I commented on a similar post a couple of months ago but will re-paste it here.
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. Also, please make the range reasonable. 60K-150K is bullshit because then you are just throwing numbers for the sake of it. 60K-85K or 100K-130K is more reasonable.
- 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/pension ? awesome. now tell me what the employer 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.
A couple explanations from a recruiter (why recruiters do these things):
- Company name: Agency recruiters don't post company names typically because they are afraid other recruiting companies might steal their clients. If a competitor agency sees COMPANY is hiring, they might call and try to compete for their business. This is a huge fear in the contingency recruiting world, but in the retained world it isn't as big an issue. (I post client names, but my business isn't contingency)
- Salary range: The problem with posting a salary range is that candidates only hear the high number. Most will say that isn't true, but I've been recruiting for 15 years and whenever I gave a salary range to candidates of say 100-120, they would automatically expect that they would get the 120. Any offer below 120 was considered lowball. I'm sure there will be some who say they wouldn't feel that way, but it happened almost every time.
- Team description: Interesting that you mention personal info. It seems the trend is starting to move towards publicizing the members of teams where that could be a recruiting tool. If you have great engineers that are willing to have a somewhat public face for your company, many companies seem willing to use that to their advantage in today's environment. The risk of exposing team members to poaching by other firms used to be a larger concern, but now most people can be found via LinkedIn, GitHub, blogs, etc.
- Why you are looking to hire: When it's growth and new projects, I'll usually list it. When it's a replacement due to termination or turnover, don't expect that to be advertised.
- Benefits: Again, if the information is positive we tend to list it. If they are industry average, they typically aren't worth mentioning.
It's possible to write job descriptions that will get great responses while including none of the things you list here (except perhaps location).
I just wrote my first every job post yesterday, what a great life experience =) !!!
Anyway I did all of these things except salary range. If I left that out, I thought it would give me more room to negotiate, it's an iOS job for a startup btw (email me if interested I guess). I mean, these iOS guys know what the going rates are, I didn't see the point of writing down a number for my first ever job post, plus I was scarred of picking the wrong number =/ How bad is it to not include the salary range type info?
Great post. I second the salary point. A geek salary has a very wide range, and I'd quite like to filter out those positions that would give me a pay cut first, thank you very much.
Just one thing - you might want to translate US-specific terms like "401K" into globally understandable terms like "pension".
Can I have a quick micro rant here: I don't want to know about perks when I'm job hunting. Tell me about the type of work (not a wishlist of skills you want), the ball park pay (not a range), the location (I'm looking at you, agencies), the level (entry level vs management) and the type of hours (I'm the type of weirdo that has a life outside of work). I don't care if you have free lunch or free t-shirts. I expect to work hard and get paid for it. P.S. Forget the marathon gauntlet interview with multiple skype calls; that's why I send you a copy of my resume and give you references. OK, rant over. Please carry on. Nothing to see here.
Oh, I want to know the perks, because that tells me the culture.
If the perks are a gym membership and free transportation pass, it may be my kind of place. If tney mention ping-pong tables and game consoles in their lounges, I know I should run away screaming.
(If you are half my age, you might reverse those.)
I consider perks as a part of the salary. Let's take an extreme case: free food. If I can eat for free 5 days a weekend, that's a lot of money I don't have to pay!
So, if the job post included the information you desire (the type of work, the ball park pay, the location, the level and the type of hours) AND then the following: "If that alone above sounds interesting and something you'd like to be a part of then inquire or submit your resume because we also offer numerous other perks we'd be more than happy to share with you."
Would that be the best type of job post? I would think so because then you know they aren't applying because they get X, Y, and Z but because of the work. X, Y, and Z might be nice perks if they enjoy them but if they don't care about X, Y, and Z you know they're still interested in the opportunity without them.
The location one is huge. I've seen headhunters list everything from Hamilton to Oshawa as "Toronto". These locations are like a 4 hour drive apart at rush-hour.
There are a few things I want to know about when looking at job posts: tech stack, target salary, what the company is, and a small list of perks. This will give me an idea of what the office environment is like.
I hate it when job postings start listing out needed skills. I read one the other day listing 5+ years of HTML5 and CSS3 experience. When it comes to years of experience, you're more likely looking for a particular level of knowledge and some people are going to get there in a year or less, and others will not get there no matter how many years of experience they have.
It also is a red flag to me when I see that - I know I am performing close to on par with some people with industry experience of 10+ years on the frontend. All things equal, you will want the rising star, since that person hasn't hit a ceiling yet, and there's a decent chance you can get away with underpaying that person.
Apart from very confused about what an adjective it, this article nails it. Just because it's "ninja" and "rockstar" instead of "monetise" and "synergy" doesn't make it any less meaningless jargon.
Can't access because the site is down, but I have a lot of feelings about this topic. Specifically, please never, ever, use one of these words to describe the developer you are hunting:
ninja, cowboy, rockstar, superstar, virtuoso, obsessed, "lives and breathes code", knowledgeable about some arbitrary activity or hobby to show how quirky and social the team is...
It gets tiring, as a professional, to read these job postings that sound like they're an ad for a teenage boy's summer camp. Usually the non-programmer postings will read like, you know, jobs for adults. Also, when you're asking for a "virtuoso" for your 60k junior dev spot, I don't know whether that means you don't know what that word means or you're just delusional. Either way, it sounds like everyone definitely has a puffed up ego.
In my mind, a job posting, and the responses to it, are just intended to start a conversation.
Getting all worked up over what is or is not in the posting seem kind of silly to me. If you don't like the way it was written, fine - don't apply.
If you have questions, just apply. If they contact you, ask those questions. If they don't contact you, the answers didn't matter anyway.
Applying for a job is not a declaration that you want to work there. It is a statement that you are interested in discussing it more. All the real information gathering, in both directions, happens during the interview process.
If your job ad doesn't give some indication of salary, then it's literally useless to anyone worthwhile who might otherwise consider applying. Good candidates will only apply for jobs that they feel are worthy of them. If they can't even tell whether you're going offer $10k less than they're already on, they'll just move on to the next listing.
[+] [-] codegeek|12 years ago|reply
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. Also, please make the range reasonable. 60K-150K is bullshit because then you are just throwing numbers for the sake of it. 60K-85K or 100K-130K is more reasonable.
- 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/pension ? awesome. now tell me what the employer 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.
[+] [-] fecak|12 years ago|reply
- Salary range: The problem with posting a salary range is that candidates only hear the high number. Most will say that isn't true, but I've been recruiting for 15 years and whenever I gave a salary range to candidates of say 100-120, they would automatically expect that they would get the 120. Any offer below 120 was considered lowball. I'm sure there will be some who say they wouldn't feel that way, but it happened almost every time.
- Team description: Interesting that you mention personal info. It seems the trend is starting to move towards publicizing the members of teams where that could be a recruiting tool. If you have great engineers that are willing to have a somewhat public face for your company, many companies seem willing to use that to their advantage in today's environment. The risk of exposing team members to poaching by other firms used to be a larger concern, but now most people can be found via LinkedIn, GitHub, blogs, etc.
- Why you are looking to hire: When it's growth and new projects, I'll usually list it. When it's a replacement due to termination or turnover, don't expect that to be advertised.
- Benefits: Again, if the information is positive we tend to list it. If they are industry average, they typically aren't worth mentioning.
It's possible to write job descriptions that will get great responses while including none of the things you list here (except perhaps location).
[+] [-] calhoun137|12 years ago|reply
Anyway I did all of these things except salary range. If I left that out, I thought it would give me more room to negotiate, it's an iOS job for a startup btw (email me if interested I guess). I mean, these iOS guys know what the going rates are, I didn't see the point of writing down a number for my first ever job post, plus I was scarred of picking the wrong number =/ How bad is it to not include the salary range type info?
[+] [-] mnw21cam|12 years ago|reply
Just one thing - you might want to translate US-specific terms like "401K" into globally understandable terms like "pension".
[+] [-] lyndonh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|12 years ago|reply
If the perks are a gym membership and free transportation pass, it may be my kind of place. If tney mention ping-pong tables and game consoles in their lounges, I know I should run away screaming.
(If you are half my age, you might reverse those.)
[+] [-] nekgrim|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrs235|12 years ago|reply
Would that be the best type of job post? I would think so because then you know they aren't applying because they get X, Y, and Z but because of the work. X, Y, and Z might be nice perks if they enjoy them but if they don't care about X, Y, and Z you know they're still interested in the opportunity without them.
[+] [-] useyourloaf|12 years ago|reply
Please go ahead and tell me about the culture, attitude, perks, etc: these are likely to be red flags that I need not apply!
[+] [-] Ducain|12 years ago|reply
Yes. That.
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueskin_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raghuHack|12 years ago|reply
Cheers!
[+] [-] scrabble|12 years ago|reply
I hate it when job postings start listing out needed skills. I read one the other day listing 5+ years of HTML5 and CSS3 experience. When it comes to years of experience, you're more likely looking for a particular level of knowledge and some people are going to get there in a year or less, and others will not get there no matter how many years of experience they have.
[+] [-] Bahamut|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeTaylor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krstck|12 years ago|reply
ninja, cowboy, rockstar, superstar, virtuoso, obsessed, "lives and breathes code", knowledgeable about some arbitrary activity or hobby to show how quirky and social the team is...
It gets tiring, as a professional, to read these job postings that sound like they're an ad for a teenage boy's summer camp. Usually the non-programmer postings will read like, you know, jobs for adults. Also, when you're asking for a "virtuoso" for your 60k junior dev spot, I don't know whether that means you don't know what that word means or you're just delusional. Either way, it sounds like everyone definitely has a puffed up ego.
[+] [-] k3oni|12 years ago|reply
Also even for non-programmer jobs like sys engineers/admins i see a lot of hacker and superstar postings.
[+] [-] codingdave|12 years ago|reply
Getting all worked up over what is or is not in the posting seem kind of silly to me. If you don't like the way it was written, fine - don't apply.
If you have questions, just apply. If they contact you, ask those questions. If they don't contact you, the answers didn't matter anyway.
Applying for a job is not a declaration that you want to work there. It is a statement that you are interested in discussing it more. All the real information gathering, in both directions, happens during the interview process.
[+] [-] MikeTaylor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arunagarwal|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skbohra123|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maerF0x0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluetidepro|12 years ago|reply