's impossible to prove.
Though I suppose it's impossible to prove.
Not everything that is bad rises to the level of being a crime.
And some things that are bad would have even worse side effects if you tried to police them.
How would you define a fraudulent job listing versus simply keeping a listing up in case the right candidate shows up / budget comes back next quarter?
Wouldn't this create incentives for companies to be more hesitant to post job openings and more aggressive in taking them down?
I've worked at places where we had job listing X, talked to some people and ended up filling job Y and Z instead (which didn't exist as listings) because we found some really interesting people.
Would that possibly create unwanted side effects like more jobs filled without being ever listed via backchannels/personal networks? Or more process/HR?
How would you define a fraudulent job listing versus simply keeping a listing up in case the right candidate shows up / budget comes back next quarter?
Wouldn't this create incentives for companies to be more hesitant to post job openings and more aggressive in taking them down?
I've worked at places where we had job listing X, talked to some people and ended up filling job Y and Z instead (which didn't exist as listings) because we found some really interesting people.
Would that possibly create unwanted side effects like more jobs filled without being ever listed via backchannels/personal networks? Or more process/HR?
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> write your job ad as if you're writing it for the actual human you want to hire
this is the 'tock' after the "prompt engineer" 'tick'
this is the 'tock' after the "prompt engineer" 'tick'
Try putting this in a job ad: "We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an answer at the end of that day."
If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken.
If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken.
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but expecting an answer the same day is a bit unrealistic IMO.
If you have a lot of candidates for example, you may not be able to physically interview them all on the same day (both for your own capacity reasons but also for candidates' own availability reasons for example).
If you have a lot of candidates for example, you may not be able to physically interview them all on the same day (both for your own capacity reasons but also for candidates' own availability reasons for example).
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The answer is to have less candidates. Tighten up the pre-interview phase. Ideally, this should be set up in a way that if the interview proves that the advertised capabilities are there, the person should be offered a job.
You may think that this does not fit your hiring process. If so, I think you're not really getting what you expect out of it anyway.
You may think that this does not fit your hiring process. If so, I think you're not really getting what you expect out of it anyway.
They never said anything about same day interview, but to inform candidates - on the first day - that interview has been scheduled.
This seems kinda unworkable. If I make you an offer today, you may need time to review it, you might want to let your other interview processes complete and then negotiate, and ultimately you might choose another offer. In the meantime I need to still be interviewing and finding good candidates - I can’t give them an offer same day if I’m already negotiating with you. But I can’t just stop the interviews after making an offer, because not all offers lead to hiring.
If you're min-maxing candidates, that's on you. If you're not sure that another candidate will be a better fit or not, set your bar higher. If you can't be excellent to the people you intend to hire because your processes optimize for filling headcount and pipeline efficiency, that says a lot about you and your company culture.
So many assumptions here.
As a candidate, I’ve had situations where I got two offers at the same time. BOTH offers were acceptable, both good companies, and I’m confident I would have been happy and successful in either place. With all that being equal, I chose the company that was in my timezone and I had prior connections with. The other company could have done nothing except go waaay above market rate on the role for me.
Some candidates interview just for practice, some are keeping options open, some were solicited to interview and weren’t really looking and the want to get to the offer before they really even begin making a decision.
Likewise, as a hiring manager, I’ve had cases where more than one candidate meets the bar for a single role and I would have been happy to hire either, so “falling back” to the next person isn’t a reduction in standards.
There’s so many reasons that you don’t always hire the first candidate you make an offer too.
As a candidate, I’ve had situations where I got two offers at the same time. BOTH offers were acceptable, both good companies, and I’m confident I would have been happy and successful in either place. With all that being equal, I chose the company that was in my timezone and I had prior connections with. The other company could have done nothing except go waaay above market rate on the role for me.
Some candidates interview just for practice, some are keeping options open, some were solicited to interview and weren’t really looking and the want to get to the offer before they really even begin making a decision.
Likewise, as a hiring manager, I’ve had cases where more than one candidate meets the bar for a single role and I would have been happy to hire either, so “falling back” to the next person isn’t a reduction in standards.
There’s so many reasons that you don’t always hire the first candidate you make an offer too.
> If your hiring process can't perform that well, it's broken.
This seems idyllic and by your measure every company has a broken process.
Perhaps they are all broken, but which are useful.
As a hiring manager, I’m balancing lots of priorities and hiring is rarely my true #1. When with early startups it’s hard to just logically review all applications within 5 days because rolling reviews are hard.
This seems idyllic and by your measure every company has a broken process.
Perhaps they are all broken, but which are useful.
As a hiring manager, I’m balancing lots of priorities and hiring is rarely my true #1. When with early startups it’s hard to just logically review all applications within 5 days because rolling reviews are hard.
I can see what you're trying to say, but realistically this timeline is unrealistic for all but entry level positions. You'll be lucky if you can schedule all your candidates in one week, never mind one day so you can give them all an answer the same day.
>"We will accept or reject your application within five business days. If we ask you to come in for an interview, you will have an answer at the end of that day."
From an interviewee perspective, I appreciate what you are saying, but typically the interview process for a position could last weeks, depending on the availability of the candidates. Unfortunately, resume embellishment has increased quite a bit over the last decade or two, so candidates who look good on paper aren't great "in the field." This results in an even longer process because you have to manually (via phone call/interview) weed out the embellishers who you thought would be a good fit but weren't quite up to the ability stated in the resume.
Hiring is a slog and it sucks.
From an interviewee perspective, I appreciate what you are saying, but typically the interview process for a position could last weeks, depending on the availability of the candidates. Unfortunately, resume embellishment has increased quite a bit over the last decade or two, so candidates who look good on paper aren't great "in the field." This results in an even longer process because you have to manually (via phone call/interview) weed out the embellishers who you thought would be a good fit but weren't quite up to the ability stated in the resume.
Hiring is a slog and it sucks.
If the process being broken doesn't hurt them, why would they fix it?
If they don't need to fix it, what makes it broken?
I've been critical of hiring in tech for years and years and years, but hiring has only gotten worse (from my point of view) and the companies seem to be fine.
If they don't need to fix it, what makes it broken?
I've been critical of hiring in tech for years and years and years, but hiring has only gotten worse (from my point of view) and the companies seem to be fine.
It’s broken in the sense that the applicant thinks they are the most important part of the process and should have a process that is very convenient and efficient for them.
So not actually broken, but someone idealistic or naive or clueless as to the working of a business may think it’s broken.
So not actually broken, but someone idealistic or naive or clueless as to the working of a business may think it’s broken.
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How can they possibly do that when they often interview multiple people for a few hours? Seems like a selection from a pool of people will take at least a week.
If there is a company wanting to avoid hiring high entitlement staff, longer than five business days would smell a feature not bug.
Tell me you’ve never managed hiring without telling me you’ve never managed hiring.
That is completely unworkable and you will end up with bad candidates or you will have to fire candidates very quickly with a process like that.
That is completely unworkable and you will end up with bad candidates or you will have to fire candidates very quickly with a process like that.
Also can companies please send you an email when they reject your application? Just so I know that I've actually been rejected, rather than just sending an email out into the aether and never hearing anything more about it. I don't care if it's automated
Spotify is so fast. They will reject your application within seconds!
If you use an email provider they don't dislike however, you might go a step further and do a logic, language and mathematics automatic test.
Apparently they do these things because they have too many applicants and need random ways of filtering them out.
But if your problem is having too many applicants, shouldn't you stop spamming emails to people asking them to apply?
But what do I know, my email provider ends with .it so I am not hireable at spotify :D
If you use an email provider they don't dislike however, you might go a step further and do a logic, language and mathematics automatic test.
Apparently they do these things because they have too many applicants and need random ways of filtering them out.
But if your problem is having too many applicants, shouldn't you stop spamming emails to people asking them to apply?
But what do I know, my email provider ends with .it so I am not hireable at spotify :D
Bypassing their filtering algorithm is the first test. It's all very 5-D chess I'm sure.
Hard agree. The companies that ghost you are purposefully avoiding interacting with you because often rejection emails trigger a back and forth where an applicant asks for feedback (a completely reasonable request) but when you've just auto-rejected 250 people, that reasonable request turns into a substantial amount of work with no upside for the company. Couple that with the perceived legal risks of poorly trained staff providing feedback that could be considered discriminatory, and you end up with an environment where it's generally considered 'easier' to just ghost you.
Yes. I think people imagine a seasoned professional HR person giving the legally approved form response.
Blanket rules like "do not provide feedback" exist because in a large enough org you eventually hire an idiot who will say something to a candidate that gets you sued.
Blanket rules like "do not provide feedback" exist because in a large enough org you eventually hire an idiot who will say something to a candidate that gets you sued.
Ghosting is disappearing after back-and-forth contact has happened.
Failing to initially respond to an applicant is not ghosting. It's selection.
Failing to initially respond to an applicant is not ghosting. It's selection.
They could totally send a rejection email with a statement saying they cannot provide feedback based on amount of applications.
This is what I mean. just an automated email saying "we have decided not to continue with your application. We cannot provide feedback due to the number of applications" from a noreply address that ignores any attempts to reply. I'd be ok with that, because at least it would be something
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This is something I strongly believe applicants deserve at a minimum. When I did hiring for my company, I made sure to send a follow-up email saying we weren’t interested within 24 hours of the interview.
No, they can't because they need you to ask them, in order to understand that you're really interested in the job, because doing coding tests, hours of interviews is not enough for hiring managers to understand the interest
This will never happen. No matter what you think, sending you reject email is opening can of worms with no benefits for the company. You can start arguing, wasting their time and resources and one day all these emails can go public with harm to their reputation.
I have received many refusal emails for job applications ranging from "Unfortunately, we have filled that position" to "Following your interview, we have selected another applicant, but we'll keep your resume" to "We do not have an open position currently, but we may contact you later". I really don't see how these answers could harm these companies. Some of them actually incited me to followup a couple years later, and land a job.
On the other hand, the rude option of not answering harms the company's HR brand.
On the other hand, the rude option of not answering harms the company's HR brand.
Well all three response examples would be a lie if they then keep the job open, which might trigger some people into more back & forth ?
"we are sorry to announce you we decided not to select your profile for the next stage of our hiring process"
Oh I agree they should send a response, I just disagree theres any incentive or information for them to provide a reason!
There's an incentive to be nice.
Moreover, candidates might prefer bland non-responses that demonstrate more savoir faire than explaining, honestly but stupidly, the reasons of a rejection.
Moreover, candidates might prefer bland non-responses that demonstrate more savoir faire than explaining, honestly but stupidly, the reasons of a rejection.
> with no benefits for the company
The talent pool is not infinite, and a rejection means "we don't have a vacancy for which you are the right candidate right now", not necessarily "No way will you ever work for this company". So the core benefit of treating rejected applicants fairly, and perhaps providing them conditions under which they can re-apply ("We won't accept further applications from you in the next year, but we'd encourage you to re-apply for a suitable role after then"), and some things to work on before they could be successful in the company, then they might be an asset for the company in the future.
Likewise, companies which have a reputation for providing feedback and a polite thanks but no thanks are more likely to get applications than companies that have a reputation for ghosting.
> You can start arguing
Just have a rule that all communications with the candidate go through HR (or the person responsible for coordinating hiring overall in a smaller company), and then if they reply at all to candidates arguing, just have them be firm that under policy, the decision has been made, and can't be reviewed. It's okay to ignore further correspondence if they argue.
> these emails can go public with harm to their reputation
What's worse though, a reputation for ghosting candidates, or a reputation for privately sending transparent but polite feedback based on the interviews?
The talent pool is not infinite, and a rejection means "we don't have a vacancy for which you are the right candidate right now", not necessarily "No way will you ever work for this company". So the core benefit of treating rejected applicants fairly, and perhaps providing them conditions under which they can re-apply ("We won't accept further applications from you in the next year, but we'd encourage you to re-apply for a suitable role after then"), and some things to work on before they could be successful in the company, then they might be an asset for the company in the future.
Likewise, companies which have a reputation for providing feedback and a polite thanks but no thanks are more likely to get applications than companies that have a reputation for ghosting.
> You can start arguing
Just have a rule that all communications with the candidate go through HR (or the person responsible for coordinating hiring overall in a smaller company), and then if they reply at all to candidates arguing, just have them be firm that under policy, the decision has been made, and can't be reviewed. It's okay to ignore further correspondence if they argue.
> these emails can go public with harm to their reputation
What's worse though, a reputation for ghosting candidates, or a reputation for privately sending transparent but polite feedback based on the interviews?
When I was trying to apply for jobs, I got two replies of any kind out of the over a hundred applications I sent out. One of them got to a pre-interview stage before rejecting me, with reasons. I currently work at the other place. How many people contest their job rejection emails when they get to a pre-interview stage or later? How many would contest them if they were immediately rejected?
I think there’s some selection bias: your experience is of being a normal person where you think ‘I and the people like me are not like that’ but in the set of people that a company rejects, a higher percentage will be eg people who apply to and get rejected from a lot of jobs (and are therefore still applying to more) and so they may behave differently. I don’t really believe the thing about opening a can of worms though. My guess is more that there isn’t much upside to doing this, and companies maybe want to ‘leave doors open’ sometimes by eg not responding in case the person they’re hoping to hire turns them down and they need to interview more candidates again.
> in the set of people that a company rejects, a higher percentage will be eg people who apply to and get rejected from a lot of jobs (and are therefore still applying to more) and so they may behave differently.
We send rejections. I haven't heard of any complaints or arguments ever
I also once offered someone to privately help them make the career switch they were trying to make but were clearly not ready for (I didn't word it like that to them). The applicant reminded me of someone in school who wasn't the technical best performer but always kept high spirits while working hard (within reason, nothing extreme, but it set a good example for... you know how most kids in group work usually perform) and they just needed a little bit of help to be a great teammate. Never heard back from that applicant :(
This is all for an IT position in Germany (though remote work in adjacent timezones is fine and more than half our employees aren't German currently; we basically hire anyone qualified who applies), perhaps it's different if you hire for different types of jobs or in other cultures
We send rejections. I haven't heard of any complaints or arguments ever
I also once offered someone to privately help them make the career switch they were trying to make but were clearly not ready for (I didn't word it like that to them). The applicant reminded me of someone in school who wasn't the technical best performer but always kept high spirits while working hard (within reason, nothing extreme, but it set a good example for... you know how most kids in group work usually perform) and they just needed a little bit of help to be a great teammate. Never heard back from that applicant :(
This is all for an IT position in Germany (though remote work in adjacent timezones is fine and more than half our employees aren't German currently; we basically hire anyone qualified who applies), perhaps it's different if you hire for different types of jobs or in other cultures
We had a case when some dude was arguing against our location requirements. The listing said "the EU" and he was from Armenia or thereabouts and kept sending long emails saying that our requirement was wrong, that we should consider people from elsewhere, how good it will be for the company, etc. It was really bizarre, because he did all that before applying.
So, yeah, a can of worms. They are rare, but they sure are pungent.
So, yeah, a can of worms. They are rare, but they sure are pungent.
why require a non-geographic location in the first place?
if political location is required for regs/visa/tax/whatever don't tie that to applicants' geographic location
if political location is required for regs/visa/tax/whatever don't tie that to applicants' geographic location
Just ignore replies, especially when they're argumentative or rude. It's not a hard problem to solve.
Not sending a simple "sorry, we're proceeding with other candidates" is detrimental to everyone, because without knowing if you've been rejected or not you're just incentivised to send out more applications, which doesn't really benefit anyone, including companies who will now have even more applications to sift through.
Also I've had companies ghost me after doing several what seemed like promising interviews. It's okay they decided to pick someone else, but outright ignoring at this stage is just being a dick. "Begone peasant, you're not even worth talking to".
Not sending a simple "sorry, we're proceeding with other candidates" is detrimental to everyone, because without knowing if you've been rejected or not you're just incentivised to send out more applications, which doesn't really benefit anyone, including companies who will now have even more applications to sift through.
Also I've had companies ghost me after doing several what seemed like promising interviews. It's okay they decided to pick someone else, but outright ignoring at this stage is just being a dick. "Begone peasant, you're not even worth talking to".
If they don't have this courtesy, should they expect anything from the candidates in various parts of the process? Like maybe the offer was not good enough. So is it reasonable for candidate to just totally stop communicating?
It does happen considerably more than "never"... happened plenty of times for me! They generally won't accept risk and make a dialogue about it, getting into details like 'why'... keeping it high-level informative.
I've also had places keep it ambiguous and send an offer nearly a year after interviewing. Game theory applies, as always.
I've also had places keep it ambiguous and send an offer nearly a year after interviewing. Game theory applies, as always.
This is the exact kind of "treating people like shit" even before they start working that feed quiet quitting and the sentiment for employees (a word banned in the corporate lingo of my country, we are "collaborators") that jobs and companies are totally disposable too.
Also, stop saying you're "hiring
founders" - that's just not how it works.
I once saw an ad for a 350 person company who was hiring a "founding mobile engineer." I can't help but see it as a way to glob on to the "prestige" of being a founder without any of the benefits or equity upside.
Or that founders take big risks, strong belief in the mission, maybe don't get paid for a while, etc. it cheapens the title for actual founders.
> I have yet to come across a single, justifiable excuse for not displaying a reasonable salary range on a job advert.
If you are hiring a lot of people on the regular, sure, you'll probably have a good idea what reasonable is.
If you only hire once in a while, and especially if you are trying to hire for the first time, it is impossible to know what is reasonable until you start talking to people. And in the typical case you're not going to be able to talk to the right people until you put out an ad compelling them to talk.
Perhaps you can pick at random to get the ball rolling, but your random selection probably won't be what anyone else will consider reasonable.
If you are hiring a lot of people on the regular, sure, you'll probably have a good idea what reasonable is.
If you only hire once in a while, and especially if you are trying to hire for the first time, it is impossible to know what is reasonable until you start talking to people. And in the typical case you're not going to be able to talk to the right people until you put out an ad compelling them to talk.
Perhaps you can pick at random to get the ball rolling, but your random selection probably won't be what anyone else will consider reasonable.
the justifiable excuse is that it weakens salary negotiation to list a salary up front, because it might be anchoring the salary much higher than the candidate would have accepted and been happy with. i think this is fine, i think it's terrible to lie about the reason though, and basically everyone lies to you about it.
If that's the excuse, what's the real reason?
From one of the ads listed under this months "Who's hiring?"-
Physical Demands:
The physical demands of the position are typical of those found in a traditional office environment. Employees will not need to walk significant distances nor lift substantial weight. Employee will need to be able to remain seated at a desk for 8-9 hours in a typical workday.
Damn well I applied.
Physical Demands:
The physical demands of the position are typical of those found in a traditional office environment. Employees will not need to walk significant distances nor lift substantial weight. Employee will need to be able to remain seated at a desk for 8-9 hours in a typical workday.
Damn well I applied.
This is very attractive, knowing the company treats applicants seriously, like human beings should be, that is really presenting the job and things that come with it. If you think __this thing about the job__ is obvious and common sense, think again. For starters, the blurb is something the inventor of copy and paste would be proud of you to duplicate wherever applicable, and there's plenty of space.
I'd love to hear the story that prompted this.
Personally, I have found the best jobs to be the ones with the most individualistic descriptions, rather than the cookie-cutter "Must have 5+ years of experience in X" as in the article.
Also, "team player" and "amazing opportunity" are sure signs that you should click "next".
Also, "team player" and "amazing opportunity" are sure signs that you should click "next".
Yeah that’s essentially my point. Write something authentic and you’ll get a better response by default.
It's best to post the actual salary range. However, sometimes candidates have a different expectation of whether that is low, average, or high.
To help candidates understand the compensation level, instead of "competitive salary" mention the percentile at which you are paying.
If you are paying at 60th or above percentile, this will look attractive, and be quantifiably true.
If you are paying at 50th or below, better not say anything.
Also, state all the things that are non-negotiable. If you need occasional weekends on-call, state that. If you offer remote work from different timezones, but require occasional meetings in the afternoon in US Pacific time, state that. You will avoid wasting so much time and spare future discomfort if you do.
To help candidates understand the compensation level, instead of "competitive salary" mention the percentile at which you are paying.
If you are paying at 60th or above percentile, this will look attractive, and be quantifiably true.
If you are paying at 50th or below, better not say anything.
Also, state all the things that are non-negotiable. If you need occasional weekends on-call, state that. If you offer remote work from different timezones, but require occasional meetings in the afternoon in US Pacific time, state that. You will avoid wasting so much time and spare future discomfort if you do.
Stating only percentiles sounds even worse to me for two reasons:
Someone will always be paying in the first percentile, but you can't possibly advertise with that. A really well-paying job (say, CEO of Mozilla) might be a perfectly fine salary but if literally everyone else pays even more insane amounts then it sounds like the job is not worth even glancing at. By having to say the percentile, you can make any amount of compensation sound ridiculous and cannot offer a job whenever you don't have the budget to pay higher than average salaries
Perhaps even more importantly: if there were a clear market salary range, people would just look that up and ask for that compensation. As it is, people often get paid twice as much for the same job within one company because they simply don't know of each other's compensation. Across companies this becomes virtually impossible to accurately say. I can only imagine this leading to companies making up favorable numbers and nobody would truly be able to say it's below market pricing when the job ad says it's at the 80th percentile
Someone will always be paying in the first percentile, but you can't possibly advertise with that. A really well-paying job (say, CEO of Mozilla) might be a perfectly fine salary but if literally everyone else pays even more insane amounts then it sounds like the job is not worth even glancing at. By having to say the percentile, you can make any amount of compensation sound ridiculous and cannot offer a job whenever you don't have the budget to pay higher than average salaries
Perhaps even more importantly: if there were a clear market salary range, people would just look that up and ask for that compensation. As it is, people often get paid twice as much for the same job within one company because they simply don't know of each other's compensation. Across companies this becomes virtually impossible to accurately say. I can only imagine this leading to companies making up favorable numbers and nobody would truly be able to say it's below market pricing when the job ad says it's at the 80th percentile
Nice post but a bit shallow. There's way more bs to write about.
This ad was featured here last week (and also last month), they're a YC company. If you can get to the end of it with a straight face, I'll buy you a coffee.
https://icon.me/careers
Reads as if one, purposely, wanted to cram as much red flags as possible into a job description.
This ad was featured here last week (and also last month), they're a YC company. If you can get to the end of it with a straight face, I'll buy you a coffee.
https://icon.me/careers
Reads as if one, purposely, wanted to cram as much red flags as possible into a job description.
> Reads as if one, purposely, wanted to cram as much red flags as possible into a job description.
This is not only possible but (see for example the explicit reference to "How to succeed in MrBeast production") quite likely: they are looking for people who like the red flags.
People who believe that they are "A players", who move to New York for job opportunities and don't care about working from home, who don't intend to have a life outside work, who seriously consider a random startup something they might be fanatic about.
This is not only possible but (see for example the explicit reference to "How to succeed in MrBeast production") quite likely: they are looking for people who like the red flags.
People who believe that they are "A players", who move to New York for job opportunities and don't care about working from home, who don't intend to have a life outside work, who seriously consider a random startup something they might be fanatic about.
Give up your life, and for what, to make influencer ads? Hopefully the money is good.
I wish there was a way to buy shorts for that company.
Woah. That's like blatantly obvious Nigerian scam emails - they are meant to filter out all but easily exploitable marks.
Jesus Christ that can't be real.
They create variants from a single video from a real creator. They don't say if the examples on the career page are AI generated variants, but if they are, they're not generated from scratch.
Right?
The actual description for the openings are two ambiguous and crude sentences.
Getting a lot of downvotes on that, wonder if I broke some unspoken rule by talking bad about a YC company.
The actual description for the openings are two ambiguous and crude sentences.
Getting a lot of downvotes on that, wonder if I broke some unspoken rule by talking bad about a YC company.
I'd say it was the dismissal of TFA as shallow. Generally HN does want more substantive commentary. The author is in the thread here
You want more written about it? Go ahead. Sharing an example of a bad job ad is perfectly reasonable and I don't suspect that's what the down votes are for.
You want more written about it? Go ahead. Sharing an example of a bad job ad is perfectly reasonable and I don't suspect that's what the down votes are for.
Crazy idea - A competitive inteview
Schedule multiple people to interview at the same time. Create a tournament with brackets and events related to the job. The winner gets the job.
And of course it's fake and manipulated, the least technically competent are set up to win and the most competent set up to lose. The people with the best sportsmanship get job offers.
Schedule multiple people to interview at the same time. Create a tournament with brackets and events related to the job. The winner gets the job.
And of course it's fake and manipulated, the least technically competent are set up to win and the most competent set up to lose. The people with the best sportsmanship get job offers.
i say this lovingly, but i hope you are never in charge of hiring anywhere.
strongly reminded of this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4n1j9lvrdeo
"During a group interview, everyone was asked to crawl around on their hands and knees and “moo like a cow”.
“We did that for about three to four minutes,” she recalls.
"At the time, I was quite annoyed. It was highly inappropriate.
"But there was a bit of peer pressure because everyone else was doing it."
The interviewer said they were trying to see if the candidates were "fun", though Ms Fu suspects that "maybe someone just had a bit of a power trip"."
strongly reminded of this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4n1j9lvrdeo
"During a group interview, everyone was asked to crawl around on their hands and knees and “moo like a cow”.
“We did that for about three to four minutes,” she recalls.
"At the time, I was quite annoyed. It was highly inappropriate.
"But there was a bit of peer pressure because everyone else was doing it."
The interviewer said they were trying to see if the candidates were "fun", though Ms Fu suspects that "maybe someone just had a bit of a power trip"."
Well, they did say "events related to the job". I have no doubt that giving candidates events unrelated to the job leads to a poor interviewing experience and probably poor hiring.
How about speed interviewing instead of one at a time stuff, do it in parallel with equal number of interviewers and interviewees even, maybe they’ll just click.
> Please stop specifying a minimum number of years of experience. I have yet to see a single example where X number of years is more applicable than the context of the applicants experience. Describe what success looks like in the first 12 months rather than arbitrary experience requirements.
Oh, god, this. Please. I've been fighting this battle for my entire career. After 34 years, it's kind of difficult to count how many years I've spent on this or that skill, and even for things where I've shipped multiple solutions using TechX I may not have 5 contiguous years of experience. Is that 5 years ONLY using TechX? Does it count if I used TechX alongside TechY, TechZ, and TechAA, and was learning TechNext while doing maintenance work on TechX?
It's utterly bogus.
Oh, god, this. Please. I've been fighting this battle for my entire career. After 34 years, it's kind of difficult to count how many years I've spent on this or that skill, and even for things where I've shipped multiple solutions using TechX I may not have 5 contiguous years of experience. Is that 5 years ONLY using TechX? Does it count if I used TechX alongside TechY, TechZ, and TechAA, and was learning TechNext while doing maintenance work on TechX?
It's utterly bogus.
If you're responsible for writing job ads in 2024, the best advice I can give you is to disregard as many of the traditional job ad tropes as possible and write your job ad as if you're writing it for the actual human you want to hire in mind.