Ask HN: What do you want to see in a job ad?

In my opinion most companies see their job adverts as a filters rather than nets. They're written as if the goal is to make sure "the wrong people" don't apply. That's why you see lots of criteria that a candidate has to match before they should apply - 'you must know X, Y, and Z' and 'you must live in location N' and 'you need to have done exactly what we're hiring for before for M time/projects/etc'. Everything is designed to reduce the number of people who'll apply, as if the company is the best place to work in the universe and everyone will be queuing up if the acceptance criteria aren't cleared defined. "Nice to have" skills shouldn't be featured. Confident candidates ignore them, while underconfident candidates read them as essentials.

I prefer adverts that increase the number of people who will apply. I want to see more candidates to select themselves in to the hiring pool rather than selecting themselves out. Job adverts should be pretty vague about tech and experience - so long as you're in the right area then everything else can be learned. Whether or not you get hired should be about whether or not you're going to be a valuable asset to the company in the long term. The ideal job advert should be 1/2 about why the company is a good place to work, 1/3 about what the job will entail once you've got up to speed, and 1/6 about the absolutely essential skills you'll need on day one.

Definitely pay (filter 1), technology and systems used by the company relevant to vacancy (filter 2). Then a brief outline of the role and expected level of proficiency in the various requirements (filter 3).

If the job ad made it this far then a quick blurb about the company perks. Hint - if it mentions they have a ball-pit and a slide then it’s a ‘company not for me’ (hits filter 4). Things like medical insurance, flex-time etc results in a ok, continue reading. Sometimes the recruiting company may not want to reveal their identity and that’s ok (e.g. if using a recruitment agency) but wherever possible a link to the ‘About Us’ page is handy.

If I see paragraphs about how company X is the best, most coolest, most <insert buzz-word of the day> as an opener it is pretty much guaranteed I will delete it and make a mental note of the agency/company as a pre-filter for any future ads from them.

Less generic crap (is genericism a word?). I get that this isn't always possible but the way most job descriptions seem to be written make effectively searching for what I want difficult sometimes.

Let's say I want to work with blub in my next job. I search for "blub developer" in my job-board of choice, but I'm met with a lot of noise like this

> Software Developer

> Required Experience:

> Experience with a programming language (i.e. Java, C++, Pascal, Modula-3, PL/I, Brainfuck, Blub)

Where the position isn't working with blub, but its been listed under some generic requirement to have programmed in some programming language. Please stop listing stuff like this. Another version of this thats typically bad with enterprise-type positions is dumping every damn Java EE or Microsoft related technology as required or preferred experience whether or not you'll ever use them.

Also I'd like to know what id be working on. Often this is stated, but many times its not, typically with an even less descriptive "Software Engineer" title. Id at least like to know what sort of product in working on and if you can ahead of time tell me exactly what the product is thats even better.

Some have mentioned thebsalary range and while its great to see that (and a huge time saver) thats probably a pipe dream.

I digress for a moment to note one last thing. That the worst part of job searching isn't even these sort of descriptions, but the job boards themselves that seem to ignore search terms in favor of "promoted" positions that match my above complaints.

1. Salary

2. Clearly stated what would day-to-day look like. Not a list of 25 things one should do ranging from reading log files to configuring scalable systems.

3. Writing anything that may be red flag. For example one would be the only IT guy there, mandatory oncall during nights, mandatory overtimes, etc...

a) pay

b) clear differentiation between required and nice to have