

How to Find Crappy Programmers - rpledge
http://codeanthem.com/blog/?p=64

======
btilly
I will never forget the experience of leaving a company and being asked to
come up with a job req for my position. I came up with a reasonable one, that
got handed to a manager who immediately added a bunch of standard boilerplate.
I took that version to his boss and explained why this seemingly innocuous
boilerplate would result in telling capable people that they didn't want to
work there.

That manager agreed, the req was changed, and I was left wondering how much of
the problems they had had with hiring decent people over the years was due to
their inability to write a decent job req.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
I once worked for a company which specified that developers must always be on-
call for support issues and be willing to travel. In reality, developers were
never even 2nd tier support, and travel was rarely even offered as an option.
Management couldn't understand why including such language might have
dissuaded applications.

------
vishaldpatel
Hmm.. this viewpoint needs a bit of balancing: \- An employer has money and
needs a developer. A developer needs the money. If the employer has foresight,
then the developer is at a disadvantage in this early stage of the
relationship because it allows the employer to put out a ridiculous sounding
job requirement yet still get a decent developer by playing the numbers game
(interview lots of devs; hire one temporarily and fire them if they're no
good.. then hire another etc...).

With that in mind, lets look at the points: #1) We need some guy who should
probably know all these things because we use them all.. somewhere.. in our
organization. The more they know all these thing, the more useful they'll be
to us from day 1.

#2) We need someone who has a pair. Either from experience or sheer will. Come
in and show us that you're the one we need. If the big numbers scare you, then
you're probably not our guy anyway. We also use a few old technologies that
have served us very well - it would be fantastic if you already know them.

#3) You're not a unique or a beautiful little snowflake. You'll find out how
we work when you get here. If you can't adapt, you'll leave - probably against
your will.

#4) The last guy who did this job was awesome. He worked hard to help us
become who we are now. We expect no less of you.

#5) We do things a certain way and it seems to be working for us. We expect
you to respect that, considering we don't even know you yet. You'll have
plenty of opportunity to help make this a more welcoming place if a) we hire
you, and b) you don't forget all these pain points once you come on board, and
are motivated to do more than just your job description.

Jobs are like girlfriends (or boyfriends) are like most relationships. They
may or may not start out smoothly. You'll find out that they're single
(existence of job ad), kinda cute ($, benefits), and maybe, but they might
only be nice to their friends and a firewall to everyone else (job description
/ initial response etc..). They are all different, and it is up to you to find
one to fall in-love with.

~~~
roc
> _"An employer has money and needs a developer. A developer needs the money.
> If the employer has foresight, then the developer is at a disadvantage in
> this early stage of the relationship"_

Frankly, if you approach hiring with this mindset you're only going to get a
good developer through sheer luck. As evidenced from your justifications:
you're searching for the cheapest cog.

~~~
vishaldpatel
If by cheapest you mean, a good cog for a good price, then yes, that is
exactly what an employer wants. At the end of the day, everyone likes to feel
like a winner.

While it would be nice for everyone to be great and welcoming from the outset,
it isn't realistic to have that expectation. If we inspect the job ads out
there, it is pretty obvious that many employers feel that they can get away
with a crappy job ad but still get the cog of their needs with it. So this may
not be sheer luck - there are probably more good developers than companies
with great job descriptions.

But yes, I do agree that a company can increase its chances significantly by
tailoring a job description to its intended audience a bit better (but perhaps
they already are? ;)).

------
wheaties
If you look on Dice, Monster, HotJobs, or CareerBuilder these are the only
jobs you'll ever see listed. Quite honestly I've forgotten what a "good" job
description looks like.

~~~
ciscoriordan
One that I've always liked, supposedly written by Shackleton:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of
complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of
success."

~~~
bstrand
Apparently that ad is apocryphal: <http://www.antarctic-circle.org/advert.htm>

------
RyanMcGreal
An invaluable technique is to list more years of experience with a particular
technology than it has been in existence.

A couple of years ago there were a flurry of postings for developers with at
least 10 years' experience in RoR.

~~~
roc
Rumor around the campfire is that practice relates to H1B applications. Before
you ask to look outside the country, you need to demonstrate that you looked
_inside_. And, as the story goes, you're not held to using the same
requirements overseas that you do locally.

Ergo: list impossible requirements, tell the government you tried real hard,
import a serf that meets your actual requirements.

(For the record the only problem I have with H1Bs, is that the program _sends
them home_ by default. If we need engineers, why isn't the program designed to
_keep them_ and _protect them_ from employers that might try to take advantage
of their status?)

~~~
dabent
The sounds like a very clever strategy. The kind most middle managers I've
known couldn't come up with. My experience is that it's all template language,
and the old skill keyword gets replaced with new one.

So instead of needing a Java dev with 10 years experience, they want a Ruby
dev with 10 years experience. Just click ctrl-H in Word and replace all
instances of Java.

After all, if a company wouldn't settle for a Java dev with less than 10 years
experience, so why should they settle for a Ruby dev with less? Managers don't
want to look like they are compromising standards.

------
mapleoin
I can't wait to get hired. The first thing I'll do once I get settled in to my
new job is start a blog and start defaming bad job ads. It'll be my new hobby.
And I'll never run out of bad job ads. I suppose if there's an actual blog
somewhere, making fun of them, then they'll improve their ad writing.

~~~
wtn
Maybe you should join the SF Ruby meetup.com mailing list. Half the email
traffic comes from recruiters posting and developers ridiculing them.

------
elptacek
I want a tee shirt that says, "Agile is for hippies"

------
jister
I think this is common else where in the world especially when clueless HR or
recruiters are the ones writing the job description of their client. Take a
look at this - <http://owenge.blogspot.com/2010/04/odd-job-description.html>.

As a developer should I really be lifting or moving equipments if needed? This
line will surely scare good applicants away.

~~~
spudlyo
Small shops require developers to also do sysadmin duty, including racking and
stacking gear.

~~~
switch007
How small are you talking about? We have 2 Developers and 7 Systems
Administrators. I would never dream of asking a developer to shift some
servers, wire some racks etc. As a control freak sysadmin, I wouldn't want
them too either :-)

~~~
stuff4ben
You have a greater than 2:1 ratio of sys admins to devs? What is it that you
do that requires so many sysadmins? My ASSumption is that your devs are
writing such bad code that it takes an army to administer the servers the code
lives on. But that's just me being an ass ;) Seriously what gives?

As to your point, we are a small shop too, 4 devs and 1 sysadmin. The
developers (of which I am one too) partake in everything from racking servers
to setting up databases to setting up production load-balanced Apache
instances to writing actual code. I find it's better to have developers who
know a little about how everything else works rather than code monkeys who
just concentrate on their own little jungle of code and throw it over the wall
like feces for others to handle.

~~~
switch007
We do dedicated/virtulal hosting, so we're not 'typical' sysadmins .

I still don't understand what makes it necessary for you to rack servers? If
it's sheer quantity, then you should have enough cash to employ more staff. If
it's very occasionally, then why can't the sysadmin handle that?

The only time our devs touch a server is when go to the datacentre to see how
everything works.

~~~
stuff4ben
Like the other guy said, it's easier with two people since they're pretty
heavy. We only have about 10 of them, so it's not a constant activity for us.

I have to say though, your attitude towards developers is pretty
condescending. As a developer and former homebuilt PC enthusiast I actually
enjoy learning about the IT side of things. Likewise, our sysadmin keeps up a
good conversation now and then about software development, and scripting
languages in particular. The best development shops are those where the devs
and admins work as a team and trust each other.

------
sabat
I'm not sure which is more depressing: the experience of reading this article,
or the fact that it's dead-on correct.

I, for one, can't wait until the shoe's back on the other foot where it
belongs. (You know, like when developers have to put notices like "I am not
accepting job offers at this time" on their blogs.)

