Marcelo Calbucci

    We are about to put a bunch of job posts out very soon, from all ranges of expertise needed in a startup, and I started thinking about all the job posts I've written on the past, either for Microsoft or for Sampa, and which ones worked and which didn't.

    After a few weeks of thinking and stepping back by asking the whys of every detail of job posts, I came to the conclusion that almost all job posts treat candidates like idiots and incapable of making decisions. They do that by putting job posts that can be understood by the lowest common denominator.

    Let me be clear that the problem is not the language, but the fundamental content of a job post.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but most job posts have the following format:


    Not necessarily all the job posts will have all the sections above, but if they do, it'll be on that order and, most of the time they don't include anything outside of those sections.

    Exercise: Go to your favorite startup or BigCo website and dissect their job posting into those sections.

    Ok, that's fine, you might say, but what's the big deal about it?

    The fundamental problem that I think exists in job posts is that what we really want is to find somebody that will get the job done, but since we don't write that explicitly, we put some other content that we think correlates to it.

    For example, we write how many years of experience somebody need to have. Why? Probably because we want somebody that is less experienced than we are think that years of experience will correlate to the value the person will bring to that position. Or, when we ask for somebody with a CS degree, or an MBA. Or, when we write a list of all the technologies somebody need to know, because we assume that they knowing something that we already use is the easiest way for them to get the job done.

    The fact is that technology change, knowledge evolves, and experience, sometimes, is a brick wall on your head that prevents you from having an open mind to tackle a new problem the best way possible.

    And I know a lot of smart hiring managers, although they completely understand all of the above, will continue to write the "traditional" job posts, including (gasp) myself.

    Next time, instead of listing all the things somebody should know, list what they should do and ask "can you get the job done?".