
Ask HN: What information should be in any job description page? - gls2ro
In your opinion how should a job description page look like?<p>What information should include?<p>If you were to create the job description page (or careers page) for your company what will you put there?<p>What information will you add there?
======
ken
A photograph of my desk.

Most tech jobs I've seen don't have any photos at all. When they do, it's
usually the lobby and kitchen and ping-pong table. Why are you trying so hard
to hide the place I'm going to be spending 95% of my time? You wouldn't buy a
car without ever having seen the driver's seat, and I spend way less time in
my car than at my computer.

When I saw photos of Fog Creek's offices (with programmers sitting at their
own desks), I didn't need to read any marketing fluff to know that programmers
are treated better there than at any tech company I've seen in Seattle, and if
I lived near NYC I'd be beating down the doors to work there. They're not
architecturally 'pretty' but seeing 20 desk-level outlets per person shows
they've thought about all the little annoyances that developers have.

Of course, on the hiring side, this only works if your workspace is a
differentiator for you. If it's a generic open-office floor plan, then it's
not, and you probably should hide it from applicants and push salary/benefits
and "interesting problems" instead.

~~~
mrfusion
atter getting offers I always ask to see my work area before deciding and
often they’ll look at me like I’m crazy! I’ve even had employers refuse saying
it would be too disruptive! I didn’t take those jobs.

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rajacombinator
Salary range. Critical info that most job listings don’t have. I’m much more
likely to consider a job if I know it has an appropriate salary range.

~~~
pjc50
Can't upvote this enough. Even if it's a really wide range, it rules out
companies with unrealistically low pay scales.

It also makes it slightly more equitable, since employees are no longer
reliant on playing salary poker in order to determine their pay rate. This
tends to reduce the salary gap.

~~~
scarface74
One of the main reasons I always go through recruiters. They won't waste my
time or theirs submitting me to jobs where the salary is not what I want.

~~~
cweagans
Have any tips on finding good recruiters to work with? Most of the people that
reach out to me are clearly not giving a level of care to their search that
I'd be comfortable working with (for instance, I was a PHP dev with some JS
for a while and would frequently get requests about Java positions). I'd love
to work with a recruiter that cares specifically about placing me somewhere
good, but I've never met a recruiter like that.

~~~
e9
I had great results with this company
[http://www.bincsearch.com/](http://www.bincsearch.com/)

------
dasmoth
Make sure there’s a clear description of what the organization does.

For things like programming where there’s a lot of variety, some stuff
indication of typical working environment is _really_ nice. Daily standup?
Lots of pairing? This isn’t a right/wrong thing but will help people with
strong preferences avoid wasting time.

What’s the office environment like? Single offices? Team rooms? Cubicles?

Remote-working policy.

------
nathanaldensr
For tactical positions like programming, required skills and optional skills
are probably a minimum. However, I have found that the most attractive job ads
are those that talk about the culture of the company in addition to what they
expect of me. I like ads that communicate that I would be an appreciated
member of the team.

Dry lists of bullet points are a turn-off; they give the impression that the
company just wants a warm body.

I also avoid companies that rely on hyperbole in their job ads--"rockstar,"
"ninja," "guru," etc. They give the impression that the one who wrote the job
ad and/or the hiring manager have no idea how to truly quantify good talent.

~~~
rajacombinator
+1 to “rockstar”, “guru”, etc being a dead giveaway of a terrible company.

~~~
0x4f3759df
Also don't talk about the 'free soda', 'nerf gun wars', 'air hockey table' or
something else that indicates you treat your employees like children. I also
hate the ninja/rockstar stuff.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
Agreed. Save that money to pay good talent more, and save the time so I can
get out of work in 40 hours a week or less.

~~~
alex_c
“Save that money to pay good talent more”

The whole point is all that stuff costs much less than any meaningful pay
raise.

------
ronilan
An address of the place in which you will work. Trivial. Hardly anyone does
it.

------
kornakiewicz
Well, actual duties. Go and ask two to five people of the same/similar
team/level to write down what they were mostly doing last week or month.

One of the hardest time for me is on-boarding a guy or girl who is poorly
informed about their role. Not any better when I am the new-joiner.

------
WDCDev
Interview Style. Are you going to whiteboard me or do something else?

------
Jemmeh
Company - Address - (Remote Allowed?)

Job Title - Department

Description of Company

Description of Job

Tech Stack

Requirements

How Interview Works

Salary Range

Benefits

[Click to Apply without having to retype your whole resume]

~~~
jonny_eh
Excellent list. I'd just add a brief overview of the interview process to be
totally complete.

~~~
Cyph0n
As someone​ currently interviewing for software positions, this x100. I mean,
why do I have ask about this every single time?

------
tahw
Pay, Expected Weekly Hours (especially if it's salary), and Tech Stack are the
most important to me.

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vbtemp
Salary range and the attributes of what a candidate would need to get to be
the top of that range.

Appearances of avoiding or deferring that discussion frustrate me immensely,
as it seems like the company is trying to compensate with fluff before getting
to the facts of it. This is because - at the end of the day - salary is simply
the most important thing. It is how you provide for yourself and your family.
It is how you build wealth and stability and safety for your life, and nothing
else comes close. When my company provides me, via a solid salary, this
financial security, I am 200% invested in making its mission successful,
whatever the tech stack or other details of the role.

------
scarface74
Pay range and what skills would get you to the top of the range.

What are the required skills and nice to haves.

401K match and vesting schedule.

------
spyspy
I've come to appreciate job listings that include the actual team/project that
I'd be working on. If a company of more than 10 people can't tell me what they
actually need me for it strikes me as a company that's wildly disorganized
and/or with a lot of employee turnover.

"We don't hire for specific roles, we just hire good engineers" (read: your
job is whatever we say it is any given moment).

~~~
souprock
It can be project turnover. Take mine for example:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16283252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16283252)

It has that attribute you are complaining about, but without the problems you
presume. Suppose we hired you. Perhaps a couple months pass between when the
job ad is posted and when you physically show up for your first day of work.
We aren't going to put projects on hold while waiting for you; we'll assign
those to other people. Once you show up, we'll get you started on a project.

That project assignment won't last forever. We may decide that you are more
valuable elsewhere, perhaps after you get a security clearance. (another
reason we can't say much, along with plain ordinary proprietary information)
Projects tend to last a year or two.

It's not as if we have no idea. We can say in general terms what kind of stuff
you could work on. Telling you about a project that might be done before you
start your first day of work would make no sense at all.

I wouldn't call it wildly disorganized, but the details are not perfectly
predictable. There are people managing a pipeline of upcoming projects. They
propose things to customers, get feedback, place bids to do the work, get
contracts, set things up for doing the work, and then match up employees with
projects.

~~~
scarface74
I wish more employees would have the kind of job posting you have in your
link. It would tell me I wouldn't want to go anywhere near the company.

 _Pick Florida or Texas to live in a place with solid gun rights and no state
income tax._

Why do I care about _gun rights_ when I'm applying for a job. That implies a
culture that is always bringing politics into the job -something I avoid like
the plague.

 _We proudly fly the American flag. One in our cafeteria looks to be about
8x15 feet. Our veterans hold an annual Flag Folding Ceremony in honor of
Veteran 's Day._

I respect veterans (my father is one) but along with the gun rights statement
it still feels like bringing non work related stuff into the job. I just want
to do my job and go home.

 _Many employees choose to go shooting together, but there is no pressure to
participate. It 's just a normal all-American activity._

Another red flag....

When someone asked about salary range, the response was

 _We are hiring at multiple levels and in multiple locations, so it 's a big
range. You don't want an upper bound on it, do you? That would be limiting.
:-)_

Another red flag....

~~~
souprock
I agree on that first point. The goal is not to attract the maximum number of
job seekers. Driving away people who would be unhappy is good.

I suspect that "always bringing politics into the job" and "bringing non work
related stuff into the job" are not the real cause of your dislike. Can you
confirm that you would reject both Google and Facebook due to being
excessively political? We're far less political at work than they are. We
didn't fire our Bernie supporter.

There are no red flags. We exclusively fly the American flag.

I keep seeing that people suspect a lack of a salary range indicates nefarious
intent, but it's not like that. User rb808 had it right in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555622)
when he commented that "if you put a typical range you wont get the best
people. If you put a high number out you get every nutter in town applying."

I did drop a few hints which you ignored, but the salary range spans more than
6 dB. Everybody seems to underestimate us, and glassdoor's obsolete data
doesn't help, but that isn't totally a bad thing. I have no interest in
wasting time on people who just spam all the job ads that offer large
salaries. I get enough spammy stuff as it is... no, web development experience
isn't going to cut it.

The value that you provide to one company is not the same as the value that
you provide to another company. Consider two companies and two developers. One
developer does C++11 and one company wants that. One developer does C# and one
company wants that. Applying to the matching companies, perhaps both people
are offered $200,000. Applying to the non-matching companies, perhaps both
people are offered $100,000. There is no reason to be offended or assume
nefarious intent when you get a low offer during a career change. Heart
surgeons and stock traders may both get paid well, but a heart surgeon who
switches his career to stock trading should not expect prior experience and
pay to be at all related to value in the new career.

~~~
scarface74
_Can you confirm that you would reject both Google and Facebook due to being
excessively political_

I never see on their job postings that they have Bernie rallies every week.

But I am not a big company person. I've worked for over 20 years and have only
worked for one company that anyone has ever heard of -- a company that at the
time was a Fortune 10 company.

------
Sonnol53
Skills required to complete the job. Maybe 1, 3, 6 month goals.

------
maxxxxx
Tell me what the job actually is.

And salary, salary, salary!

Vacation policies.

------
SerLava
Pay range. It can be vague of you want, but just add a pay range. Those get
top priority every time, even if the job doesn't sound as good.

------
lynnetye
I have no idea why job descriptions look the way they do today, but I've
devoted the last ~9 months of my life encouraging companies, specifically
engineering teams, to provide more information up front about who they are and
what it's actually like to work there. Candidates want to know so much more
than just salary and tech stack.

[https://www.keyvalues.com](https://www.keyvalues.com)

Candidates want to know about as much as possible before investing
hours/days/weeks interviewing at a company. Who wants to waste all that time
trying to get an offer from a company they don't even want to work at?!

Here are things candidates might want to know about:

\- office layout

\- on call schedule

\- lunch traditions

\- support for personal development

\- organization/structure (ie. pods vs. teams)

\- engagement with the greater community

\- participation in meetups/conferences/hackathons

\- ability to move between teams and change projects

\- culture of promotion (external or from w/in?)

\- hiring goals for the next 6, 12 months

\- composition of team (X frontend, Y backend, Z data, etc)

\- interview process

\- employee retention

\- diversity goals and metrics

\- flexibility of working arrangements

\- frequency and duration of meetings

\- opportunities to mentor interns or junior devs

\- code reviews

\- post mortems

\- tooling (ie. for revision control)

\- how often do people pair?

\- channels to provide feedback to executives

\- contributions to open source

\- average age?

\- support/benefits for parents

\- "busy times" or "peak seasons" for the company

\- runway

\- hobbies/interests of current team members aka future coworkers

\- level/amount of interaction between me and users/customers

\- ability to work remotely

\- support for IC vs. management tracks

\- amount of collaboration between departments

\- is this job available because they're fortifying existing teams or spinning
up new ones?

\- general, day-to-day working hours

The list goes on and on.

I also wrote tons of questions for candidates to ask during their job
interviews to get information about all of the above:
[https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-queries](https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-
queries)

~~~
ken
I've run across keyvalues.com before, and it's a great idea, but I found it
didn't really help me. For one thing, there doesn't seem to be any way to
filter by location (not that it would help me, since they're mostly in
California).

But the bigger issue for me is that a "value" for me is either something that
ought to be universal (like racial/gender equality), or a deliberate choice
between valid options. For most of these values, I have no idea what the
opposite choice might be. For example, GitHub picked "CUSTOMER COMES FIRST"
(ironically, as their #2 value), but I'm not sure what the alternative would
be. Investors come first? Make art, not products? Do any software companies
have such values?

You mention on the "About" page an example of a value you originally wanted to
search for, "whether they favored speed or perfection when it came to shipping
code", which I think is a perfect example of a value I'd want to search for,
too. Unfortunately, in the list of 50 values, I can't find any that represent
either of these positions. The closest I can find are "HIGH QUALITY CODE BASE"
and "FAST-PACED ENVIRONMENT", but they're not exactly opposites, and sure
enough several of the companies picked both of these values, in adjacent
positions. I don't see any way for companies to indicate they hold the
_opposite_ of one of these values.

Here's one possible goal for anyone writing a new software engineering job
search site. Every month or so, someone posts a link to "They Write the Right
Stuff" here on HN, an article about the Lockheed space shuttle software group.
Make a job site that would let me find that as a career, never having heard of
it and not having any prior interest in the field. For example, it could have
a "speed"/"perfection" dial, and show me aerospace jobs if I turn it all the
way to "perfection".

------
chinpunkanpun
Job descriptions as a whole are in need of a major overhaul to start to
include more contextual information about the roles being hired for.

A study by TheLadders.com showed that candidates spend on average 49 seconds
on a job description before deciding if it's a fit or not. The majority of
that time is spent above the fold.

JDs should include the most vital information about the role above the fold.
Which languages should the candidate know? What certification is required? Any
specialized training? Location? Education? All above the fold. No need to lead
a candidate on only to reveal in the last sentence: "Must speak Mandarin".

Salary. Mention salary. Every candidate wants to know. At the very least, give
a range.

Once you get past the basics, add in required skills with context. Avoid the
temptation to use cliche "communication skills" or "customer service skills"
without adding additional context.

Simple formula: You will use [skill name] to [desired result] within/using
[time frame/technology]

A great example of a very effective JD is from 37Signals a few years ago:
[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2544-were-looking-for-an-
offi...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2544-were-looking-for-an-office-
manager-executive-assistant)

It's pretty difficult to read that JD and be confused about the role. They
avoid ambiguity at all costs and keep everything tied to specific
duties/tasks/outcomes.

Finally, give candidates insight into not just your company, but the people
doing the work. Their stories and experiences are tremendously more effective
than marketing copy written by legal or a content team.

We're actually working on this exact problem at
[https://www.Ruutly.com](https://www.Ruutly.com) \-- converting text-based job
descriptions into contextual candidate experiences, above the fold.

edit - formatting

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mdekkers
Salary range; Remote Ok, and from where; Stack used;

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s73v3r_
The pay range, where the actual job is, and what the duties of the job would
be.

