

Hiring - Must be godlike to apply - tomcreighton
http://tomcreighton.com/2012/02/hiring-must-be-godlike-to-apply/

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jaysonelliot
That sounds like another one of those If You Qualify, Why Aren't You Starting
Your Own Company? situations.

If the four people (actually five, I agree with Tom that number four is really
two people) they're looking for got together on their own, they could start a
killer startup of their own, and just hire a biz dev guy as a non-founder.

I'd love to know what this startup is, and what value the existing founders
bring to the table.

~~~
katabatic
Hint - they post their jobs page to Hacker News regularly, and you can apply
via API.

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code_pockets
I saw that ad, thought about applying, but decided not to.

Here is why:

\-- A list of common languages is something that pushes me away. Why? Because
it tells me (by experience) that they want someone who can do it all
(impossible). Its fine to list 2-3 languages or frameworks, but more than that
just makes me very suspicious.

\-- A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one
when a lot of CS graduates can't program?

\-- Experience? Sure, lots. But when you get older (I'm 32+), everything looks
the same: just data sets, and problems to be solved. There is a blurry line
between languages/frameworks/etc. Everything is just more of the same (I do,
however, enjoy it!). Ask for experience in engineering, and not for experience
in the latest dohicketydo.

~~~
sliverstorm
_A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one
when a lot of CS graduates can't program?_

This is logically flawed. It is entirely possible that by removing the barrier
of bachelor's degree, they will receive _even more_ applicants who cannot
program (percentage-wise).

I have no grounds on which to claim this _is the case_ , but it seems entirely
feasible and you have simply skipped over it.

Note that I am not taking issue with your personal choices regarding a degree.
It is your choice to make, and I respect that.

~~~
apl

      > This is logically flawed. It is entirely possible that by
      > removing the barrier of bachelor's degree, they will
      > receive even more applicants who cannot program
      > (percentage-wise).
    

While certainly true, this line of reasoning works a lot better for big
companies than small-ish start-ups. Remember: requiring a CS degree acts as a
filter with a certain probabilistic efficacy given that CS degree and
engineering ability are correlated but distinct.

If you get 10,000 applications a year (as enterprises like Google, Facebook,
and Apple do), you don't really have to give a damn about your false negative
rate. Go ahead and install severe formal requirements (e.g., needs CS PhD) --
you're still going to get a number of applications that is sufficiently large
to statistically guarantee multiple highly suitable candidates, and you'll
save tons of money and time in the process.

Non-behemoths can't really afford many false negatives because the applicant
pool is far more limited. False positives at the CV/formalism stage are
relatively easily filtered at the interview stage due to, again, smaller
_volume_.

~~~
code_pockets
Yes, good point.

Plus, if you are google/facebook/apple material[1], then a degree is just
icing on the cake for them.

Building something that gets a lot of attention is also very attractive to
these types of companies.

[1]Whatever that is.

------
leak
I stopped reading job ads because it made me feel unqualified to do anything.
I have a lot of experience. I've solved a lot of hard problems. I've built a
lot of enterprise software that a lot of people actually use. But of course,
that's not good enough these days. You have to be a real genius to get a job.
I'm not a genius unfortunately so I'll stick with trying to do start my own
company and hire geniuses.

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furyofantares
If you match half the qualifications, ignore that and apply. You probably have
lots of unlisted skills they are looking for, too, and you can probably pick
up new things if nobody is filling the role.

They are looking to meet a bunch of needs. You have an idea what the needs are
and think you can meet many of them. So apply. It's unlikely to be set in
stone that the needs have to be met by hiring the exact roles listed in the
job posting.

~~~
Mahh
I'd say that the point is more on the company's perspective.

Even if some people realize <what you said> and know to just go for it, the
job description scares away some people who could otherwise be qualified.

And a new startup probably can't afford to scare away potential hires.

~~~
furyofantares
It's really hard to convey what you want to in a job listing, especially one
that lists specific roles, like job seekers expect. And I'll agree that this
one may not be very effective.

But it's a really hard problem. One suggestion I would have is to have a
really clear list of things you're looking for that's separate from your
individual job postings. Part of the goal with job postings is to get all the
skills you're looking for listed _somewhere_ on the posting site, because you
want to make sure if someone with that skill sees your site, it registers with
them. Need someone familiar with A/B testing but can't fit it into the well-
defined roles people are looking for? Put it in a paragraph above all the
roles.

I agree that a new startup doesn't have a lot of room to scare away potential
hires, but they also don't have a lot of room to waste time looking into
everyone that spams their resume to anything it matches.

In some respects a tradeoff needs to be made here, and I'd rather select for
people who are willing to dive into something that looks a bit above their
head than select for people who are looking to apply to jobs they are already
perfectly capable of.

------
Confusion
With me, these kinds of complaints by designers conjure up an image of an
ivory tower artist that is offended by being asked to take notice of some
practical obstacle to his artistic plans. "Take me as I am, on my conditions;
I don't care for what the world wants: I am an artíste" (read with French
accent)

A job posting for a "project leader/lead developer" will ask for "an excellent
project manager, team leader and software engineer, with the skills to
communicate with clients and programmers", with some some technologies and
methodologies thrown in. Every full-time manager can tell you that managing
complex projects or teams is an art in itself. You can spend a lifetime
excelling in only that. They could equally well argue it is ridiculous to ask
that someone is an excellent software engineer as well. However, they don't:
it is perfectly acceptable that one should be skilled in both project
management and programming. That one should have people skills and technical
skills, even though each of those could be a specialization in it's own right.

The exact same holds for design. If you are offended by people look for a
designer/front-end programmer, but not by people looking for a project
leader/software engineer, than you are suffering from a delusion of grandeur
about the importance of 'design'. There are precious few companies that can
use excellent 'pure' designers. All the others are perfectly content to hire
someone with adequate design skills and a set of additional adequate skills
that make him useful to fulfill several roles. If that is offensive to your,
you need to leave your artist-ego at the door when you go looking for a job.

~~~
kylebrown
I'm a programmer that does more front-end (html5/js) than back-end, and
perhaps 'adequate' design skills (I don't do graphics, but can make decent-
looking prototypes with enough css).

When looking at the description for the designer job in the OP, its not the
design/technical combination that seems over-the-top, but those two jobs _and_
a third job doing A/B and conversion rate testing. That needs to be delegated
to somebody else, either a separate designer, a Quality-Assurance person, or
the project lead.

------
publicus
Job ads like that are a HUGE sign that the company does not value Front End
Engineers, and should be avoided (they are a backend company)

And a link to a great article about how to actually hire Front End Engineers
<http://allenc.com/2012/01/how-to-get-front-end-developers/>

