How to Interpret Ridiculous Web Design Job Posts | Hacker News Reader

How to Interpret Ridiculous Web Design Job Posts

blog.teamtreehouse.com

66 pointsnickpettit33 comments

"Excellent communication skills and the ability to work well with others"

The author added this in the rewrite, but I think this is exactly the kind of filler that needs to be avoided. These things are mandatory for basically all jobs, and people who can't communicate and work with others don't think they lack these skills anyway.

Every job I've gotten has that line, or something similar.. and yet there are people there that can barely communicate, much less work well with others.

...the presence of those people might have been what prompted the person crafting the job posting to include that line.

That line might not mean a lot to you, but it says a lot to me. They could have left it out, but decided it was important enough to leave in.

My job is an example of such where it was left out. I only have to communicate with people on my team. I do not attend meetings, my work has so little to do with the actual business the company is in I'm effectively in my own little world.

In my interviews, my future boss asked about communication, but emphasized that all of my tasks were going through him. There was concern about the programmer getting mad at people asking me for stuff that they don't understand. Apparently that's happened before. What was important was my independence and ability to solve problems, because nobody else is going to be able to help me. Suited me just fine.

What this requirement tells me is that my work is going to intersect significantly with other people who don't do what I do and I'll be a part of planning meetings and such. I might also be called upon to give reports to people who don't know what I do.

Maybe that's best put in the "Job Description" section, rather than in the Qualifications section?

This misses out some important parts. The original job description had:

  * Proficient with javascript, good knowledge of jQuery and
    creating/debugging jQuery plugins
  * Understanding of OO principles, especially with regard to
    HTML/CSS/JS and creating reusable UI components
  * Expert knowledge of browser quirks and creating web apps that
    are consistent across all major browsers
  * Experience optimizing front end code for performance/speed
  * Experience optimizing front end code for SEO
  * Ability to code detailed, functional pages from mockups in
    collaboration with web designers

All of these are diluted down to:

  * Solid understanding of front-end languages and frameworks
    (primarily HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery)

... and misses the specifics entirely. Some developers are good with JavaScript and jQuery, but don't have the mindset to be able to debug jQuery plugins, or build reusable components vs. hacking a quick and dirty one-off implementation, or understand different quirks between browsers ("Doesn't jQuery do that for me?"), or have to deal with performance, or have any knowledge of SEO work, or is only able to take existing HTML and tweak it but is unable to output polished HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from design mockups.

For small companies who need someone to hit the ground running, it's a disservice to themselves to not ask for specific skillsets. They'll end up wasting time interviewing unqualified candidates. If you're part of a larger company or you're willing to train someone who is smart, gets things done, and can learn on their feet then it's fine to be vague about what you're looking for since you're willing to accept that any hire you make may take several months to get up to speed (and possibly never grok some skills) with what you actually want them to have been doing from day one.

I personally wish the job description would have elaborated on OO principles for HTML and CSS. Sounds interesting!

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not (text is poor medium for conveying such things), but OOCSS is very much a real thing. I love writing SASS in such a way.

See this post for more info: http://ianstormtaylor.com/oocss-plus-sass-is-the-best-way-to...

OOCSS is poorly named and has nothing at all to do with object oriented programming.

The first part of the name before the underscore is the CSS superclass name. The next part after the underscore is the CSS subclass name. And the properties in the style tag are the CSS instance variables.

This.

To me that reads very much like the posting I saw that had as a skill requirement (and I quote):

"Postgre PLEASE CHECK GOOGLE FOR CORRECT SPELLING"

Personally when I see stuff like that it is a sure sign that the person writing the job listing has no clue what the job entails.

I think that boils down to: "Oo! Oo! Look at this pretty page I just made. Oooooo!"

"Excellent communication skills," is a meaningless throwaway line. Does it mean "not an asshole", or "fluent in <company language>", or "able to craft client emails", or "presents at conferences"? Why bother putting that in if you are not excellently communicating what you exactly mean?

It, uh, means you can do stuff... like you can communicate on the job... err.... or write clearer job requirements...

"not an asshole".

In which jobs is this not a requirement?

Sales? I mean, there is some positive correlation between efficiency of a salesman and various asshole-y characteristics such as intentional misleading (and feeling good about it afterwards), ruthless competition at all costs (including moral costs), not keeping promises after the check has been cashed, etc.

Not for all organizations, but for many sales depts it's exactly what is needed and wanted.

Groupon sales rep: http://eater.com/archives/2013/08/19/groupon-sales-rep-alleg...

> "Excellent communication skills"

This is an absolutely ridiculous thing to put in a job advertisement in the first place.

So they want someone who has an English major or a communications degree?

I suspect not. It's pure fluff that's meaningless and points to a badly written job advertisement by someone inexperienced.

Reality is you want someone who is OK at communicating, fits with the team and excellent at their job, which is Web Design.

I recently had occasion to write a job description for a web design job. It was surprisingly hard, and I recommend it as an exercise to anyone frustrated with the language of job postings.

I wound up taking refuge in the phrase "you'll need one or more of the following skills" and then describing my unicorn candidate. Using that, I worried a little less about lacking the "language" of the particular job. And, I think, I was able to avoid scaring away some strong candidates who might not have otherwise applied.

Hm, what I expected was a post about red flags in freelance (odesk, elance, etc) job postings. They are (normally) obvious but since treehouse is oriented to beginners [0], might be not obvious to them.

Although I try to adjust search well there, still ~80% of job posts are quite crappy [1], full of red flags. Maybe it's not a good place to look for $40/h+ jobs? Or am I being just too picky/paranoid?

[0] or at least that's the impression I got from annoying "understanding technology is as fundamental..." youtube video ad I am seeing every day for months and am fed up with. At least it's not "to have a job in tech, you don't need a degree". Hated that one.

So I've learned that in some cases a lot of these things are done up so formally so as to be able to work with immigrants.

In order to hire an immigrant, there's a lot of things you need to be able to prove, and being able to show similar job postings elsewhere is important. But basically, you want the job to look like it's very, very serious because otherwise, why would you hire an immigrant instead of an American?

In reality you don't need to have every single thing on the list, but there are some reasons they are actually written out like that.

>“a college degree can be helpful, but we just want someone that’s smart and dedicated.”

I thought that the reason job posters mention needing a degree is that if you don't, the assumption many job seekers will make is that it's a "learn on the job" situation. You'd end up with a thousand applications from people with no experience who thought "Well, I know my way around MS Word pretty well, so how hard can this be?"

    Knowledge of Java/JavaScript

That's extremely common in job postings unfortunately.

You could leave these two bits out: * Ability to work with a version control system (like SVN) in a team environment * using IDEs like Eclipse

If someone has worked as a software engineer for more than 6 months, that someone already knows how to "use IDEs" and version control.

I would keep 'version control' in (and looked for it on their resume during my last two searches).

It's surprising how many people don't use source control, but they do tend to work in smaller shops (one or two developers) or places with little change.

I can't really imagine putting something like "can use git" on a resume, seems far too fine grained. "Can use ssh"? Like applying for a job as a postman and writing "can tie own shoes" ... guess it depends on the level of proficiency that "use" is supposed to entail.

"If someone has worked as a software engineer for more than 6 months, that someone already knows how to "use IDEs" and version control."

Are you serious? I'm continually saddened by how many software people I run in to that do not know either one. FTP and Notepad++ are their 'tools of choice', and that's it.

Yes, I'm serious. Apparently I only work with and know developers that use basic tools.

That very well may be the case.

About half the developers I know are using modern tooling (version control, IDEs, virtual machines images, testing tools, etc). The other half are very much in the 'ftp/notepad++' or maybe 'sublime text' camp.

Trying to convince people that they should be using version control even if they're the only developer on a project is usually like swimming through molasses.

Why are you and others lumping IDE's in with the rest of "modern tooling"? And what do they have to do with version control? Or virtual machines?

I use vim very much by choice. I'm not ignorant to what IDEs are and do, but I choose vim instead. I use version control. I use virtualization (with Vagrantfile for getting my development environment up) and I write tests with good coverage.

But because I use vim I get lumped in with people who never use version control?

Tell that to the Mt. Gox Software Development Department.

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