I like to surf the web for Job Postings. Most of the time it’s because I want to see what other companies are up to; what the language du jour is, and whether or not I could see myself working there. I believe every developer should be looking for their home, and a company’s job requirement is their welcome mat, so to speak. Take this posting from the 37signals Jobs board:
Hanscom Networks
Location: Palo Alto, CA
http://example.comWe have huge, naïve ambitions to change the world. Like most start-ups, we’ll probably be an abject failure.
We seek a designer to join us in our likely-futile goals. For the time that the company manages to avoid drowning in the the deadpool, we’ll work with you on creating a would-be beautiful website for our fundamentally ill-conceived product./p>
Various industry leaders, several of whom are not close family members, regularly use our product. They occasionally say encouraging things, likely to cajole us into fixing some crippling and unforgivably-overlooked bug.
We seek a mediocre designer who is regularly frustrated by their inability to make things that are as good as they should be to help us. We’d like somebody who writes <b> instead of <strong>, but not someone who writes, say, <B>. We’d like someone who isn’t all “durrrr” when they look at Photoshop, but we’d prefer someone who typically inflicts their general averageness on HTML instead of graphic design.
How can you not like that company? Hell, I’m not even a graphic designer and it makes me want to apply (I can barely run GIMP without googling my heart out).
They don’t have a monopoly on Job postings, however. Here’s a recent posting from The Motley Fool:
The Software Developer will be responsible for enhancing and supporting Motley Fool web applications and related systems.
Primary Responsibilities/Objectives
You will work on the full life-cycle software development of our web site, and some other non-web applications. You will help design high quality software solutions, skillfully leverage software patterns, implement code and unit tests with other developers, participate in peer review or pairing, test, and maintain the application, all using an agile and iterative scrum process framework in an open collaborative environment. You also may be involved in converting existing applications written in VB/VBScript/ASP to C#/ASPX, and required to play two-player Atari Gauntlet because Dwarf needs food badly.Core Competencies:
- An understanding of Object Oriented analysis and design, and software patterns
- Fluent in C# and ASPX
- Microsoft .Net 2.0 experience
- Experience with Microsoft T-SQL
- Experience with unit testing and TDD
- Strong communication skills
- Web, e-mail, and Internet savvy
- (X)HTML/XML/XSL/XSL-T/Ajax experience
- Live public-facing web site experience is a plus
- Agile and iterative methodologies experience a plus, particularly Scrum
- Strong ping pong, bubble hockey, or foosball skills
Preferred Qualities:
- Meticulously detail oriented
- Cautious
- Consistent
- Tenacious
- Sense of craftsmanship
- Motivated self-starter
Foolish Qualities:
- Uncompromising honesty
- Approachable and willing to offer helpful solutions
- Ability to search relentlessly for better solutions
- Must be optimistic and have a strong sense of humor
- Should handle constructive feedback well
- Familiarity with The Motley Fool’s mission, our web sites, our products, and/or books, radio show, and newspaper column is a plus, as is investing experience
The Motley Fool, Inc. provides equal opportunity to all employees on the basis of individual performance and qualification without regard to race, sex, marital status, religion, color, age, national origin, non-job-related handicap or disability, sexual orientation, or other protected factor.
We should, however, make you aware that there is one notable exception to this policy. It is our strict and earnest intention — and the company’s historical record will bear this out — we will never hire any of the following: cyborgs, robots, replicants, or morlocks. Now keep in mind we are well aware that all of the aforementioned have intentions of world domination in the fu ture, but as of now we have no place for them at The Motley Fool … unless the year is 2122 and the revolution has already occurred. If that is the case we welcome our new cyborg, robot, replicant, or morlock rulers!!! Perhaps we have said too much?
That’s a job posting that says, “If you get what we’re talking about, then you should work for us.”
If you contrast that with the normal job postings that are out there, you can see who wins, really easily.
If you want developers that live and breathe programming, your corporate culture and job postings should reflect it. If not, just copy what you see on Monster.com, and you’ll get the caliber of candidate available on Monster.com.