Ok, as promised, this is the post with solutions.  Job posts should get a prospective candidate excited about a possible gig.  Don’t lose top talent the second you post, don’t freak out people and load it up with a “we’re hiring so we just have to throw bait out for all you sucker programmers” type of attitude.

Here’s one group that just starts off right from the beginning.  Hackruiter, a group of hackers that recruit for startups.

Here’s another site that does it right, Stack Overflow Careers.  It puts onus on the hiring company to put up or shut up about whether its a good development shop or not.  With the Joel test criteria a prospective employee gets to find out very important things about a company.  The following job poster scored a perfect 12 out of 12.  It’s most likely one of the best shops around to work at!  This is a prime example of a dev shop that has their act together.

Let’s take a look at the actual job post, I’m assuming YouNoodle doesn’t mind if I help spread the good word by using their job posting as an example.

The post starts off with a simple, unassuming title.  This is good.  If you see rock star, or something of that sort, these days I’d be worried since it is an overplayed title.  EVERY company wants rocks stars.  However, a rock star is rare, no need to try to be one.  Most rock stars don’t try, they just are.  But I digress, the title starts off as simply, “Front End Software Engineer“.  (I’ve linked the posting, but no telling how long it will actually be live, so to mitigate I’ve posted an image of the posting to the right hand side – click it for a full size image that is more readable)

After the title the startup jumps right into wooing the prospective hire.

YouNoodle is looking for an engineer to join our tiny but ambitious product team. YouNoodle is a fun and entrepreneurial startup in downtown San Francisco. Our office is on the corner of South Park, close to Twitter and many other cool startups.

We are looking for a software engineer with solid web product experience, ideally someone who has worked in other web startups and/or hacked together websites in college. You will start off on our current PHP/MySQL setup, but you will eventually work with us on a new product in a new framework.

We are one of the most well-connected startups in the Bay Area, and with us, you will make your name in the startup world. Our office space is fun and chill, the vibe is ambitious but relaxed, and you will largely be setting your own goals.

Right from the start they talk about their fun and entrepreneurial environment in downtown San Francisco.  They obviously care about their work environment as they’re downtown, not in some lame suburb off in the middle of nowhere.  This is very important to a good company.  A good company cares about where their employees will work.  They care about the environment and whether it is awesome or in some dank dark corner of the universe.  YouNoodle obviously has insight into things.  They dive shortly after that into what they’re looking for and the awesome technology that the prospective employee would get to use.  Notice it isn’t a demand, it is a description of what fun it is.  This is software, the tech industry doesn’t need to demand, it’s a fun business to work in and companies should get a clue about that!  Don’t bore prospects, woo and excite them!  You’ll have the best before you know it.

The next thing that YouNoodle jumps into is “Extra Credit“.  They did a great job in not using the same lame “required experience” nonsense.  Nobody ever has the exact experience, it’s all about finding the developer that can contribute and get up to speed on the technology.  It’s merely extra credit for a developer to have some or most of the skills.

Extra credit:
– Other web frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Python/Django, etc)
– HTML5
– Mobile or Facebook app skills
– JQuery
– AWS systems experience
– Graphic design skills
– Product or project management experience

Now just to assure everyone, I have no vested interest in YouNoodle.  I literally just found out about them by looking on Joel Spolsky’s Job site to find examples of companies that put together good job postings.  I know and trust Joel’s Sites and he gets it.  I don’t always agree with the guy, but he’s definitely got his act together, and the companies that the site allows to post generally have their act together.  YouNoodle is no exception in that regard, they do indeed have their act together – at least in attracting and hiring!

So why can’t other companies and recruiters get their act together and excite people about what the job is?  I’m not sure what they can do, but they do need to check out these sites and learn from the best.  There is ZERO reason a job description should be demanding or insulting to the prospective employee.  There is no reason for the posting to paint a dire picture.  Sure the project may be in trouble, but get the postings right at least.  Talk to the candidates about that when things are put together.

But then of course if the project is in really bad shape, I hope developers also start learning how to read the crappy job descriptions and create an even greater shortage for those efforts.  Maybe the market can straighten out those poorly lead projects then – it created the awesomeness that is the tech sector in the first place and I’m sure it can straighten it out again!

Cheers, to better posts and more truth and better effort in the whole hiring process!