Thanks all for your responses. Knowing what the best thing to do with regard to job posts is very hard. They’ve always been divisive and the current guidelines were put in place because we’d seen too many snarky and sometimes outright nasty responses to job posts, particularly in response to posts from recruiters. I thought that the best way to avoid the bad vibes was to prevent any replies to job posts on-list. Maybe this is a step too far. Maybe now that we have an explicit code of conduct <http://nwrug.org/code-of-conduct>, we can loosen the rules.
I will say one thing though, I am not convinced that replying here to tell people what is wrong with their job posts is a good way to improve employee conditions, especially if it discourages employers from posting out of fear. Much more than that though, this group and the local community is best served if the list is kept positive, friendly, welcoming and constructive. Very few job post replies I’ve seen help achieve that. If we want to a debate about employee conditions, wages and day-rates to help folks new and old to the industry, then I am well up for that. I just don’t believe that job posts replies are the best place for it. Also, if anyone is looking for work, or needs help or advice on anything work related, perm or freelance, I’m more than happy to chat at the meetup next week. Same goes for any employers that want help hiring or putting together a job post. Tekin > On 8 Feb 2016, at 12:59, Gareth Kirwan <[email protected]> wrote: > > I hadn’t engaged in this previously, but I’d actually like to share a bit of > background about this advert now. It may be interesting, or just illuminating. > > We’ve traditionally posted adverts that conform to a fairly standard > template. We’ve also used recruiters. During the interview we’d then try to > talk about the ways that working for us is different, and the things that > matter to us. I’d get a lot of poorly matched applications, and waste a lot > of time, both for the applicants, and for me. > > I decided to change tactics. I’ve been hiring developers for this company for > over a decade and it seemed I’d fallen into a pattern. At first it was just > nibbling around the edges, but then I junked the whole advert template and > started from scratch. I wanted to convey what we’re looking for directly, > rather than trying to work out how to list skills and requirements and > somehow make that produce the right people. The culture matters much more to > us than the skills or the experience. > > So I didn’t list any skills or requirements. Just some of what care about, > and what we’re interested in. If someone fits with our culture, then specific > skills can be easily learned. > > For the most part this has gone exceptionally well. It got picked up by quite > a few remote working lists, and reposted, and I received about a hundred top > quality applications. Very few poor applications, very few recruiters, very > few outsourcing teams. Most of the applicants cited the application itself as > why they’re interested in talking to us, which was gratifying. > > I’m not going to address Jeff’s actual comments, because I don’t want to > cause a debate that the organisers of this list wanted to avoid, and I agree > with them. If people don’t like the advert, or the salary, then I’d encourage > them to ignore it and move on, and that’s fine. I do appreciate, though, that > Jeff was probably trying to help me, and I’ve considered his feedback. > Perhaps I should have replied earlier to thank Jeff for it. > > > > > Gareth > > On 8 February 2016 at 12:30:26, Graham Ashton ([email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>) wrote: > >> On Mon, 8 Feb 2016, at 12:01 PM, Louis Goff-Beardsley wrote: >> >> > To be fair, although harsh, IMO Jeff is actually providing valuable >> > feedback to OP and to any potential observers. I’d put it to you that over >> > time this has a net positive effect on employee conditions. >> >> I’d agree with you Louis, if I thought we all felt the same way Jeff does >> about the original post. There’ll be a range of opinions. >> >> I don’t share Jeff’s feelings, so I’m not sure I’d like future job postings >> to be influenced that heavily as a result. >> >> If I was looking for a job, and the salary/seniority was a good fit for me, >> a post like Gareth's would probably lead to me getting in touch for a chat. >> The only thing it was missing from my point of view was a 2 sentence summary >> of what Thermeon do (it’s part of my “are we a good fit?” criteria). I’d >> always expect to uncover more about what was on offer via email, or over the >> phone. I only mention this to provide context for why I thought it was fine. >> >> But back to your point – if advertisers had lots of feedback (representing >> multiple points of view) to influence their future posts, then I’m sure it’d >> be useful to them. I think you’d need to focus on positive feedback over >> negative feedback though, otherwise all you’d have is a list of “don’t do >> this, or this… or this…” which wouldn’t make Ruby seem very approachable! >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the >> Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group. >> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/nwrug-members/IQvrPejtjjs/unsubscribe >> <https://groups.google.com/d/topic/nwrug-members/IQvrPejtjjs/unsubscribe>. >> To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to >> [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members >> <https://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members > <https://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "North West Ruby User Group (NWRUG)" group. 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