
Ask HN: Tell me what you think a good job ad looks like - fastbeef
I&#x27;m helping a manager I know write better job placement ads. I&#x27;ve pointed her to KeyValues.io, but I thought I&#x27;d ask here as well - what does a good job ad look like for you?<p>For reference, the current job ad is the industry standard laundry list of tech used, tech expected and a pretty tame sales pitch about the company.
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JSeymourATL
Do the exact opposite of a standard job ad-

Imagine you are talking to a friend about joining this company.

Tell me a little bit about the role, what needs to get done.

Tell me a little bit about the team, company culture.

What’s the mission? What interesting problems are you trying to solve. Are
there any particular priorities that really stand out?

Answer the question: why is this an attractive opportunity? Why is this a
great place to work?

Hint: no BS about ping pong tables and unlimited free snacks.

Finally, deliver this message in a 2-3 minute video from the actual hiring
executive (not HR). THAT would be interesting!

~~~
ecshafer
I disagree on videos. Hiring videos in my experience always end up as very
cultish and uncomfortable feeling. If I see a video I do not apply, I assume
more people are like me.

~~~
JSeymourATL
Here’s a well done (not cultish) example from 360 Live Media >
[https://vimeo.com/310212909](https://vimeo.com/310212909)

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Spoom
What is the company looking for, in one sentence? Why? Why now?

List the tech stack, that is important.

List a real salary range. A lot of places won't do this because they feel like
they might be missing out on a deal, but listing the range lets candidates
filter themselves in or out of the job immediately (and good ones will try to
find out the range anyway from external sites such as Glassdoor or Paysa,
which might be inaccurate and thus result in a lot of wasted time).

Tell me that you're hiring for a direct, full time employee position.
(Otherwise, I'm just not interested at all. Contract-to-hire is an immediate
fail.)

List benefits.

Tell me the day to day of one of the people on the team, _written by_ that
person.

List requirements but be open-minded. An experienced-enough engineer can learn
a lot very quickly.

Local only? If not, is there a relocation package? Is there travel involved?
Is the position open to remote? (If so, list this early in the ad as it will
attract a lot more attention.)

Tell me what your interview process will look like.

Highlight what you believe differentiates your company from others, especially
as relates to the potential hire's day-to-day.

~~~
tfehring
This is pretty much my list. I'll second the salary point in particular - if I
can't get the salary range from you, I'll get it from Glassdoor, and if I
can't get it from either you or Glassdoor, I probably won't apply. One other
point I'll expand on a bit:

> _List requirements but be open-minded. An experienced-enough engineer can
> learn a lot very quickly._

Be thoughtful and explicit about which requirements are firm and which aren't.
I think of a firm requirement as one for which any resumes lacking it are
automatically thrown in the trash, full stop. Or, equivalently, any
requirement for which you can say f'I wouldn't hire {best_hacker_you_know} for
this position if they didn't have {requirement}.' With this in mind, it may be
reasonable to have 0 firm requirements for a position if you trust your
interview process, and it's probably suboptimal to have more than a handful of
them.

Assume that there are good candidates who will treat every requirement as a
firm one unless you explicitly state otherwise, and who will only apply if
they meet all of them. Because there are. Chances are, you don't want to miss
out on good candidates who know most of your stack like the back of their hand
but decide not to apply because you "require" MySQL experience and they only
know Postgres.

~~~
Spoom
Piggybacking on this, _please_ run your ad by your technical staff. They know
the position better than you do, and can tighten up the _real_ requirements of
the position.

------
DanAndersen
If you list job requirements, make them _actual_ requirements and don't try to
upsell the talent you get by exaggerating the requirements.

Some applicants are naturally more haggle-friendly and intuitively "know" they
should apply to jobs for which they don't technically have all the listed
requirements. Other applicants are more self-doubtful and will not apply, even
if given their experience they would be well-suited for the job. Minimize the
amount of white-lying both the applicant and the company have to do.

~~~
cimmanom
Another way to do this is to explicitly list must-haves and want-to-haves
under separate headings.

------
rahimnathwani
It answers the following questions:

\- What does the company do and why is it important, interesting or impactful?

\- What do you want the new person to achieve? (Impact)

\- What's the context of the role (team size and mix of roles, company size
and mix of departments)

\- What state is the existing stuff (e.g. for an engineering role, how mature
is the tech stack, for a product role is the product released and how good is
it)

\- (If applicable) links to the product or screenshots or video

\- Working environment and style (how often do you ship? What does a new hire
do in their first few weeks, by the end of 3 months, by the end of 6 months)

\- why hiring now?

\- 2-4 minimum requirements for the role (e.g. if there are hard technical
requirements like specific language, or if someone needs to be able to do
financial modeling or whatever)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
What you say is enough for it to be an adequate ad. It doesn't wind up
automatically rejected or ignored. It gets put on the list of jobs I'll apply
to, but not with much enthusiasm.

A job application that goes at the top of the list, one that I apply to with
enthusiasm, needs one other thing: _It answers why I want to work there._ It
says something to show me that human beings work there, not just robots. In
some way, it has some personality, some human touch, some flash of humor.

How should you do that? I can't tell you. If I tell you, people will use it as
a formula, and they'll just come off as robotically following a rule, rather
than showing a genuinely human touch.

~~~
tracker1
I think the first two bullet points do cover that, but will depend on how you
react to the specifics.

------
zerogvt
Most job ads are like this - laundry lists. Speaking only for myself I'd go
for an ad that talks more about underlying technology principles rather than
an endless list of specifics (e.g. OOP knowledge instead of C++ or java and
continuous integration flows instead of jankins or travis). Then I'd try to
draw an accurate picture of what the role involves, describing the tech stack
actually used and a bit of the roadmap ahead with regards to the product.
Lastly I'd mention how we work, e.g. agile, scums, etc.

Most important thing is accuracy/honesty. Nothing worse than overselling a
backwater tech or a bureaucratic mess as a dream job.

PS: Avoid boilerplate phrases that constitute 'sweatshop-smells' like
"passionate developer".

~~~
Maultasche
> PS: Avoid boilerplate phrases that constitute 'sweatshop-smells' like
> "passionate developer".

The phrase "work hard, play hard" is one of those phrases that raises alarm
bells for me. I get an image of people working 12 hour days until they're
burnt out and then having wild, beer-chugging parties. No thank you.

------
_ah
Every job ad must include why the _company_ or the _position_ is unique.
Ideally you have a key differentiator driving applicants to self-select in or
out.

Applicants excited about your company or role will apply immediately and put
much more effort into the process. Applicants opting out probably weren't
great hires _for you_ anyway. By triggering a strong in/out, you only spend
your time vetting the very best applicants.

Example: Company X has a strong "dogs in the office" culture. It's a big part
of who they are! People who love dogs absolutely want to work there, and may
be willing to select Company X over other equivalent positions. People who
don't love dogs, are alergic, or just prefer animal-free offices would never
really be happy there, and the hiring manager doesn't even need to look at
those resumes.

------
mcv
Avoid looking like a standard job ad. My eyes start glazing over when I see
another cookie-cutter same-as-all-the-others job ad. At the same time, don't
be so different nobody recognises it for what it is either.

That said, there's nothing wrong with a list of skills and technologies, but
keep it relevant. In fact, maybe describe the technologies used as just that,
rather than a list of requirements. I'm interested in the environment I'll be
working in, both technical and social. But lists go at the end. Start with why
I should even want to read this job ad: what makes this job interesting, and
different from all the other identical jobs? What kind of problems will I be
solving? What kind of value will I be contributing to society? What kind of
company are you, and what kind of clients will I be working for?

Avoid the usual checklist of meaningless buzzwords. I know that I need to be a
team player when I'll be working in a team, or that I need to be independent
when I won't be working in a team. Just tell me I'll be working in a team, but
tell me a bit more about the team.

Focus on what makes this job different from all those other hip agile casual
tech companies.

------
Endy
Good job ads should list, in order: A brief overview of the job (and the
employer if not through a recruiter). Nothing too in-depth, just a top-line
view, like so: "Casual startup in [$LOCATION] looking for [$LANGUAGE]
programmer. Must work weekends and crunch hours."

Then it should go into the list of BFOQs and job requirements. This should
include education, experience (with years and/or other KPIs listed),
transportation, relocation, etc. If the role is client-facing, it should
include that here - specify that the client needs negotiation and
communication skills.

After that it should list the basic job responsibilities. Again we're not
going deep here, just a brief three or four lines. What will this person's
everyday look like? Will they need to attend meetings? Will they need to turn
out a specific number of lines of code daily? Etc. I'd also put in the
management review cycle here, but some companies like to be cagey.

After that, list the 'nice-to-have' points. For instance, being bilingual,
living in walking distance, etc. Just make sure they're quantifiable. We're
not looking for wishy-washy 'cultural fit' here, but rather real success
drivers that simply aren't part of the job's requirements.

Then, end with a CTA talking again about the company and how this person's
growth opportunities would be. Might they be management in a year? 5? Etc.

Notice that I don't have much in the way of soft or flexible points, and I
don't list the salary in the ad. Let the person come to you based on the job,
but have a number in mind. Always set your anchor 5% below that when the
person asks in the first call. Try to keep each section to either 3 or five
one-sentence bullets. Make sure anyone involved with the recruiting cycle
knows everything about that ad - even if they don't know the job's specifics.

------
tracker1
If it's for a developer, concentrate on the type of problems being solved, not
the technology. You can mention the tech/language already in use, but
concentrating on it is a net negative, unless you're looking for a
temp/consultant.

The fact is that any mid-level or higher developer should have learned at
least a couple tool-sets/languages for development and can likely come up to
speed regardless. We all have our preferences, and would prefer to be able to
have hope of seeing things adapt based on fit/need not be dogmatically locked
into a single vendor/language/solution.

Hire people that can grow in the environment through domain knowledge,
practical skills and some new technology initiatives and not just a management
path. There's a real reason why there is high turnover, and I would guess that
less than half of it is the salary.

------
benji-york
Salary is critically important to me.

~~~
tracker1
I have to agree... when you're at the top end salary for a given area, the
conversation can often end right there without any ill feelings.

------
keiferski
Don’t use any words/phrases like “rockstar”, “disrupting the market”, or
“changing the world” unless you are indeed looking for a guitar player for
your communist geoengineering startup.

~~~
Endy
Don't give Marketing any funny ideas!

------
joshstrange
\- Salary/benefits

\- Tech Stack

\- What you do in AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE. I don't really care about how you
are "changing the world" or other flowery language that tells me nothing about
what you actually do.

\- Location and/or remote possibilities

Stretch goals:

\- Day in the life or list of duties performed by or expected to be performed
by this hire

\- Break out needs/wants in the technical section. I want to know if you NEED
someone who has used React or if my Angular knowledge and my ability to learn
are going to be enough. I've seen some postings put this under a "nice to
have" section and I can tell you, that section sure is..... nice to have.

------
itomato
Understand your audience. Create a persona for your ideal candidate and go
from there. Lots of advice in here to abandon norms. Do that if it makes sense
your audience. Do something else if your persona is better served by a
different approach, or by the same basic info presented multiple ways
(Blue/Green IRL).

Everyone wants to know a little about the company and culture, general details
about the job role and some specifics about technologies, company maturity,
location/hours/compensation.

The rest is presentation.

------
richardknop
Important things would be:

\- real salary range

\- list of benefits (how many vacations per year, sick leave, healthcare,
dental etc)

\- real tech stack (not what you aspire to in the long run but what is
currently running in prod and what I will have to work with)

\- typical day of an engineer

\- mission of the company, why is your product useful? who does it help and
how?

\- reasonable requirements list vetted by technical person (seeing stuff like
5 years experience with language tool that is few years old is a red flag)

~~~
cimmanom
The “day in the life” is extremely valuable information that’s provided only
too rarely.

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LifeLiverTransp
Avoid buzzwords, describe the mission, but not the usual PR-Bla, describe the
problems, the interesting problems that are expected to appear along the way.
Also describe who you dont want- as a character. It tells way more about your
culture, who you would throw out.

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gvand
No boasting. No BS. No lies. No embellishment of less than ideal details of a
shitty job/company.

Don't write anything that you wouldn't be able to defend when put under
pressure by an interviewee during his/her side of the interview.

------
temprunberkdk
Be specific in what the job requires Don’t list out all the popular languages;
list out one or two you are looking for max Don’t start a job description with
“we are changing the world..”

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nuna
Senior seems to mean different things for different people

Are you looking for an expert in specifically X language/tech ?

Are you looking for someone with X years of development Experience?

Are you looking for a generalist?

Please clarify

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patrickxie
keyvalues is fantastic, I've spoken with Lynn(the founder) once. she was kind,
inspiring, and focused. I think you won't go wrong reaching out to her for
assistance on how to write a good job placement ad.

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franzwong
Did you mention any benefits?

