 I'm Pamela Vickers. I'm going to be talking to you about job listings. I recently gave my first conference talk on the topic of company culture. And while I was doing my research for the talk, I searched for job listings that use that phrase, company culture, awesome company culture. And I was really amazed at how many would use that phrase, awesome company culture, just in total isolation, nothing else. It would be like a bullet point under benefits and perks. 401k, free coffee, awesome company culture, health and dental. So after I saw that I really became aware of other buzzwords and listings. And I'm not even talking about the like ninjas and rock stars. I'm talking about things that kind of sound good on the surface that kind of have a common messaging attached. Now, depending on where you are in your life stage or what your interests are or what your goal is for the job you're looking for, the messaging might appeal to you. It might be good. But it's important to know that it exists so that you can make a qualified judgment call on the job listing as a whole. So we're going to play a game today and we're going to look at some job listings and try to flag things that we think are a little iffy. And maybe we'll uncover some minds. And hopefully by the end we'll kind of be able to have a good instinct when we're reading job listings. So level one, let's get going. Under skills and requirements they start off with wicked smart. And let's just go hard. I don't like the way that sounds. It made me feel a little unsure of myself. So I'm going to go ahead and just flag that one. And we'll keep going. So you've created HTML pages before. And I'm sorry, I am going to read my slides. I didn't know how to do a job listing talk without reading. So it feels strange though. You have used CSS to make it pretty. You've used JavaScript to make it more usable. You've built some server-side logic with Python or Ruby. You have a bit of experience with Facebook API. So we're going to carry our one red flag over. So we're keeping track of them. And we're going to keep reading the job listing. You have a lot of common sense. Start up DNA preferred. All right. My senses are too lean. I don't know what this is saying. I don't like that it's kind of implied that it's just in the making of you. That it's just something that you have. But let's see what they, oh, excellent. So this is just telling us a lot about what they think startup DNA is. I personally don't know the significance of a soccer video game to starting a business. But apparently they think that that's a relevant qualifier. So we didn't flag it. We have a line. Let's see what else is hidden in here. San Francisco Giants fans encouraged. Dodger fans need not apply. Funny and or sarcastic and or willing to deal with funny and or sarcastic people. So we really don't even have time to talk about all the things that are wrong. But building in sarcasm and how you spend your free time. What baseball team you cheer for? Probably you're going to find cultural minds just scattered everywhere beyond the ones that we've noticed in the job listing. It's a level two. A quick note on this one. This job listing is for a company that within the company name had a very kind of aggressive masculine archetype that they used the noun form of it. I'm not describing this very well. But they use part of their company name to describe coworkers or employees. So instead of using that because it already gives it kind of a sound. I've replaced it with toasters. So whenever you see toasters kind of picture like a kind of thing. But I'm trying to keep it like as neutral as we're going through as possible. Design program test optimize and support an array of web and mobile games from start to finish. Your projects are your babies. I don't like that for lots of reasons. But again I'm just going to go aggressive. I'm going to flag anything I don't like. You might love it. I don't know. You will work on various titles and related engines from implementing web interfaces to writing server code. There's no coding tasks you can't handle. We're collaboratively with fellow toasters from our art and design teams to bring projects to life that shine inside and out. Identify system issues. Anticipate problems. Provide estimates and implement solutions. You're the Justice League of Developers. That's right. The whole league. So again you're going to carry your flag over. So we're we're counting them. One. Engage in design reviews and discussions to provide feedback. After all identifying a problem is the first step to solving it. Write functional documentation for projects as necessary. Organization makes every toaster's life easier. Research and stay ahead of the pack on emergency web and game development news. And tech. Who says toasters aren't well read? I don't know. Competitive salaries with generous time off policies. Help dental vision, life and disability. Employee stock option plan. They're self funded. Okay so we frequently celebrate hitting milestones after work or even in the middle of the afternoon by going to paintball movies and nearby amusement park and a patio. Just to name a few. In addition to other in studio events all work in no play makes for adult toaster. So paintball, patios, amusement parks. I mean there's really nothing bad about any of those. I know I love at least two of those things. But they're already telling you what they would expect you to do to really be a part of the team. So you just kind of have to keep that in mind. So two red flags. Keeping going. Stocked kitchen. Hot catered lunches. Toasters can't work on empty stomach. A gaming lounge with competition grade foosball. Street Fighter II classic arcade machine. Xbox 360. Kickbacks and relax or dominate your fellow toasters in a totally HR friendly way. Yeah I know. It's supposed to be generous. Super generous and only give this a red flag. But when they mention HR they're doing it such a smug way and uh dominate your fellow toasters. There's so much language there that kind of gives me pause. And the way tech companies approach HR sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. So this is kind of going in a bad direction pretty quickly. If you cannot live without caffeine like us we have an arsenal of freshly roasted coffee beans which can be crafted into great coffee, espressos or lattes just for you. No problems there. Free and pseudo registered massage therapy. Toaster muscles you'd love too. So this has been long. So we've gathered what? One, two, three red flags. Uh you might have already been done with this. You might have already been on you know closed that tab onto the next one. Um but what really drives at home is the final closing question under becoming a toaster. They ask the question are you cut from our cloth? That's so bad. Um remember this one as we'll come back to this even this type of red flag as its own genre. Uh because it it and this definitely sends any of these other red flags that we're being generous with. Those are definite minds. So that home was really long. Let's let's start with let's do a an easier one. So you are team oriented, pragmatic, at least occasionally sarcastic. Awesome. So there was nothing else in this job that bothered me at all. Um so is this bad enough to throw out? Maybe you really hate sarcasm. Maybe maybe you've come from a a place where people called sarcasm what they were really being just mean. Um so this is something that you would have to decide and you would also have to ask them. Um so this is a good opportunity for you to interview them. Give an opportunity and find out what they really mean. Maybe they were just trying to spice up their job listening and they're really just boring people. I don't know but you need to find out what it means and how it would impact you. So we're kind of reaching the end um and hopefully you've been able to pick up on a few things. Uh so now we're going to kind of try and wrap the different types of red flags that you'll see the most and kind of name them. So I'm going to categorize them and just remember they're not always a sure sign of problems. If you see one of those don't immediately toss you know the entire job listing out but just make sure you have conversations maybe even mention what concerned you and their job listing and see if you know you should actually like plant the red flag or just walk away because maybe you know it's dangerous there. So remember this one cut from our cloth. You'll see kind of a lot of little things similar to that like cultural fit, doing culture checks, being a team player, having shared values. So what can these phrases ultimately be hiding? Um we like a homogenous team and I think we've had enough conversation here today to all kind of have an idea of why that's a bad thing. So I'm not going to explain and if you would like to have more conversations ask your neighbor because they could probably uh have a conversation with you. Um so I try to come up with nice catchy names for the different types of red flags and I couldn't come up with anything. Uh so this category is called we like a homogenous team. So our next one is I came up with not quite I guess it's alliterative. Anyway so rigid, rigid requirements. Uh this one's kind of hard because as a candidate you feel like you know it's just they're prerogative to require things out of you. They need you to be able to learn some things. So figuring out when the requirements are unreasonable or when even the interviewing process doesn't respect you as a person or doesn't respect your time. That's kind of what we're trying to flag and not just you know you you have touched a computer before. You know that's a reasonable thing to expect if you're interviewing for a software position. So this one you have a CS degree. CS minor is also okay but raises eyebrows. I don't know that that's just I don't understand. Um this one's a little more vague. So they want you to perform all other duties as required. Overtime is required. Problem is required. So maybe none of these things are all that bad. Maybe they don't work really long hours. Maybe there's maybe they're a tax company and there's just like this one week where you work really hard and then you won't go on a big vacation. I don't know. Ask. Don't go into it blindly just because you really sorry not blindly. Don't go into it without asking. Um because you don't want to get caught and prepared after you've already gotten settled. So this next one is so long and I'm so sorry it's just so terrible I could not. So I'm going to try and highlight the points that are just the most awful. Um I could just turn the whole thing red but okay. We are looking for someone serious about software development. We are picky and specific so there is a comprehensive test before hiring where you will be working with one of our developers for about three hours on a mock project. Plus interviews with just about everyone in the company. If we decided to take you on we are dedicated to help you succeed. The test is meant to weed out the week and under prepared. So before you apply make sure you can do the following. Then they had a detailed description of how to build a complete app with a database styled front end. They had a framework they wanted you to interact with and like do stuff with this app and and if if you show up after the interview and prepared for this we will promptly cut you out for wasting our time. Thank you for your understanding. So let's just recap really quickly picking specific three-hour comprehensive test that whole mock project thing. Interviews with everyone in the company I don't know how big a company was maybe two people. They want to weed out the week and under prepared and they will kick you out for wasting their time. So thank you for understanding. Oh don't worry we understand. So vague structure policies you see that's a lot in the startup realm. You see things like no egos no hierarchy no class system just a bunch of people working together to really make science better. Everyone's treated the same and we all support one another. The only time the only time we will fight is during an ios versus android argument or if someone thinks Bud Light is a good beer then the gloves are off. So without a hierarchy or class system I take that to mean there's very little in the way of structure if you do have a problem and it's extremely naive to think that the only problems you're ever going to encounter from co-worker to co-worker is arguing about your your your phone operating system or their awful taste in beer. So it it shows naivety and it shows a cultural thing where apparently they already agree on everything so that kind of goes back to our homogenous team issue. So we could put that in those categories I guess. You thrive in an intense loosely structured fast-paced startup. When I read that I kind of think maybe by thrive they mean you can survive. So and again loosely structured that indicates not a lot of recourse if you do have a problem because they're not expecting problems. No vacation policy or unlimited vacation sounds great doesn't it. That's one where you need so much clarification early on because even sometimes having a limited number of vacations just by knowing that you have those days it's easier to take them and I've seen this done well I've seen this done poorly I've seen people abuse it I've seen people never take vacation so you really again you need to interview them this is going to be on lots of things and you can't let this be the thing you say no to you just need to ask so many questions about that one. Work hard play hard just really quickly has anyone not seen this in a job listing before. Okay one person has never seen this before. Did you see it almost be a category of its own? It can mean so many things but it usually means is we're single we have no children so we work long and late hours so when we finally close the lid on our laptop we drink heavily as a team high five everyone. It could mean other things that's what it typically means but it's almost like they have to put that in or else they think no one's going to apply so it's almost like neutral because you see it so often. Okay then the zealously mediocre that's when you see things like competitive salary, rapidly growing startup, unique opportunity, casual dress code. If a job listing seems to have a lot of filler in it it has a lot of filler in it. If under perks and benefits they mentioned that you can wear jeans on Friday they don't have a lot to say about them themselves as a company. Maybe it is a situation where dressing and business casual makes no sense or maybe dress code does really make sense in that scenario but I again zealously mediocre when someone's really excited about something that you would just kind of expect that's definitely a red flag and then there's aggressive language so we're obsessed with hiring only the best you won't ever have to deal with incompetency. No a-holes and politics and I added the stars for the children and it just makes me think you know the people who will say I hate drama if anyone brings drama in my life those are the people that often have just drama just all around so I feel like if they're already saying uh-uh we don't do politics that's a political office. Are you a bad A software engineer and work at Atlanta's sexiest company? This was under benefits I'm not kidding. I thought about taking out the city in case someone had seen this but I'm sorry I'm gonna sh- but that's yours remove that. You like the feel and power of working in a startup? I don't know what that feels like. Okay and just a quick reminder uh picky's pacific they're gonna pick you out they hate the weekend there yeah that one was bad. So probably the most important one is the one I probably haven't covered it's what you have lived and has made you sensitive to things so your own life is going to shape your reading of job listings and if you have a little little nagging concern listen to it um if it really bothers you probably just don't apply or have a really meaningful conversation and maybe even mention the thing that bothered you because maybe they have no idea and they would love to just take it out of their job listing or maybe it's something they hold very near to them so that would be a problem. So I'd love to talk with some of you all of you about what you've seen if you've ever ignored that and started with the company and regretted it or if you ignored it and everything's great um just I it's a topic that I find really interesting because there's so many bad job listings and then there's so few good ones and there's so many mediocre ones I'd love to see more ones that had a lot of thought and a lot of heart and if you have any impact on the job listings that you write at your company maybe think about the people that you're trying to talk to and not the role you're trying to fill and uh yeah in that way we can all be winners of this is my photoshop skills are you ready I'm going to feed it to job listing my secret there's a lot more involved than you probably realize so I included it as a slide all right so thank you very much this has been great