

How to write a dev job post that inspires people and doesn't suck - mattydorey
http://mattdorey.com/post/1329475978/im-not-dead-and-curve-is-hiring

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dangrossman
Your requirements list is ridiculous, and will exclude everyone you want to
find. Does your applicant REALLY need to be the one guy in the world who has a
degree, AND certification from a hardware vendor, AND has written scripts for
Amazon EBS, AND has a background in cryptography, AND has built and configured
everything from down to disk subsystems up to Java, etc... for at least 8
years? I don't think this mythical man exists, and if he does, he _just might_
be worth so much more than you can pay that the list of off hours and customer
support responsibilities would have him pass you right by.

I'm being harsh here, but I don't know anyone qualified that would look at
that enormous list of requirements and actually apply. The only thing that
list might be good for is catching lots of keyword searches on job sites,
getting you tons of unqualified applicants.

~~~
hugh3
I think the "here is the sort of person you are" bit is more alienating. You
allocate part of your monthly budget to speeding tickets? You play Halo 3? Of
course these obviously aren't phrased as job requirements, but are still
alienating for the potential applicant, who gets the idea that his new boss is
the kind of person who has odd expectations about behaviour.

~~~
Dylanlacey
Really? I _loved_ that bit! I want to apply for a group of people who have
personality.

Anyone who couldn't see that that was a bit of creative writing expressing the
themes wanted is someone who's not really fit for the job, imo.

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tptacek
See, I _don't_ like this job description. To me, it misses the point of job
descriptions: to attract the best possible candidates. This is a very long
list of _requirements_. They are indeed charming, and they do indeed sound all
the right geek dog whistles. But they are all about why the candidate will be
valuable to the company.

It's definitely better to be explicit and evocative about how important the
role is going to be, and that does make this ad better than most HR job ads.

But an even better job post would spend the majority of its words selling the
job to the candidate.

(Also, the skills list at the bottom is a straight-up unforced error. There
are obviously candidates who are very much worth considering who will not meet
all these requirements. From bitter experience: give anyone an excuse to
believe that they're not qualified, and chances are they'll take that excuse.
A constant thrum of feedback we get: people aren't applying to Matasano
because they're afraid they're not "good enough", which is shocking for us to
hear. Our only spelled-out requirement is "ability to code in any language"!)

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eel
My problem with this job post is that it is long. Very long. I'd start by
cutting out the "key attributes" section (is it really a good idea to include
"If you were hit by a buss tomorrow it wouldn’t matter." in a job post,
regardless of the point you are trying to make?) I would then cut down the
requirements section to something digestible.

I had a look at least one job listing from each of the five current posts in
<http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs> and I think that they are all better
examples of good job listings that don't suck. Most of them are succinct --
they say what the future employee will have to do, a few actual firm
requirements that they have, and why I should apply (sometimes including some
perks). They are formatted too.

~~~
simonw
I agree with too long. I found myself skipping the first sentence of each
paragraph ("You watched the x-files a lot as a kid...") because I knew they'd
be jokes.

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utku_karatas2
Good luck finding such a teammate and making that guy work on a web based
dental software.

Sigh. Posts like this slap me in the face that maybe we're in the wrong part
of the world to do software business. Here's our list of interview questions
for a web developer position we couldn't fill for the last 2 months.

    
    
      1. What is Javascript and why is it needed?
      2. Could you talk about HTTP GET and POST.
      3. What is OO? Have you "heard of" design patterns? (Most haven't even heard patterns at all.)
      4. Could you talk about any other languages than you currently use? (mostly ASP.NET and PHP)
    

We have seen very few applicants fulfilling us beyond the second question. And
the ones that do cost an arm and leg. This happens in Istanbul, a city of ~15
million.

~~~
mattydorey
Well, we've managed to build a large and talented dev team with this approach
thus far. I guess once we start having difficulty finding capable devs we'll
have to lower the bar. Sigh.

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lemming
_Your [sic] okay with sometimes not getting the credit you deserve because you
know most people just aren’t capable of seeing what you do. Your contribution
is less visible because you’re constantly playing defense, fixing problems
before they happen._

I'm ok with a lot of people not giving me credit because I know I do a good
job. But it's important that _some_ people value what I do. For example, am I
going to be paid more or less than a salesman? Is that role really seen from
within the company as the mission-critical everything-depends-on-you role
you're painting, or is winning new clients considered more important? Is that
reflected in remuneration?

Also, please spell and grammar check your job postings. I do so for my CV.

~~~
wyclif
I agree. The spelling and grammar errors are flags that this was written by
someone who does not pay attention to detail. Someone who does not pay
sufficient attention to detail has no business making the kinds of demands
made in that job post.

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jscore
"Our exact GPS co-ordinates are 40°18’47.86” N by 111°42’22.48” W at an
elevation of 4,757’ (according to Google Earth)."

Dude, just tell us the location. No need to get clever.

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mattydorey
Thanks all, this is good feedback. The intent behind this was to innovate in
this area by making the posting stick out so that the posting gets more
visibility but also helps weed out candidates. We are looking for one person
and we want to set the bar high for this position.

I'm surprised that each requirement/attribute was taken so literally, but I
can see how people could view it like that after reading it again.

To be honest, if we could find someone that met most of this criteria I think
we would be very happy. I wouldn't say they need 8 years of experience in each
area, however my hope is that they would have worked with these technologies
over the last period of time in varying capacities.

It will be very interesting to see how people take this and who applies. Maybe
I'll post the results up so people can see after the search.

Thanks for the candid feedback.

Matt

~~~
iigs
Something that has thrown me off here: The position very clearly reads as a
senior System Administrator / Engineer, with some project management and lead
experience. But the title is Director of Infrastructure. Speaking from my
experience, a director is a manager of managers.

Is this req really a director role? If so, where are the criteria for the
leadership and managerial components? The listing goes into quite a lot of
detail about the technical side on things that would end up being optional
when deep-diving with the right candidate.

If not, and it's actually a "director of the machines that compose the
infrastructure", IMO the education bar is too high: I've never worked at
Google, but I don't know anyone with a masters degree that gets Nagios alerts.

Lastly, as an outsider, I see "Customer up-time and data integrity is the most
important thing in our company and we need someone who has the experience,
depth and skills to lead this area of our company.", but the listing does not
speak to the candidate's responsibilities with regard to the development /
architecture of the software itself. A senior technical contributor or a
manager with this charter will spend no small part of their time in design and
code reviews. Frankly, in a lot of shops this position has to argue with Dev
to keep them from doing things that seem clever but can't be operationalized,
whether due to an unforseen technical restriction, or because the new idea
will have a lot of corner / edge cases that will make administration of the
application very error-prone.

Had I not moved across the country in the last year, I'd definitely consider
throwing my hat in the ring... UT is on the short list of places I'd move next
round, too. Good luck and please post a follow-up!

------
csomar
I know the job market is sick these days and many people are jobless, but I do
believe that someone with such skills is already involved in a startup,
working at a company or have filled his life. If this person left a company or
get fired, he'll immediately find job offers (8 year of experience, he should
be popular in his field!).

That being said, none of those you are dreaming of will look at your job post.
Take a look at: [http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/mountain-
view...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/mountain-
view/swe/software-engineer-mountain-view/index.html)

I like this job post. It mention requirements, role, responsibilities. Short
and precise. I'm, however, more interested in the life at Google and the
photos, which are covered in depth.

------
okaramian
I don't like this description for various reasons.

One of which is you're is not the same thing as your: "What if you’re servers
go down?"

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gsivil
A charm to read, but I still find it too inflated. I guess it could be equally
effective if it was twice as short bu to the point.

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rbanffy
<http://img87.imageshack.us/i/96lw2.jpg/>

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ojbyrne
I liked the quoted job description (i.e. the one _not_ to do) better.

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jpilmer
Great input on what's really important in a job description. Interesting Gen Y
take on making sure the job description has a "what in it for me" section,
since I know Curve Dental has a fun team working environment. And, I do think
the description could save a few words.

That said, Curve Dental is a rockin place to work. I've seen their HQ office
and there have high energy and happy people. They are a "contender", not a
"pretender" in the Cloud-computing space with industry pundants applauding
their direction & leadership. Microsoft's VP said cloud programming is "tough"
and so I'm sure the list of truly qualified technical people for such a job is
short.

Best of fortune to those techies who qualify because cloud computing is where
it's at and Curve Dental has the leadership and the funding to make a bunch of
people happy on payday.

~~~
spudlyo
I think you'd better serve your client if your PR machinations were a little
less obvious.

~~~
lemming
Absolutely. Whoever this is is really hurting this job post for this audience.

~~~
mattydorey
Wow. This was our PR firm. They took the liberty of getting involved in the
discussion.

Sorry, this is totally inappropriate and lame.

