

Hacker Jobs is live and we want your feedback - Peroni
http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog/2012/3/26/when-jonny-met-stevie

======
sequoia
First of all let me say kudos on the launch; I'm giving this feedback because
it was my reaction and others might have the same:

The two claims in your site header made me curious: "Dealing in only the
finest jobs for the finest people in tech" and "Post a Job It's free and it
only takes 5 minutes." This made me scratch my head... how are they offering
only the best listings if I can post in 5 minutes? Does that mean anyone can
post anything? Because that doesn't sound like it will be a collection of "the
finest jobs."

I did a test[1][2] and sure enough, there is no process of vetting the jobs.
This, to me, says that the site will have all the same issues as e.g.
Craigslist; perhaps more because craigslist actually charges to post a job in
Boston. Basically: another random assortment of good jobs, bad jobs, scams,
and time wasters. If you are claiming that your site deals with "only the
finest jobs," you need to back that up with some actual mechanism to filter
out bad jobs.

To your credit: the posting has been removed in the time it took me to write
this comment. :) (Unfortunately most spammy/scammy/crappy job listings aren't
as obvious as mine.)

[1] <http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/best> [2: screenshot of 1]
<http://i.imgur.com/d0r7E.png>

~~~
Peroni
We made the decision to keep job posting free for now purely to help drive
content and to give people a reason to return. The off-shoot of that is that
we are manually vetting every single ad that gets posted.

Your test ad wasn't removed by a spam filter, it was removed by either myself
or Jon manually.

Eventually you will have to pay to post your job on our site as well as more
secure email verification but for now, we are happy staying up all hours of
the night making sure that the quality remains high.

------
lzy
Care to share how did you guys get started with a whole bunch of job listings?
Contacting tech companies to provide free listings on your job board?
Employers actually discovering your site and posting their jobs? Thanks!

I'm currently working on a job board in an entire different niche so I'd
really appreciate your comments!

~~~
dancesdrunk
Also to add to Peroni - you can scrape recruitment sites (monster, gumtree,
craigslist), get in touch with the relevant company asking if you can copy the
job over to your site.

Most don't mind, and some are even happy if they do get a good applicant
through your website instead of wherever they had initially posted their
vacancy.

Just make sure there's no effort on their part, nor any hidden fees and they
aren't signed up to your newsletter unless they specifically asked to be.

A mixture of scraping and contacts got us around 500 vacancies to launch
qreer.com.

~~~
lzy
Thank you Peroni, DancesDrunk. I did not come from a recruitment background so
I'd really appreciate the suggestions.

------
ianpri
If a posting is marked as being contract and permanent such as
[http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/javascript-
applicatio...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/javascript-application-
developer) perhaps have the ability for the advertiser to add seperate
salaries for both? It reminds me of my daily CWjobs jobs alert offering roles
for £50,000 per hour :)

------
latch
\- In the main job list, clicking anywhere in the cell should bring you to the
job (since it does highlight the cell), not just clicking on the job title.

\- Maybe this is a decimal vs space vs coma thing, but one just has a salary
of "42.000" EUR while the other is "EUR 45000". The system should be able to
make this consistent. Does the currency come before or after? And, FWIW, I
read the first one as paying $42.

\- As a foreigner, it's always nice to know any language expectation (I assume
english, but that isn't always the case), as well as if they assist with
relocation. I realize that's up to them to put in the description, but some
hand holding would be nice.

\- Qubit's salary of "£50k + bonus + shares + insurance + free food + the
rest!" is lame..it expands the UI unecessarily. I'd put a lenght limit (and
again, structure salary better overall)

\- RSS? Most boards have it (or, I find a better structured json feed much
better)

~~~
Peroni
_In the main job list, clicking anywhere in the cell should bring you to the
job (since it does highlight the cell), not just clicking on the job title._

Not sure I agree with you on this one mate but I'll keep it in mind.

 _Maybe this is a decimal vs space vs coma thing, but one just has a salary of
"42.000" EUR while the other is "EUR 45000". The system should be able to make
this consistent. Does the currency come before or after? And, FWIW, I read the
first one as paying $42._

Salaries are entered in a freetext box currently. That will change down the
line. Just trying to get a feel for what works at the moment.

 _Qubit's salary of "£50k + bonus + shares + insurance + free food + the
rest!" is lame..it expands the UI unecessarily. I'd put a lenght limit (and
again, structure salary better overall)_

As above

 _RSS_

Really high on the priority list.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Re RSS, please let people create their own custom RSS feeds. Eg, I might only
want to see opportunities within 50 miles of Nottingham above 30 grand:

[http://hackerjobs.co.uk/rss/search?location=Nottingham&r...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/rss/search?location=Nottingham&range=50miles&minSalary=30)

Most of the listed jobs will end up being in London and there are a lot of
developers (like me) who don't want to work there.

------
motters
Having had experience with recruiters who were either clueless or merely
rude/unprofessional it is indeed a good idea to try to produce something aimed
at hackers (or at least moderately intelligent people) which hopefully isn't
completely lame.

However, a quick review of the site didn't uncover anything which I wouldn't
find elsewhere. Describing it as a UK jobs site, then allowing postings for
jobs in Germany seems off topic.

Why do job-related web sites often suck? Usually it's that the job
descriptions are too vague, are ineptly categorized, don't describe what the
application is, or are excessively wordy and packed with 'buzz' terms or other
meaningless fluff. These descriptions are often asking for highly capable
people, but seem to have been written by someone who is only semi-literate or
who only has the vaguest idea of what they want.

------
ed209
I don't care who the job comes via, as long as it's fair salary and a role I'm
interested in. I've never used a recruiter so I can't comment on whether
they'd get me a good job or not.

However, looking at the board there is a senior UX job for 6 weeks that is
offering just £80 per day for a 9 hour day!
[http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/mid-senior-ux-
designe...](http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs/2012/3/26/mid-senior-ux-designer)

If it's about the quality of jobs then surely this one falls short?

I would love to see a jobs board where salary is a mandatory field because
calling a position Mid, Senior, Lead etc means something different at every
company.

~~~
ianpri
Also agree with a mandatory salary field which is tied to an actual monetary
amount. 'Negotiable' doesn't mean anything without some sort of range, surely
every salary/perk is negotiable?

------
aptwebapps
Right now job at the top of the list has its location 'Anywhere', but if I
click on the Remote Friendly tab it doesn't show up.

I see this sort of thing all the time on job boards. I'd love to trust the
filters but somehow I have to look through all the ads to be sure.

So I looked at the posting form and location is one entry with a text input
and three rows below it is the job type section with checkboxes, one of which
is remote.

I think you need to constrain the inputs more. Make it harder for people to
mess up. Or, in this particular case, maybe put the remote checkbox up in the
location row?

~~~
Peroni
Yep. In this circumstance it appears they simply forgot to check the box which
I've since updated.

We are looking at different methods for job posting so today is a big learning
curve for us!

------
leeny
Steve, I think the idea is terrific and am a fan of yours. I'm a recruiter,
but I'm very pro any solution that cuts the amount of noise in this industry.
I recently posted about this problem here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771806>

That said, what incentive do recruiters have to email you and justify their
existence when there are no constraints on posting a job?

------
ilcavero
So what is really different compared to other job boards besides the good will
of the admins to keep it clean of recruiters spam?

~~~
Peroni
Right now? Not a whole lot being honest. We have plenty of plans and features
in the pipeline but the initial plan is to fill out our currently minimal
feature set with what you'd expect a decent board to have, then add some more
that we think are missing and can improve on what previous boards have done.

We're doing lots of offline work to make sure we get a good calibre of user,
candidates and advertisers alike. we're not going to just throw money at PPC
campaign, we want to build a good brand by going out and getting engaged in
the community (we do it already, after all).

~~~
boothead
One of the jobs posted says "we pay in kit, holidays and (a little) cash".

That screams the complete opposite of a good calibre of advertiser to me I'm
afraid. Which is a real shame because everything you've written in the past
about the London recruitment scene is correct and I'd love to see some real
changes in the industry!

~~~
Peroni
We had a bit of an internal debate about that particular vacancy. The company
are legit and the job is a bit of a unique one in the sense that it's a travel
blog where you get to do something completely different.

We are going to do our best to ensure the calibre remains high but high salary
doesn't automatically mean high calibre. We want to offer something a bit
different too.

That being said, the site is about the users so if this is the sort of ad you
don't want to see then we will absolutely keep it in mind next time something
like that pops up.

~~~
kristianc
It would be good if there was some sort of karma system in place, so that user
accounts who consistently post worthwhile jobs were rewarded, and sucky jobs
were down modded. Open to abuse, so you'd have to watch it, but would
definitely be an interesting concept.

~~~
Peroni
Great minds...

It is a great concept and one we have already considered for The Obair Company
- the parent company to HJ.

We have a really different concept coming soon that will put a very different
spin on the job market.

~~~
kristianc
Look forward to seeing what you have planned!

------
nodemaker
It would be nice if the interface to signing up for hacker jobs and looking at
available jobs be only through the command line.

------
koopajah
For now, there is not a lot of offers as the site just launched but will you
add the possibility to filter by experience and salary too ? Another important
thing for me as I'm planning to move to London soon is the geographic location
of the company as it may mean having 1.5hours of transport instead of 20
minutes each morning/evening.

~~~
Peroni
Yep. All in good time. As the jobs list grow, the search functionality will
grow to match.

~~~
inm
To follow up on this and what Steve's mentioned elsehwere, the locaation stuff
is a prime example of the kind of thing we have in mind for future
developments where we feel other sites lack.

Right now though this is just a minimal feature set. At midnight last night
when I looked at 'add filtering to the search options' on my todo list I
decided that with only a handful of jobs on launch day, this can wait. I
guarantee though there will be better search filtering by the time the number
of jobs has grown enough to warrant that.

~~~
radiowave
Day 1 and there's jobs listed in Newcastle upon Tyne, Huddersfield and
Birmingham. I'm absolutely gobsmacked. More of this please. It looks like
you're already aware, but just to re-inforce the point: once the number of
jobs is too large to comfortably browser, then for people outside of London,
sites like this will live or die based on their location specific search.
(Around here, Jobserve is a big deal for precisely that reason - they
eventually even managed to distinguish between Newcastle upon Tyne and
Newcastle-under-Lyme.)

------
koopajah
There is a button for job offer "remote friendly" but no "tag" associated in
the posting. And when reading the offer nothing indicates that the offer is
really "remote friendly". Is it a hidden field selected by the recruiter when
posting the offer? Are the tags added by you?

~~~
Peroni
When the employer fills out the job form they have the option to select remote
friendly if they are willing to consider remote workers.

------
davedx
I had a similar idea for a startup, so I find it really interesting to see
what you've done. My biggest question is:

How do you plan to monetize it?

Really nice looking site!

~~~
Peroni
Thanks!

Monetization: Charge for job postings further down the line once the site gets
a bit of traction and regular traffic.

~~~
dancesdrunk
Have you considered doing the opposite - charging applicants a minor fee per
application?

~~~
Peroni
Can't see it working at all to be honest. The ratio of quality applicant to
job advert is drastically low across all job sites, introducing a barrier to
entry will have a further negative affect on that I think.

~~~
dancesdrunk
I really don't know - it's an idea I've been thinking about.

It may have the opposite affect - having a monetary barrier will force
applicants to only apply to jobs they want / are qualified for vs the current
state where they apply to everything remotely close to where they want to
work.

The number of applicants will definitely be 1/10 or even 1/100 of what it was
before - but you will get folks who _want_ the job enough to pay for it, and
are definitely qualified for it.

Free for recruiters and you'll get plenty advertising their vacancies, which
should entice more applicants.

Then again, the system now works and has been this way for decades - not sure
if a role reversal would work at all.

------
jawr
Nice, looks great. There's a bug though; when you post a job with the same
title on the same day, the slug is the same which obviously causes issues.

~~~
Peroni
You're right. We spotted that bug a bit too late last night (3am to be
precise) and implemented an ugly work-around.

Jon (my co-founder and lead dev on the site) will be tackling that particular
issue this evening.

------
estel
Any chance of having a mailing list for new job postings at some point? Looks
like a sweet board though!

~~~
Peroni
It's on the list. It's down the line but it's on there!

------
kaolinite
I haven't received my email to tell me that, are they going to be sent out?

~~~
Peroni
They are being sent as we speak

~~~
kaolinite
Got it, sorry for being impatient ;-)

------
gitarr
There is no good way of "drilling down" when browsing the jobs. Meaning I
cannot look for existing locations and then by language etc.

Also, where are all the tags? I can see the popular ones, but none of the
others.

These are the major problems that I see standing out.

Personally I really hate these "follow us on twitter and like us on facebook"
kind of things. Be your own company.

If you ever implement a login system do not make it "connect with facebook" or
similar, as people looking for or posting jobs deserve their privacy.

~~~
Peroni
_Also, where are all the tags? I can see the popular ones, but none of the
others._

The search functionality will improve over time and the tags are intended as a
secondary measure of searching. They are more of a guide than anything else.
If you want to find a Ruby related role simply stick Ruby into the search box.

 _Personally I really hate these "follow us on twitter and like us on
facebook" kind of things. Be your own company._

We've been incredibly light on the social media links compared to every other
job site out there. Regardless of whether you like them or not, gaining a
following on popular social media sites is integral to getting your name out
there.

 _If you ever implement a login system do not make it "connect with facebook"
or similar, as people looking for or posting jobs deserve their privacy._

We will implement a login system but forcing people to connect to any other
account will not be mandatory as I also feel like it's just overdone.

------
madaxe
Nice work guys, but I have a bug for you - if two people list jobs with the
same title on the same day, the URL is identical, and whichever one got there
first gets the page - see the "blubolt" listings on
<http://hackerjobs.co.uk/jobs> that link through to Blooie's listing.

~~~
madaxe
Oh, and I recommend making the preview page more obviously a preview page, as
the "confirm and review" and the info text is below the fold, on a page that
looks identical to a completed listing!

------
zerostar07
Off topic, is "Hacker" the new trend? Like we 'll see hacker food, hacker
cars, hacker pillows etc?

~~~
Akram
I don't think so. If there are only programming and tech jobs on the site then
the name is perfect.

------
ropz
<http://www.jobsmanifesto.com>

... another new UK jobs site, over 25,000 jobs, exactly zero
agencies/recruiters. Generic site, but over 1000 IT Jobs.

Disclaimer: I know the dev team.

~~~
Peroni
Not even remotely comparable. The site you mention is essentially a link
aggregator.

~~~
ropz
I guess it is a link aggregator. But they've got 25000+ links to real jobs,
with not an agency or recruiter in sight. What's wrong with it being a link
aggregator? I'm no expert, but I've not seen any other UK site that advertises
so many non-recruiter jobs.

~~~
Peroni
Indeed.co.uk does the exact same job. You simply select 'Direct Employer' jobs
only and there you go.

