Lots of epithets, not a word about the team and other mistakes in writing a vacancy

In IT high demand for specialists, and their search is expensive (tens and hundreds of thousands of rubles). How long the company will look for a person and how high-quality staff will respond to offers depends on a well-composed and attractive vacancy.

Ideally, a good vacancy answers all the candidate’s questions: what does the company do, who are they looking for and why, what needs to be done, with whom and with what they will have to work, working conditions and how much they pay. Unfortunately, vacancies are often designed in such a way that they do not answer even half of the questions and are even more likely to scare away. Let’s take a look at the typical mistakes to avoid them.

This article is suitable for HR, recruiters, and anyone who performs all or part of their functions. It will also be useful for team leads, tech leads or CTOs when there is a need for developers.

Too many epithets or too little information

There are two options for events.

Zero information

Sometimes there are scant descriptions, from which it is not clear what kind of company is looking for a person. It’s okay for young organizations – there isn’t much to tell. But it so happens that the organization has neither a website nor a telephone and cannot be found in any way. It’s already good if there is mail at gmail.com.

It happens
It happens

In this case, the vacancy does not receive the attention of people who know their worth. Most likely, newcomers will respond, for whom the very fact of work experience is important and it is not particularly important where to get it (not always, of course).

How to fix… Just add more information and contacts.

Inappropriate pomp… If you choose between describing the history of the company and information about what will be offered to candidates, where they will work, what to work on and how much they will receive, then the choice will most likely be in favor of the latter. So, for example, “develop new, maintain old, and integrate” seems like a vague description. I would like more.

Well, if the company is public, corporate rules require adding large descriptions of history, nothing can be done. But bragging seems out of place for the little-known. For example, below you have to wade through the “missions”, the description of the “crowdlanding” (for some reason) and the value to get to two lines of responsibilities.

How to fix. First solution – cut the excess. The advantage of small companies is flexibility, so why make the job text heavy?

The second is to place the block with the description of the “official dealer” down, and describe the requirements, obligations and conditions in more detail. For example, Wargaming is a large and prominent game development company (which is already there). But they first write what is important to the candidates, and already at the bottom – an “optional” description of the company.

The third solution is to remove the high-sounding phrases about the “long history of hard work” (they look stereotyped, like a “young dynamic company”). Instead, you can add specifics: what projects have been implemented, what they are working on now. For example, like this.

Or so.

It’s hard to understand who is needed and why

Let’s move on to the block of responsibilities. The candidate looks here to understand what tasks need to be solved before he gets to the interview. Usually a job is chosen for at least a year or two, so candidates are not indifferent to what they will be doing all this time. And this is clearly not “support for existing and development of new projects”, under which anything can be hidden.

How to fix… It is trite, but add details, for example, the development of what kind of functionality in what kind of software. More or less like this.

Diversified responsibilities are also alarming.

It is also alarming that no work experience is required
It is also alarming that no work experience is required

How to fix… Do not impose unnecessary and opposite responsibilities, for example, for application development and administration. If the backend, then this is a backend, not a backend, a few applications and “it is necessary to type over there”.

Try not to write banal requirements for candidates. “Knowledge” and “experience” are vague concepts. The responsibilities of a “developer-programmer” obviously cannot fit into one line of six words, but there are always vacancies in which “knowledge (substitute the word)” is required. This disease affects both farms and serious IT companies.

How to fix… Write in more detail: what do you mean by experience and knowledge. For example, does “understanding OOP principles” mean design patterns, object-oriented design principles and TDD, or is it enough to know the difference between an abstract class and an interface?

Yes, all of this can be found in the interview. But why waste time – yours and your candidates? An experienced and self-confident specialist simply will not waste time on a vacancy, simply because the HR or recruiter did not bother to spend his own to describe the vacancy in more detail.

Not a word about the team

Developers care who they work with and how. Therefore, they are always confused by vacancies where they are looking for superheroes or are scattered with high words.

According to the description, it seems that the plans are big, but so far nothing is ready and you will have to build processes personally.

How to fix… Describe the team “down to earth”. For example, “super-professionals” means that colleagues write articles for blogs, speak at conferences and still have time to work.

Ideally, the command description is a separate block. Few (even from large companies) bother like that. But on the other hand, it is clear that they are looking for a person, not a function.

Working conditions

Usually this item is described in sufficient detail.

But often the descriptions are standard: office, 5/2, PC compliance. How they differ from the rest is unclear.

How to fix… Add nuances and zest. Before writing a job, decide what really attracts a candidate. Even “the most common and standard conditions” can be described in more detail.

Some employers talk directly about important issues like overtime.

It is important to write about this. If the company has frequent overtime, warn you. There is no point in hiding: it’s good if the candidate finds out about it at the interview, and if on probation? Not everyone is ready for processing, but those who do not mind will respond.

Sometimes the vacancies are embellished: “A class A super-office, cookies, tea and galactic projects.” But in fact, it turns out that the office is in the industrial zone, and there will be cookies and tea if you chip in at the beginning of the month.

How to fix. Sometimes it seems that there is nothing special in the company at all and all that remains is to lie. Well, no and no – it’s better not to write anything than to lie.

Total points

How to create a vacancy for an IT specialist? Use common sense:

  • Add a description of the company, but without pomp and bragging.

  • Articulate requirements and responsibilities more clearly. “Write code” or “maintain old projects and create new ones” sounds like “work work”.

  • Describe the team in more detail: how many people, what specialization each has, who is the leader, how they communicate with each other.

  • Describe the conditions as they are, so as not to look for a new developer in a week. The cookies won’t hold.

That’s all, we hope the article was useful. If you do not want to filter out vacancies from which it is not clear who is needed and why, go to headz.io. Our moderation skips only detailed vacancies and finds out from the employer everything that the developers need, and the algorithm will select those that are suitable in terms of level and stack.

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