What do you want to know about a company to work there? | Hacker News Reader

What do you want to know about a company to work there?

41 pointstfadp26 comments

I run a jobs list for 166 startups in New York City that delivers weekly job openings across all the startups (including YC funded ones). I have this gut feeling that the traditional job posting / job description is out dated and doesn't provide enough information. We have thought of things like a video tour of the office, linkedin profiles of employees etc. If you were going to recreate the job ad / or the job page for the 21st century what would you really want to know about the company and the job to get interested?

View on HN

Just give me your most intelligent estimate of 10 numbers, all from 0 to 100:

The work:

  - % "coolness" of work (vs. anything else)
  - % new development (vs. maintenance)
  - % autonomy picking tools & environment
  - % autonomy in task list
  - % autonomy of working hours & location
  - % of time on call or help desk

The company:

  - probability of getting paid next week
  - probability of getting paid next year
  - % growth of revenue 1 year from today
  - % increase in my renumeration 1 year from today

To this excellent list, I'd also like to add for each position posted: - The position's challenge of the week - The position's challenge of the month

This is one of the questions I ask every interviewer who interviews me.

I would add

-Overtime policy

-Expected work hours

-Sick leave policy

-Internet access policy.

I have been bit at all of those, from companies that expected 60 hour weeks as a default and expected 90 hour weeks when things went to hell, companies that only give three sick days a year, and finally, companies that by default block much of the internet.

I'm posting this anonymously because I don't want my employer to get the wrong idea and think I'm leaving.

In a job listing, I care about three things:

1. Who are you and what do you do? (What is your company name and URL? What is your product or service? Who are your customers?)

2. What do you want me to do? (What will my day-to-day work consist of?)

3. What will you pay me? (In numbers, not vague promises like "competitive salary.")

Everything else I can figure out in the interview.

I've toyed with this question myself during a recent job search. I loathe traditional job sites as they're usually filled with recruitment agency guff, vacuous job descriptions that often fail to mention salary, location, and so on.

For me at least, the most important things I want to know about a company are unfortunately often the hardest to quantify: what's it like to work there, what's the atmosphere like, what sort of clients do they have and what sort of new work do they like to attract? My paramount concern is fitting in, having fun and getting excited about work every morning, because that's the only way I'll get out of bed.

I came up with a list of things that I'd have as rules on my "perfect job site", and they including things like "must mention actual company name (not just the recruitment agency)", "must give accurate location", "must give accurate salary" ('competitive' doesn't mean anything - competitive with whom?) and "must include job title". Too often do I read postings and come away with no idea of what I would actually be doing if I were to take that job!

Hope that helps!

Edit: I'd also say describing the size of the company is important to me. I'm looking to move up the ladder right now and that involves only considering companies above (say) 20 people. I went to an interview a couple of weeks ago for a company with a very nice website indeed - they came across very well indeed and had lots of interesting clients - but I discovered that I was to be employee #4. Great guys, but I wouldn't have gone along if I'd known that up front, and saved everyone some time.

Wish I could give you more points for "must mention actual company name (not just the recruitment agency)"

One of the ways I even find out that a company exists and uses technology <insert your favorite> is to look in the job listings in my area.

Do non-tech job boards wind up with the same amount of recruiter spam I see at the big boards? Or is it some magical artifact of tech recruiting that has staffing companies chomping at the 20% bit of salary to do placements . . .

I had the same annoyance with all of the 'company confidential' jobs ads on Monster, craigslist, etc. as well.

My solution was to develop a web crawler that scrapes job adds directly off of the 'careers' pages of company websites. This way I know their not fake ads and I can gather information on each of the companies that I care about, like number of employees that work there, awards the company has won like Best Place to Work, etc...). I wrote up a quick front-end to search the results - and voila - it's a way to bypass a lot of the job boards/recruiter spam entirely.

That sounds fantastic! Is it released anywhere?

I have it set up at www.neekanee.com. I generally do scraping runs about once a week. I'm using MySQL's fulltext search on the back-end so it will only let you search for words with 3-chars or more right now (ie, searching for 'c' won't work but 'java' will..).

Thanks. I wonder that too! I am not a fan of recruiters at all, so I have a massive bias there I'm afraid, but it seems that all the companies I want to work for (i.e. midsize, startup or post-startup, cool work for hip clients) eschew recruiters completely and only advertise directly.

I just find it SO annoying when searching for companies that they're all "leading <city> digital agency" and I have no idea who that actually is. Same gripe for "competitive salary"!

I'm only familiar with tech jobs, but experiences of friends in other industries seem to tell the same story - i.e. a carpet-bombing approach to any poor candidate who will listen!

One of the hardest things to ask about: The physical work environment. Are you going to throw me into a "bullpen" where I spend more time and effort tuning things out than working?

Which leads to a question I can ask: Can I work remotely?

(And lest you think I'm anti-social: I worked just fine with a team spread all over the world. One of the most effective teams in that organization. I was more social because I was relaxed and not fighting to maintain my concentration. Plus, we all enjoyed actually getting shit done, instead of talking endlessly about the weekend. I found this to be a much more effective bond.

I'd want to know:

1. How nice are the people I will be working with?

2. What is the opportunity for advancement, and if I work extra hard, can I speed this up?

3. How stable is the company going to be in the long term?

4. What options are there to go into a higher-risk, higher-reward sort of position?

5. How flexible are the hours?

6. What opportunities for having my mind expanded are there? For example, travelling, being introduced to brand new technologies? Dealing with challenging, non-monotonous problems?

7. Are the people I will be working with better than me? So I can improve?

8. Do I get the opportunity to transfer into another international location if I've been in a single location too long?

List of things I consider important, but don't often think of:

Photos of work area: offices? cubicles? Are the cube walls those horrible 4' high things? I will quit on Day One if so. Will Facilities get pissy with me if I have a stuffed penguin dangling from the ceiling over my cube?

What's it like outside? Can I go for a pleasant walk/bike ride at lunch? Are there nice restaurants close by? If it's big enough to have a cafeteria what's the food like?

Do you have published "core" work hours or can I just get my work done without anyone caring when I show up?

Most job ads cover the standard stuff well enough, but leave a lot to be desired in terms of work environment. Think of it as listing an apartment or a house and you can see what else to describe about the job.

In addition to the Joel Test, expected hours, etc. I'd be interested in:

- Do they expect a lower salary in exchange for equity?

- If the job offers equity and if so, is there any way to quantify it? In other words, do they offer X shares but won't tell how many are outstanding?

- If they say they want to hire the top N% do they intend to compensate in the top N% or are they looking for a "deal"?

That last question could be made into two:

- Are you looking for the top 1% of coders?

- Is your compensation package in the top 1%?

Soft stuff:

- Why do the people who work there work there? Is it just a job to pay the bills, or are you on a mission?

- Are the people there "cool" (aka, around my age, similar interests and mindset to myself)

- What are your work hours? Can I work from home occasionally?

- Perks? Perks.

Quantitative stuff:

- What is your management structure? PMs? Engineering Managers?

- How much freedom do I have in choosing my own work?

- How is my performance measured?

- What are the current challenges you face?

- What is the development environment?

- Does your office look nice (differs from person to person, for me it means lots of natural light, open concept, nice chairs, desks, and tech everywhere)

- What hardware (work computer, ergonomic set-up) will I get?

- How big is the company? Are you growing?

- Is there a potential for promotion as the company grows?

- Will I get stock?

Startup:

Number of employees.

Executive board.

Start date.

Expected time before profit.

Weighting between salary & bonus.

Atmosphere (i.e. college campus vs. formal suits)

I want to know how long you can run on your current cash, but I will ask you that in person.

Markets, current & future.

If it is not a startup: Same, but I will also read the financial statements.

I would say tell more about employee moral and the work atmosphere. It's easy to know if the company does stuff that I might find interesting, but more difficult to know whether or not I might be happy there. If employees feel respected and valued, the moral will be high and the atmosphere will be positive. I think knowing that is important, but it has to be genuine, not made-up.

I see benefits on a few lists, but am surprised that health insurance has not specifically been called out.

1. Picture/video of the founder's workspace/desk.

2. Picture/video of the team together outside the office

3. Information on technology policies (pick out your own hardware, air card provided, technologies in place, etc)

4. Tell me one brief anecdotal story that best describes team dynamic

> Picture/video of the team together outside the office

I'm surprised at how much I like this idea. We're starting to see it more and more, and it really can give you a glimpse into the culture.

There's a level of authenticity that it needs though. Anything too shiny or produced looks it, and immediately raises my bullshit meter.

The Joel test http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

What are the hours like? Is 9-5 Monday-Friday the norm, or do you expect 7-day workweeks and 24/7 on-call? Etc... Is overtime paid or not?

1. Flexibility, typical hours 2. Time-off/vacation days 3. Salary 4. Benefits 5. Funding

Who are suing the company and why.

i'm curious as i live in nyc, what's your list and how do i get on it:)?

insidestartups.org

Reply on news.ycombinator.com