Why job descriptions are so bad and is there a business opportunity? | Hacker News Reader

Why job descriptions are so bad and is there a business opportunity?

5 pointslowry3 comments

Job sites are inundated by meaningless job descriptions for software developer jobs. There's usually a list of technologies complemented by a couple of paragraphs of complete bullshit. There's no reference to the product being developed, upcoming challenges, customer base. You can not even deduce it from the company name, because most job descriptions are posted by recruiting agencies and consultancies that go out of their way to hide their client's name.

I was well into my 1st year working with a great team of professionals at a banking institution when I joked at the lunch table about the worst job description I ever read. Suddenly, my manager turned red and mumbled something about mainframes and old farts. He realized that the job description was coming from his own institution.

Millions of software developers spend endless hours reading through bogus job descriptions. Is there a way to change that? Perhaps, a business opportunity? I realize that those posting job descriptions don't usually realize they need help. But they do. How can we make them aware of that?

After reading your question text, it Sounds like you're already asking the right questions, so you probably don't need my help to think about this. But I was looking for Qs to answer and hey why not.

On reading the title only, what I thought was: Yes, of course there is a business opportunity. And the reason why they are "so bad" is probably something to do with, the "learning function" is very inefficient.

By that I mean, what sort of feedback does one get on a JD? How can you measure a good JD versus a not good JD? How can you "A/B test"? As they say, if you don't measure it, you can't improve it. I think the lack of a tight feedback loop in JD contributes to making their improvement very slow over time.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about this. In my experience, tech job descriptions are not so bad, but other job descriptions ( anything non tech ) are awful. What are they even talking about? Of course, that might be since they just do not apply to me.

Whatever your idea would be -- I have an inkling ( not that I really have any idea, but hey ) that it could not simply just be another job posting board. It would have to be some other sort of business model. Maybe "A/B testing" for job posts? Anywhere, that probably already exists.

Finally, what just occurred to me is: HR / recruitment, it's very much "its own industry". They "have a way of doing things", and are sort of "shielded" from outside, by having a "monopoly" of sorts on the service they provide. Making it seem to me like they may be slow to adopt your "new fangled way" of doing their core business activity. Of course, I could have no idea what I'm talking about. Good luck! Sounds promising.

How would you write an attractive story about a polynomial equation? It's the same with job descriptions related to software development. We follow a planning, write code, fix bugs and implement features. Same goes for company A, B or C, etc. Dev tasks are fairly boring and JD's are covering that already.

About the extra BS in a job description... Well, it's just the tip of the iceberg. When you apply for a Dev role, the first step is to speak with an HR person. That's when you get the real dose of BS thrown at your face. Same goes for the hiring manager who lies about the project and your tasks during the interview in order to make it look more attractive. Then we move on to the whiteboard BS step where your "coding skills" get extremely well evaluated. Finally, you might get a low-ball offer just in case you endup saying yes without negotiating. At the end of the fiasco, you'll realize how similar your new job is compared to your previous job. You are probably now working for a much better company or product, but guess what, it's BS. You still have to be "productive" and fix critical bugs, write code in XYZ language while dealing with micro-management everyday in an agile environment where you're the doer, the developer. The original JD was actually fairly accurate. But how about culture fit? Did they even mentioned that during the interview process? Nope. All they want is someone who's extremely good at whiteboarding.

To really answer your question, the whole freakin hiring process is a business opportunity and that's why YC has already signed a lot of related startups.

Fixing job descriptions is like patching a tire. You should look at the global picture to find a real value and a lot of people are already trying to fix it.

> How can we make them aware of that?

Never ever entrust recruitment to human resources, except for fundamental and rudimentary tasks.

Make recruiting and retention an important aspect of senior executives’ bonus calculations, with clear measures of success, and watch the organization improve overnight.

On this subject, Alan Weiss is brilliant > https://medium.com/@JSeymourATL/book-review-the-talent-advan...

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