opensoul.org

How to eliminate the best candidates

From a recent, very poorly written job posting:

We need this done very quickly, in a matter of days

I am amazed at the number of job postings that have phrases similar to this.

Employers: sounding desperate will only help you find desperate candidates–those that need work immediately and are willing to put up with desperate clients. Anyone that has time to do your work immediately is likely short-changing their current clients (hint: you will eventually be the current client), or doesn’t have any current clients–either of which should raise a red flag.

Take a deep breath and rewrite your job posting in a way that makes you sound like a professional. You’ll get interest from a lot better candidates.

collectiveidea and jobs July 08, 2007

4 Comments

  1. Matt Jones Matt Jones July 8, 2007

    The timing is even funnier if you read the rest of the job
    posting – it essentially says, “Please write our social
    networking site for us in a few days”. Probably before the
    VCs want to see something working…

  2. anon anon July 8, 2007

    …and phrases like “it’s all simple enough to only maybe require a controller and model or two” equals “i am going to nickel and dime you over things which i have no idea what i am talking about.” Oh boy, sign me up!

  3. Cairo Cairo July 8, 2007

    Lovely, what a dream job – cleaning up someone else’s mess.

    And just in time to take the flak when the project isn’t finished on time. Splendid!

  4. anonymous anonymous July 9, 2007

    Shhhhhh.

Post a Comment

Comments use textile. Anonymous comments will be deleted.

My name is Brandon Keepers. I like to build things, usually in Ruby or JavaScript. I work at GitHub and live in Holland, MI.

Popular Posts