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Comment by GreenPlastic | Hacker News Reader

Leaned on the company's official materials for this. Employee focused culture where we work hard and play hard. XX on best companies to work for list. Fast growing company with great benefits, dogs allowed at work, etc.

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Here are some things I'd LOVE to see on a job posting, but never have:

1. Interview process MAX 1 afternoon. We commit to AFFIRMATIVELY giving you an accept or reject within 2 weeks. (in other words, we respect your time)

2. Need to hire for this position by [DATE]. (this is a real job opportunity and we are not just fishing)

3. We're not going to ask you to spend a weekend on a work sample or to write code for us for free. (again, we respect your time, and potentially your IP agreement with your current employer)

4. To apply, just upload your resume or send us your LinkedIn URL. You don't have to fill out a 500-form field online application. (see a pattern here?)

5. We offer detailed feedback after unsuccessful interviews. (we earnestly want you to re-apply later if you're better then)

6. If you're good but not an exact fit, we may suggest to you an alternate role rather than just reject and make you wonder if you should re-apply. (serious about finding talent rather than filling a specific narrow role)

I'd also love to see the company publish their current employee retention rate for similar roles, but I know that's asking for a lot.

When I already have a job, one of the main reasons I don't apply to other jobs more often, even ones that look very interesting, is that most hiring processes are opaque, endless, and generally painful. If you're not getting enough candidates into the funnel, maybe include something about how painless your particular funnel is.

I like almost all of this, and I think it's far better than the hiring culture than we have now. Especially the part about making it clear that they're not just fishing and intend to let the req sit open for a year, and not making you do 3 or 4 interviews over the course of a month.

But I just wanted to add that I don't think your #5 could ever work, because of liability. There's a good reason why companies don't do post-interview feedback— to avoid legal liability.

Companies (at least in the US) only have to worry about legal liability if their reason for not hiring someone is based on one or more of a very clear enumerated list of reasons: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. As long as the company's feedback cannot be traced back to one of these, they should be in the clear to provide helpful, actionable feedback.

IANAL, but the only reason anyone would attempt to trace feedback in the manner you're describing would be the result of a legal action like a frivolous discrimination lawsuit. The point of not providing feedback from their side is to avoid such lawsuits altogether.

I don't think it's so much legal liability as:

1.) Why go to the trouble? What's in it for us? Yes, we shouldn't leave you hanging and should in general behave professionally but detailed feedback as part of a formal process seems more than one can reasonably expect.

2.) It invites prolonging the process. A lot of people told that they have insufficient experience in X will want to respond that they really do and it must just not have come out in the interview.

3.) This may be truer for non-technical roles, but think of it like dating. A lot of the time people get rejected because the potential hiring company "Just wasn't that into them" or just preferred someone else better.

This is a great list. I am fine with companies asking for work samples, but these should be paid. The closer you can test candidates for what they will actually do then the better the result for everyone.

This would be amazing if companies did this. Maybe something like this should be encouraged for the monthly who's hiring posts. I've noticed a few places starting to list salary range and it seems to be well perceived.

Companies described like that tend to be for underpaid workaholics. Also I think the "work hard play hard" phrase implies an unhealthy culture of excess. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-work-hard-play-hard-code-for-...

Yea, definitely "work hard, play hard" is almost always a red flag for me when I read it.

Everyone is expected to work hard. When it's explicitly spelled out in a job description, that is usually code for "long hours, required face time, leading to burnout". And Play hard? What does that even mean in the context of a job? I don't go to the office to play games.

When I see it I read it to mean that they expect folks to socialize outside of work (including at work, e.g. video games, drinking, etc).

Mainly when I see "work hard, play hard" I read "I'm way too old to be working there"

When I read "We work hard and play hard," I see a company of extraverts who won't leave each other alone for the entire day. No thanks!

OK, so apparently you decided not to try to entice people with the culture or benefits, either. Does the company have a recognizable name with a strong reputation? Because that's the only thing left that could convince someone to apply.

"We're looking for a devops engineer that lives and breathes code. The best of the best, the cream of the crop. Be prepared to work hard and play hard in our agile environment!"

hrmm there's a million and one good buzzwords that make me lol but I can't remember them all right now.

In the bay area at least there is no shortage of fast growing companies with great benefits who allow dogs at work.

Work hard, play hard always means engineers working hard nights and weekends and people in charge not really doing anything in the way of work but drinking, drugging, partying, etc all the time.

So that will be a final salary pension then :-) is that 1/30 or 1/40 accrual rate.

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