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How to post an effective job listing

9 pointsby RyanGWU82about 14 years ago
The top story right now is about a "highly profitable" YC company looking for a tech lead. That sounds exciting but the ad doesn't answer enough questions to be a useful ad. There are a few big items that the writer has left out. (I'm not looking for a new job, but it drives me crazy to see job postings that are missing such important details!)<p>Since Hacker News doesn't allow comments on job listings, there's no way to prod the author for more information. So, here's a plea for more information that would help people decide whether to apply to jobs listed here.<p>1. What do you <i>do</i>? You could be doing something social, or something super-technical, or anything in between. That makes a big difference when people think about their relevant skillset. I'd be terribly unqualified at RethinkDB, but maybe a lot more qualified at other YC companies.<p>2. Who <i>are</i> you? A little about the existing people would help someone know if there's any personality fit. Is the culture sales-driven or tech-driven? What's respected at the company, formal education or youthful enthusiasm? Are you in the "get something working quickly" phase, or "get something designed well" phase? Are you searching for product-market fit, or are you scaling up?<p>3. Where are you? You could be in Silicon Valley, or the east coast, or outside the USA. Even Silicon Valley is a big place, and someone living in the Mission isn't gonna want to commute to Los Gatos every day.

3 comments

ig1about 14 years ago
I'm guessing from the description that the company is in the public eye (i.e. post-public launch), so revealing what the company does or too many details would identify the company.<p>Early stage YC companies with revenue are rare enough that someone could make an educated guess and identify them anyway, those details would confirm it. And I presume there's a reason they don't want to be identified (if for example as ffumarola suggested they've lost their tech lead; which if made public could damage product sales).
andrewstuartabout 14 years ago
<a href="http://infotrope.net/2007/07/31/how-not-to-write-a-perl-job-ad/" rel="nofollow">http://infotrope.net/2007/07/31/how-not-to-write-a-perl-job-...</a>
ffumarolaabout 14 years ago
Also, it seems pretty obvious that they lost whomever was their technical person. You don't get to that stage in the game without a technical person...