
Ask HN: What info do you wish every job posting included? - cmorgan8506
There seems to be a broad range of different approaches to job postings. Some have salary info, some don&#x27;t. Some describe their interview process, some don&#x27;t.<p>If you had it your way, what info would every job posting include?
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mindcrime
Salary range, description of office environment (and/or actual pictures),
remote work policy, expected hours, dress code, tech stack details, some
details on what the project actually _is_ , and a quick "Joel test" like
summary of the current development practices.

Also, a note indicating whether or not managers refer to people as
"resources". Also, the name of the _actual_ development methodology (if any)
that is in use (eg, don't just say "Agile" \- tell me if you're doing Scrum,
SAFE, XP, Crystal, UP, or your own made-up thing, etc).

~~~
cmorgan8506
> Also, a note indicating whether or not managers refer to people as
> "resources"

This made me chuckle. It's a pretty accurate measure of a companies culture
though.

~~~
calciphus
At my last job we had a rule: if someone (usually a new manager) called people
"resources", we called them "overhead".

Ex. "I could get more people on my team if we had less overhead".

It helped that our lead Agile Coach was the main advocate of this particular
approach.

------
jccalhoun
I'm in academia and I wish job ads would be more honest and straightforward.
They are usually full of boilerplate about how great their college is and
diversity statements and you have to read between the lines to find out what
they really want.

I wish they could just say, "we already have someone we want to hire but the
dean is making us do an formal search." I know they can't really say that but
it would be nice if they could say something like "we want someone to teach X,
Y, and Z," "we have listed a bunch of specialties but we really want someone
who researches X," "this is a new position," or "the person that had this job
retired."

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randcraw
Was the person I'm replacing promoted, fired, or did they leave voluntarily,
and how long did they work there? What are the criteria for promotion?
Describe three people in the group (in the last decade) who were promoted.
What made them special?

How many hours of meetings each week? What fraction of my time is spent
_outside_ creative software development (req specing, designing, and coding)?

------
lejeanvaljean
1) Photos of the office, I mean the actual office, not the cafeteria or the
hall at the entrance :)

We have something like that in France, that's called "Welcome to the jungle"
(Guns N' Roses reference maybe), but again, you mainly see photos of the
coffee machine.

2) a commentary on the position by someone at the same or equivalent role at
the company

------
Tharkun
Remote (yes, no, how often).

Salary. Over here in .be, it's very difficult to compare salaries. When posted
at all, it's usually a single monthly number before tax. It's impossible to
compare that with other postings, because one offer might contain a better
pension fund, or a company car (what kind?) or meal vouchers (worth?) and
dozens of other potential forms of non-cash wages. I'd much rather see an
annual number which includes the net worth (or employer cost?) of all that
nonsense.

Company size and/or size of whatever the team the ad is for.

Office, pictures or description.

------
pleasecalllater
Remote possibility, salary range, the future manager/team_leader name (or
better: a link to online identity), recruiter contact information,
responsibilities, expected work time per week.

------
megaman22
Salary. It's almost never there.

------
jcadam
\- Does this job posting represent a real, urgent need or are you just
fishing?

\- Team Size

\- Can I choose my own tools, or are you going to force Eclipse on me (deal-
breaker)?

\- Office environment. Open (no thanks)? Cubes (Meh)? Private offices (nice)?

\- Salary range

\- Average number of hours per week. Don't say 40 if it's really 60.

\- Employee development. Do you send people to conferences (this is rare
nowadays, and can really differentiate you as an employer)? Tuition
assistance/reimbursement? Books?

\- Health care benefits information (This is so variable that I always ask for
this information before accepting an offer).

~~~
majewsky
> Does this job posting represent a real, urgent need or are you just fishing?

Why does a "real need" have to be urgent? In my team, all important needs are
covered, but we still add new people when budget is available because there's
always more stuff in the backlog. Six people can usually do more than five,
and 21 people can usually do more than 20. (Although 20 people do not
necessarily do more than 5 because [insert comment about middle management
culture] but that's not my point.)

Also:

> \- Health care benefits information (This is so variable that I always ask
> for this information before accepting an offer).

This bullet point sounds absurd to my European ears.

~~~
jcadam
> Why does a "real need" have to be urgent?

Because continuously reposting the same position for months/years and
interviewing hundreds of candidates just in case a god of computer science
happens to apply to your company wastes candidates' time and makes us hate you
("He would be prefect except for that thing he does with his eyebrows while he
talks, so let's pass and wait for a better candidate.")

> This bullet point sounds absurd to my European ears.

I'd rather my employer just hand me a (large) wad of (tax-free) cash and say
"Go buy yourself some health insurance", but that's not what happens. My
current employer's prescription drug plan (Express scripts), for example, is
the worst thing in the universe. I'd much rather be able to shop around.

------
bertil
I know that’s too much, but:

\- A link to senior executives explaining their worst mistake and what they
learned from it;

\- The same, but their actual reaction to: “What are your corporate values? --
Those are the same corporate values as Enron.”

\- Noise curve in the office;

\- what the interviews are testing for.

~~~
bertil
Oh, and non-technical leadership explaining what are code regression,
technical debt, project creep.

------
oldsklgdfth
What the team dynamic is like and how they collaborate. Not the tools they
use, but how they communicate with each other.

I can work with terrible people if they can communicate. And I can learn to
hate the softest soul if we can't get on the same page.

------
ISL
Clear description of the project and customers. Accurate description of the
team, philosophy, tooling, and culture. Reliable salary range. Links to
employment contract and any NDA that might be required.

If the company is private, a link to a fiscal summary equivalent to the SEC's
10-K.

If any of the statements above are intentionally misleading, the job candidate
is due compensatory damages.

~~~
goatherders
>>> ISL 18 minutes ago [-]

"If the company is private, a link to a fiscal summary equivalent to the SEC's
10-K."

Good luck with that.

~~~
ISL
Posed question asked: "If you had it your way, what info would every job
posting include?", not "What can you realistically expect an employer to
share?"

In practice, though, assessing the financial future of an employer before
committing your most essential resource, time, is important.

------
zerr
Salary, part-time possibility and work-life balance info in general, and
whether REMOTE is possible _outside_ US or no.

------
Raed667
Interview process, team size, salary (or reasonable range), desired starting
date and latest starting date.

------
SteveNuts
Whether or not the office is an open floorplan.

~~~
sanderjd
Honest question: do you ever come across companies that _aren 't_ open floor
plans? I don't, so it isn't a very useful question.

~~~
amyjess
My employer has a cube farm.

Even though it may be technically accurate, I don't really see that as an
"open floor plan". To me, "open floor plan" means a bunch of desks strewn all
over with no dividers.

I love cube farms (and I generally prefer conservative, enterprisey
companies), and I refuse to work at a company that uses open offices like I
described above, so it matters to me.

------
byoung2
Salary range, remote work possibility, tech stack, job responsibilities

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enzolovesbacon
Besides the obvious, I'd also like to see:

    
    
      - Salary range for that specific position (not for the whole department (I've seen that))
      - Remote work policy
      - Visa sponsorship policy
      - Vacation policy
      - Interview process
      - Link to future manager's technical background
    

Also, please avoid using cute/hipster phrasing shit that's full of puns,
hearts and whatnot. Just get straight to the point.

------
kawfey
I'm an EE with RF design and antenna chops, but I've been hired into a few
jobs where I had only the vaguest idea of what the work actually is. One was a
configuration management role, and the other was a software test engineer (and
I've coded maybe 150 lines in my lifetime).

Neither of them had any mention of these activities in the postings, and both
of them were specifically for EE's with requirements to understand antenna and
radio systems. The interview started to shed light that it wasn't exactly what
I had in mind, but certainly there would be the opportunity, so I was told.

To me, a disclaimer that mentions you may not be doing anything actually
related to this posting would be nice.

Generally speaking:

1) what is the actual, physical, tangible, product?

2.) What is my actual, specific, day-to-day role for this product? Or how will
I fit into the creation of this product?

------
lwhalen
Salary range - "What's the least you're willing to pay a barely-concious droid
who squeaks by with the bare minimum of effort to not get fired, versus the
top-end for the 'does it all and then some' purple-squirrel candidate who
ascends your corporate achievement ladder with a Greek chorus of rainbows and
unicorn-giggles?"

Fully remote? Yes or no would suffice. I just might _be_ that aforementioned
purple secret squirrel for your role, but my 50 square-mile chunk of rock
might be nowhere near your 50 square mile chunk of rock. Would this
discrepancy be resolvable by a convenient global communications network and
low-latency link to same, or are you mired in last century's "manager must be
able to see your butt in a chair at all times" model of employment?

------
molly0
If not remote, what my colleagues interests are, so I know that they won't
talk too much about sports.

------
codesternews
How much my colleagues are getting salary on same post?

------
xutopia
Churn rate at the company and if there are people who left their phone number
as references.

------
jasonlotito

      Salary (Competitive salaries aren't competitive, they are average).
      Vacation policy.
      Remote work options.
      Office plan (Do I have my own office?).
      Tooling used (including hardware provided and upgrade policy).

------
i_dont_know_
A link to the whole HR manual. Some places have insanely condescending HR
policies (requiring doctor's notes to 'count as sick', or strict hours for a
job that could be done remotely, strict dress codes, weird rules about lunch
etc).

Usually HR policies are treated as a second thought and presented to you
_after_ you've accepted employment, but these details will impact you and your
quality-of-work. For instance, places that require doctor's notes will have
people come in to work while sick more frequently, meaning you can expect to
get sick more, etc.

~~~
majewsky
> places that require doctor's notes will have people come in to work while
> sick more frequently

Huh? When I'm sick, I automatically go to the doctor, so I always have a
doctor's note.

~~~
i_dont_know_
Really? You wake up with a stuffed nose and immediately rush to the doctor's
office? I don't. If it feels like a cold or flu (the most frequent sicknesses
at work), I'll just rest at home for a few days and I'm better. This is what
most people do with colds; a doctor's not needed, and if you do contact a
doctor with cold symptoms, they'll tell you to stay home and rest. What's
more, I don't get my coworkers sick if I'm staying at home resting.

If, on the other hand, I work somewhere that has a 'doctor's note' policy,
I'll probably convince myself the cold is 'not that bad' (certainly not worth
losing pay or whatever the HR penalty is for not having a doctor's note), come
in to work and get coworkers sick. Others do the same. Over time, this adds
up. I've worked at places that strictly enforce 'doctor's note' policies and
basically it means everyone has colds all the time, and if you work there, so
will you.

I would like to know this about a work environment before I join.

~~~
majewsky
> You wake up with a stuffed nose and immediately rush to the doctor's office?

So that may be the difference here, because I have a septum deviation, which
means that my nose is permanently somewhat stuffed. But when I have
temperature and feel sick, I absolutely go to the doctor every time. There's a
few things that a doctor can do and I can't that can distinguish between "just
a cold" and something more serious. For example, I cannot look into my own
throat or into my own ears.

Your other comments indicate to me that this may be a cultural difference
though. In Germany, it's normal to ask a coworker who appears to be sick to go
to the doctor. Everywhere I've worked so far, there's a shared awareness that
working while sick is a huge cost on the entire team. That goes for managers,
too: They know that when e.g. a workplace accident happens and the person
causing it was sick, the insurances are going to be asking a lot of
uncomfortable questions.

------
Thriptic
* Company mission statement, department mission statement, role mission statement, and how all 3 of those things fit together. I want to make sure that people actually know how they fit into the grander scheme of the company.

* Salary range

* Actual responsibilities and day to day activities. If the job is going to be to hack on some awful legacy code base then you should say that.

* How large is your company, where are you at with funding, and where are you at with product development.

* Interview process

------
fergie
Since I am a functioning adult and therefore have various obligations outside
of work, I need an unambiguos breakdown of salary, holidays, overtime,
flexitime and pension.

You can choose to be coy about it, but you will have to tell me eventually, so
you might as well let me know up front. It will save time for all of us.

------
mrfusion
What’s involved in the interview and how much of a time commitment the
interview process is.

------
olavgg
Interview process, organization / team structure, salary range, technology
stack, benefits / vacation / freedom and a good description of the business
domain.

------
awat
If there is actually a need for this position? I’ve recently run into a few
positions where they are just fishing and aren’t necessarily filling an
existing position.

------
collyw
The hoops you will have to jump through for an interview. Build a mini app
that will likely take you more than a weekend? Hackerrank?

------
vax425
# of hours of mandatory meetings per day.

------
j7ake
A list of alumni so I can see where people go afterwards or how long they stay

------
linux2647
Who the company is (beyond their name), what they do, or what their mission
is.

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bytematic
These are all great questions to ask in interviews for newbies as well.

------
robohoe
Communication stack, documentation, and development methodologies.

------
dominotw
What level of flogging can you expect in the interview.

------
sampl
Link to bio of hiring manager, example project brief

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asdz
How many people have work on the position before

------
amelius
Pursued/actual level of gender equality.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Wouldn’t having a specific target be illegal?

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amelius
Salary of peers.

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bigtimber
Actual work location, if not 100% remote.

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davedx
Salary, location.

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franzwong
Visa sponsorship

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probinso
time to response

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onion2k
Entirely selfishly - absolutely nothing.

I'm quite happy to find a phone number and call the company directly if I want
to know something. In my experience that gives me a _huge_ advantage over 99%
of candidates who are only willing to read adverts passively.

~~~
V-2
Having to do this for every single ad you _might_ be interested in certainly
is some way of proving patience, persistence or phone handling skills, but I'm
pretty sure I wouldn't want to work at a company where that's what is seen as
a huge advantage over other candidates...

