Saturday, January 31, 2015
Your job posting sucks
Click for larger image |
Looks like a normal job posting, right? Whats so bad about that, you ask? Everything. Just about the whole thing, start to finish, is a waste of time. And this post isnt to pick on Google: just about every company does it: Facebook, Twitter and my own company, LinkedIn, all use the same types of job postings. In this blog post, Im going to tell you why they are all wrong.
So many words. So little meaning.
Lets start with the obvious: most of the content in these job postings is absolutely meaningless. Here are some choice phrases pulled straight from the job postings mentioned above:
Results-oriented.
Work well both as part of a group and independently.
Strong communication and documentation skills.
Detail oriented with excellent written and verbal communication skills.Now ask yourself a question: has anyone EVER looked at one of the phrases above and thought to themselves, "Communication skills? Nah, guess I cant apply." These are all vacuous phrases that your brain skips over as you read the job posting. They have no impact on the candidate one way or the other.
Clones
One of the difficulties in this talent war is distinguishing your company from the competition. In case you havent noticed, all job postings look alike. Even if you skip over the meaningless phrases mentioned above, every job posting is still just a blob of boring text that rattles off requirements. The job posting for a "Software Engineer" at one company is indistinguishable from another: "5+ years of experience, BS/MS/PhD in CS, excellent programming skills in Java..." Considering companies spend millions of dollars on branding, their job postings remain remarkably uniform.
The me monster
Finally, the biggest problem of all: most job postings are are totally, utterly selfish. They are the ultimate "me monster" at the party, totally focused on what the company wants, what the companys requirements are, we must have this, we need that, dont bother applying if you dont have those. The candidates needs and desires are almost totally forgotten. The vast majority of job postings describe the how and the who, but totally leave out why youd ever want to apply there in the first place.
If youre fighting tooth and nail to fill job openings, this is kind of a big deal. Your job posting might contain some info an active job candidate is looking for - and even that is questionable - but it is totally useless to passive candidates. And thats a problem, because the vast majority of people are passive candidates and, by definition, are not looking for a job, or for that matter, a job posting.
Who exactly are you targeting with your job posting? |
The ideal job posting
To figure out what the ideal job posting is, you have to ask one question: what is the candidate actually looking for? Of course, youve known the answer to this all along: everyone wants the opportunity to work on cool products, with smart people, and in a great culture. So the perfect job posting would do two things:
- Advertise the fact that your company is, in fact, hiring for specific positions. This should take no more than a few sentences: job title, location, very brief description.
- Show off everything you can about your brand to convince the candidate that your company is where theyd want to work.
Some examples
Sadly, there are relatively few decent job postings on the web. Just about every company has been suckered into using this antiquated text-based method - a left over from newspapers and bulletin boards - and we have yet to move this part of the hiring process into the 21st century. Here are a few decent examples Ive been able to find that are at least intriguing and, even as a passive candidate, might have caught my interest (click for a larger image):
From Mckinsey |
From Warning: we brake for number theory |
View source on flickr.com |
From 10 Creative Recruitment Ads |
From Cool Microsoft Job Ad: Problem Solvers Wanted |
From Tonic: Copywriter Wanted |
From Response Headers coming from twitters bootstrap framework |
The apply button in the Be a Frontend Engineer at reddit page doesnt work unless you use your console to hack it. |
If you know of other job postings, let me know in the comments!
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