Blog - David Helkowski
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Job Descriptions

I am connected to quite a few recruiters and managers on LinkedIn. As a result of this, I often see posts about what candidate's resumes should look like, what information they should contain, how they should approach applying to jobs etc.

Changing the way you apply for roles is a thing you can do. I am not impressed though by what recruiters are doing to accurately describe roles. There should be a balance of information between candidate resumes and job role descriptions provided by recruiters. Why would I even want to apply to your position or work for your company? Most of the information given is useless and vague.

In the same spirit that recruiters use to tell candidates what we should do, I will write out what recruiters should be doing to properly describe roles.

As a brief overview, I believe the following information should be communicated about a role from the start:

Such an ask seems to be easy and obvious. ( yet most recruiters will refuse to give even some of these major points of information ) When the information is provided it is often given in a way that it is unclear.

To clarify exactly what I believe these major points should entail I will describe each so that there is no confusion.

Role Title

The actual title of the position being hired for should be given. If there are multiple roles, all of the information I described should be given for each and every role that is an option to be hired into. Saying "Well there are multiple levels you could be hired at" is stupid and I believe a lie the majority of the time it is said. Share the information, or be shunned by your candidates as they mistrust you because you seem to be pushing us into roles with titles we simply don't want.

Role Physical Location

This should be the specific address where the work will need to be performed. Time and again I've been hired to good companies only to learn I need to work at the lesser satellite location, or that the majority of the company is in another country and there are only 5 employees at the location I'm going. Just tell us where it is, so we can determine if we want to commute there every day, or we think it is a good location.

If remote work is allowed; find out how many days a week it is allowed and share that information. "Yes we allow remote work sometimes" is not adequately descriptive and is a non-answer.

Role Expectations

Give a few paragraphs of description of the type of work expected to be done on a daily basis. We want to know what we will be doing at this place we are to be hired at. "Standard Software Engineering" is not going to cut it any more. Will we be peons who just get assigned random crap and aren't respected enough to contribute to the design of the software? That's fine, just tell us. We need to know if we are going to enjoy or hate working at the position.

Will we be expected to create graphs and study analytics? That's fine, we'd like to know that up front.

Is the role a glorified systems/server devops position with little actual development expected? That's fine, we'd like to know what future the role has if any.

Compensation Estimate

How much money does the role pay? It is horrible and absurd candidates are expected to share a range we are looking for but you won't say what you think the role will pay. This is a major industry problem. I can't tell you the number of positions I've interviewed for, passed all the various checks etc, and then the process was found to be a waste because, essentially, the role will pay 20% less than what I made previously or am currently making. We don't care if your role is the best thing ever if it pays 20% less. We're not taking a 20% paycut because a role is "a better fit".

Name of the Company

We get it. People are generally the scum of the earth and will skip you as a recruiter if you tell the name of the company and the role title. Too bad. If you don't trust us to be honest candidates and to act fairly in regard to getting the role, then we don't want to work with you. Trust has to be earned both ways. That trust can be gained by sharing what you know instead of pointlessly hiding the information.

This information is also helpful for another reason: If you talk to a candidate and rule them out, and don't share with them that they have been ruled out, it should be fair game for them to apply to the role directly.

If the company doesn't want to publicly share out the role anywhere, and is only using "trusted recruiters" then that is a scummy company and we don't want to work there.

Team History / Resume

How big is the team? What are the titles of all of the current team members that will be worked with on a daily basis? When was the team founded? How many times has the team lead/director/manager been changed during the life of the team? Is the team growing?

In any company of a decent size, the team might as well be the company. We'd like to see a forcecast chart of the growth of the team in terms of headcount and team budget. Treat us like we are investors and convince us to invest in the team.

Direct or Consulting

I'll just come right out and say that I hate working for consulting companies. Many other candidates may love consulting companies. I have my reasons why I dislike consulting companies. I work for one now. When I interviewed for the role I told them I hate consulting companies. I told them to go away. They kept bugging me. I wrote about 3 full pages of explanation on why consulting companies suck. They continued bugging me anyway. They said they will modify the role to be direct. I got hired. I work there now. Guess what? They lied to me and I work for them. They didn't place me directly and take a commission. They flat out lied. That is really scummy. Don't do that. Not only that, they are now telling me they do not ever convert and will not allow it. Does that sound like a good honest company to you?

Work Area Description

In all likelyhood the work environment is an "open environment without walls to maximize collaboration between members." What that really means is that it is high density because the company is unwilling to pay the money to give their employees adequate space to focus and concentrate on their jobs.

While there is little that we candidates can do to stop this ridiculous trend; we would like to know if it is that sort of environment, or if perhaps, we might get some slight privacy with cubical walls.

If by some magical chance the position will get an actual office with a door, that is amazing and engineers will fall over themselves backward to try to get hired into the position.

Find out what the environment is, for the specific position being hired, and then tell us. Finding out what the overall environment is like is not useful. What we care about is what our desk is the following in regard to the environment:

Closing

There are a lot of things that matter to us candidates about positions proffered to us. While "can I do the job?" is an important question, it is not sufficient to only answer that and leave out all the other crucial details. Those details matter because we need that information to know if we can be happy and productive while doing the job.