What Do You Want in a Job Website?

antifoidulus asks: "After reading some complaints about monster.com from both the perspectives of job seekers and employers it struck me as how, even in 2006, most job sites are incredibly poor at what they do. So I ask my fellow Slashdot readers, both job seekers and employers, what do you really want in a jobs web site? What features are totally lacking in the current crop? Also, what aspects of the current systems do you love/hate?"

Re:Geographic Preferences Honored by Recruiters

[techno-vampire]

You think that's bad? How about when you can only specify what state? Try living in Los Angeles and getting notified for a string of jobs in Northern California! Not once did that site send me a link to a job within 100 miles of me, let alone the same county.

The problem, I suspect, is that the site was set up by somebody born and reaised in New England where the states are much smaller and has never been to the rest of the country.

Well, jobs, obviously

[JanneM]

Jobs, of course. Categorized and cross-indexed in any which way you could think of, so it's straightforward to narrow down to only those posts that actually are of interest. You want job listings for network management in east London, with at least such and such base salary, weekends and nights acceptable, at a small or medium-sized firm at least two years old, then that's what you should get. And it should optionally match your profile to explude listings that are not a fit for you (not enough experience, no bus drivers' licence, etc.).

The trick to a good service is to make the listings reliable and complete. If a company posts hugely inflated requirements (must have 200+ years experience coding Java) in the hope of attracting top people, you're going to miss valid openings since they'd be filtered (you only have 180 years on your resume). Likewise, no employer is happy wading through exaggerated, not-quite-lying resumes to find people that actually are qualified. Figure out how to make it _easy_ to be honest. Make all listings anonymous, would perhaps help? Not sure about that.

Also, make all listing open-ended. Don't have a set of checkboxes for what languages you know (or seek), for example - no matter how many you list, you will miss some, and people will wnat to qualify their answer more than a yes/no check. Let people write in the language, and a one-line comment about their ability (or needed ability). Make it open-ended, then do text searching for matching. Make any graded description, like skill level, very vivid and concrete. An abstract 1-5 scale can and does mean very different things, but if you make each point descriptive, with an example, it's easier to find a common level. Oh, and three levels is almost always sufficient for ability descriptions. Any finer graduation will be a matter for the full-size CV and interviews.

Ideally, there should be a comments section on each and every company, and each and every job seeker a'la Amazon, so you can evaluate the general desireability asa workplace or workmate. But of course, job seekers and small firms will not get enough comments to constitute a valid sample, and I'd imagine there'd be more than a few legal headaches providing a comments section as well.

Here's what I dislike about Monster

[JourneyExpertApe]

1. Their main revenue source these days seems to be from student loan refinance companies.
2. They allow bogus "professional training" companies to masquerade as employers.
3. They don't make it clear how much information others can learn about you (e.g., can a complete stranger find your name, address, phone number, etc.? Can your current employer see that you recently posted your resume?)

A good job website would work like this. Job seekers can post one or two resumes online for free. Employers can search all resumes for free. They can contact job seekers for a small fee. Job seekers should be able to choose which employers can see their contact info. Any "employer" offering job seekers anything other than a real job or internship should not be allowed to use the site. Predatory student loan refinancing companies should be completely excluded from the site.

Dice.com, sort of

[bitflip]

They advertise here all the time: dice.com isn't bad from my perspective. Monster.com will send you email telling you "there are matches" for your agents, then you have to log in, go through the ads (even if you pay them), and look for the one or two jobs that is a possible match.

Dice.com sends you an email with all of the links, you don't have to log in, and the ads are unobtrusive. I didn't get my latest job through them, but I did get a couple of interviews. BTW, don't just "apply now"; see if you can figure out how to apply directly to the company offering the position, customize your cover letter, etc. Call them, send them a paper resume - whatever. Put in the extra effort, it's worth it.

Re:More Real Jobs

[mthreat]

Indeed.com [indeed.com] is a good step in the right direction. (disclaimer: I work there)

Indeed currently has 3.4 million jobs from the last 30 days. It lets you search jobs from thousands of sites in one place. And it has a cool job trends [indeed.com] tool.

Oh yea, and it has a site for Canadian jobs [indeed.com], too.

Re:More Real Jobs

[sTalking_Goat]

still packed with headhunters though...

Re:At Least Make the Recruiters Do Their Freak'n J

[Associate]

I don't think that was the point. He doesn't want to have to use a Microsoft product. He's supplied three alternative sources, non of which comply to their REQUIREMENT of MS Word. And while I appreciate his position, I know that many recruiters and HR departments 1. don't want to have to go through a hundred resume's trying to figure out what program they need just to view each one, 2. sanitize the personal information like email address and phone number before passing it along to the hiring manager. I know what you're thinking for #1. But you've got to remember, HR people aren't educated in the million different ways to open a file. They're not going to just double click on a pdf document. They're going to open Word, then try to open resume.pdf, that's if they can find it.

Re:More Real Jobs

[Technician]

I just did a search for Sound Engineer for grins. Nothing close on the first page. Lots of matches for Engineer, but nothing related to the sound recording or broadcast industry.

Google does better. I did a search for Sound Engineer Job and had matches on the first page.

Re:Profile Matching - mkt10.com

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a profile matching site out there that was launched recently - mkt10.com - it is new but it shows promise. It even does skills matching based on a taxonomy of discipline-related skills, and it is very tech-oriented.

Re:To all the people that say jobs...

[tpv]

you DO have a number in mind.

Not to the extent you seem to think.

We have a development team. We need a new person to join it. We think that we'd like someone with 2 to 4 years experience.
It would be preferable if that experience was in our industry (finance), but we'll look at any talented candidates.
We know what skills are mandatory and which ones are desirable.

There's a large range of potential candidates there, and they will deliver different value to our team. As a general rule, the candiate with 4 years experience in the right technology in the right industry with the right demeanour will contribute substantially more to our projects than someone with 2 years experience in a different industry. We'll pay in accordance with that.

So yes, we know what a really great candidate is worth (to us) and what an average candidate is worth, but that's quite a range and it's not particularly helpful to put it on a job ad.

I'm not trying to defend recruiters who won't tell you what a job is worth - it's not fair to expect you to interview before you can even know what's on offer - but you need to understand that (in our case at least) salaries are very dependant on the candidate.

Re:I second that...

[arivanov]

Well... I have always wanted job websites to allow you to blacklist known scumbags and filter out their job ads. Unfortunately it is the scumbags which pay the website, not the jobseeker. So, as usually, whoever pays calls the shots. These features are not going to happen.

Re:Sanity checking?

[Professor_UNIX]

I'm sick of seeing job postings that want someone to be experts in Cisco, Windows administration, Exchange, AD, Linux, Solaris, Oracle, SAP, and perl scripting experts for $60k.

What, are you saying you're a Cisco certified engineer and don't also have an MCSE? Well hell, who is going to administer our domain controllers and reboot the printer when the jobs get stuck? I'm afraid we're waiting for someone a little more qualified... i.e. even though we're advertising for a network engineer we're really looking for a Windows sys admin to handhold our users and who can reboot the Cisco 2500 router the ISP sold us 10 years ago if it locks up or something.

Re:To be blunt...

[mnmn]

"what do you really want in a jobs web site?"

Try Jobs.

And not the Apple type.

Find and Rate Technical Recruiters

[drewzhrodague]

As a contractor working alot with recruiters, I found the best way is to keep track of who is good, and who is bogus. For this, I setup (shameless plug) Recruiter-Rater [zhrodague.net], as a way to find and rate tehcnical recruiters. Mostly I've done the posting, but other users have started to contribute their experiences. There really isn't another way to find out which gigs are SPAM, and which are valid, until you do some research, or compare with other people.

I'm not yet convinced

[Presence1]

You have a point that a degree, even from an Ivy League institution, does not automatically confer common sense, an ability to solve problems in the real world in real time, or even a guarantee that the person knows how to think well.

It is also sadly the case that many schools and so-called professors are a complete waste of time (and that is being generous).

I also think that most HR people and recruiters suck -- they don't really understand the real requirements, and just match lists of requirements and capabilities (and usually badly at that).

I have an Ivy degree, and was self taught in the computing field, so I know the value of both. In fact, I feel that being self-taught can be a distinct advantage, because one's thinking might not be as constrained as it would be with a formal education.

Yet, as an employer (running software companies), I always started my basic requirements for all positions, even front-office support type positions, with a requirement for a four-year degree or commensurate experience. I have occasionally used the "commensurate experience" exception, and was well rewarded with excellent employees, but the hurdle was high.

Requiring a degree gave me two things as an employer. First, I knew that the applicant had passed the admissions filter and had demonstrated some ability to think and complete work over a period of years. Yes, it is VERY imperfect, but it is something. Second, an education, especially a liberal arts education which we strongly preferred, can dramatically extend your ability to think in different ways; the student should have been systematically exposed to many more modes of thinking than are encountered in ordinary life. All too often this means nothing, and I must still evaluate each case, but my odds are much improved over the pool of the un-degreed.

The next thing I do with all applicants is to read their writing and resumes as a work product unto itself. How well are they doing the task at hand (of applying for a job)?

You, unfortunately, would have already failed this screening, even with a degree. Your third sentence jumped out and hit me over the head with the fact that you don't know the difference between possessive and plural, or between "there" and "their", and these are repeated errors. It is not merely being a 'grammar-nazi'. How you communicate matters -- do you expect the computer or someone else to debug your code? You are asking them to do it with your writing.

I would have to ask two questions: First, if you are this careless or uneducated with your primary language of communication, how careful or educated will you be with a computer language? Second, I will have to worry about every memo leaving your desk making my organization look questionable? Every good thinker I know uses English as a primary tool, does it well, and immediately recognizes the difference in those that do and do not.

Moreover, I would need to see more than just 'I'm so much better than Jack and Joe with their degrees'. I see good enthusiasm and 'get it done' attitude, but I'd need to see more evidence of precision, rigor and forethought in your work (not that it doesn't exist, but it is not evident here).

If you want to do well being hired by others, I'd suggest getting a good degree, and being absolutely ruthless with your instructors. Accept nothing less than clear, rigorous instruction. Seek out the instructors others call tough. You are paying for an education -- demand the best. Because, frankly, the degree itself isn't worth crap -- there are plenty of degreed people I wouldn't hire to sweep the floors.

Alternatively, start your own company. That way, you can hire yourself without a degree, and the people that hire you (your customers) will be more focused on what you can do for them now than what you did in the past. But again, be rigorous -- ask the question "would you hire yourself?", and do whatever it takes to answer that question "Yes" before you start.

Good luck in whatever path you choose.

Re:this is not a fault of the search engine

[ParrotDroppings]

LOL! I got quite a chuckle from that one... had to see for myself and guess what? Not a naugthy reference in the first 30 hits or so... Go figure.

Re:this is not a fault of the search engine

[ctged]

It's problem with the search engine and that market is controlled by the recruiting agencies. The job posts what recruites place on the jobsites aren't really the recruitments what the recruites get from their client. The jobpost is created to attract certain number of the people to send them CVs. I recently (last friday) end up in big argument after one of the recruiter said I didn't had the skills for the post, even when I had them skills and even more. So I called them and asked the reason, which they couldn't provide, they just said that the market is saturated with the seekers and they only serve the client, not the applicant! If you have managed to create the ULTIMATE CV and filled it with all the essential information and experience, then you might have a change of getting pass of the recruiters. Note also that even if you have been on the market for 22 years and your last 4 years you been working as Enterprise Architect. The change of recruiter reading your CV is nearly nill. The recruiter comes to you and say that you don't have the experience from certain field, even if it stands there on BOLD CAPITAL letters or then they decide that you have wrong skills or no skills at all, even if your CV shows your progression and experience thru different fields of the IT. Thru the jobsites it's easy to get thousands of responses to one job. The HR industry hires the people who don't know what the job is or understand what the people say in their CV. Most of the give a 20 second glance on your CV and thats it. Problem with the job search engines is that those gives you too many false positives even if you give them specific parameters. The job adverts doesn't say really what they job is as it is hidden on HR business databases. How you could cure that is by opening the communications from the recruiters towards candidates and try to match them with the jobs on the market.