Hiring good candidates is a problem for every single company out there.. no matter small or big. We at interviewstreet attack the tip of the iceberg by filtering good programmers from the rest. People say, it’s a huge timesaver ;-).
But enough about interviewstreet, the first problem companies should tackle is to make sure rockstar hackers apply for the job. If they don’t apply to your company, then hiring them is really impossible.
So, how do we make sure awesome rockstar programmers apply to your company?
Have an awesome “Careers” page.
Please repeat the above statement 10 times. Bad careers page doesn’t attract motivators or problem solvers. Let’s see a few nice careers page I found in the web.
1. Google [ http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/profiles/whygoogle.html ]
I just loved this page. They explained why search is hard in such a way that even my sister could understand that they are doing awesome work there. Next, they have explained what they’ve done till now. The sections below that excite the programmers who are planning to apply. An awesome careers page, which a programmer and a school kid can understand and would want to apply. Certainly, their whole Jobs section (http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html) is worth looking it.
2. Amazon [ Careers-University-Recruiting ]
The tag line is the best. Work hard. Have fun. Make history.. It’s hard to resist applying for amazon after checking their Why Join Amazon? page.
3. Dropbox [ http://www.dropbox.com/jobs ]
If you think you need to be an MNC to add the perks and other details for an awesome careers page, then change your mind now. The benefits and perks speak out their startupish culture. Whiskey Fridays, Gaming, and music in office. Why wouldn’t someone work in a place, where you solve the biggest problems in between whiskey, music and gaming?
4. Redbus [ http://www.redbus.in/careers.aspx ]
Neat description about the company.
So, what’s the ingredients for an awesome careers page?
According to Sameer from TheMorpheus,
1. The job description should be exciting and full of energy. If you aren’t excited about startup, don’t expect others to be.
2. It should be clear that the company would be fun to work for.
3. The job description should be very focused on appealing to folks who are usually hackers. Make sure you talk a lot about technologies you are using and you are planning to work on.
4. Be very upfront about things. If you want folks who want to do good work and not just looking for money, if you expect people to work on weekdays and almost 24 hours a day, mention it directly.
5. Most of job descriptions are plain boring. Make sure the job description is honest, personal and connected to person reading it.
6. Talking about traction and founder background you have is good but not special because everyone writes that now.
I would like to add a few more points to the above list.
7. Don’t ask questions like are you a super man, can you do super duper jobs etc. I personally feel it is just wasting space in careers page. For example the careers page in IBM [ http://www-07.ibm.com/in/careers/index.html ] , questions like “Are you a problem solver? Are you a difference maker? Are you ready to make our planet work smarter?”. Even though these questions talk to you directly, the value it adds is not that much. No one is going to answer these questions with a “No”.
8. Don’t make too long or split it to many pages, unless you really can’t avoid it. Remember KISS.
Salary
Salary plays a major role in attracting candidates to your company. But you need not compete with MNCs if you can’t afford it. Flipkart’s career page, explains this clearly.
We are small, but we plan to offer all that big companies do – Competitive salaries and perks. We want to get money out of your head so that you can concentrate on your free will and creativity. We are working on setting up other benefits like Provident Fund, Medical Insurance, Gratuity, Super annuation etc. We distribute goodies every now and then.
So, what’s your careers page like? Feel free to add your careers page link in the comments section.