Unprecedented in my experience, and a good sign for the company.

Anyone who is willing to take community feedback in how it’s approaching its own candidates needs to be taken seriously. Also, if the company is this interested in how the job listing is authored and perceived by the technical community, chances are that they really are looking for qualified, talented, and rock-solid people that can make a difference. I could be wrong, but my gut tells me otherwise.

Please take a moment to look at the new job listing, and see how quick feedback allowed this company to refine it, and focus on what their core needs are.

From what I hear over and over again, the one opportunity that companies miss out on is putting a teaser in a job posting. Some tidbit of the work a candidate would be doing to really entice the passionate ones to contact them.

Let’s try an experiment. Two job postings describing the same job. Which one sounds more interesting?

Software Engineer / User Interface Designer

Widgets Conglomerate is a Fortune 100 company in need of an experienced, self-starting software engineer for our corporate billing department. Qualified candidates must have at least 4 years of experience developing enterprise class software solutions, and have a Computer Science degree, or equivalent.

We are an equal opportunity employer, offer great benefits, and competitive compensation.

Target skills include, but are not limited to:
- .NET framework technologies such as C#, ASP.NET and SQL Server
- HTML and Javascript experience is also highly preferred
- SOAP/REST web service experience
- Experience in full SDLC and comfortable working with multiple teams to ensure specifications and end product are correct
- Must be a self-starter who is capable of running a project with minimal supervision
- Some experience doing mobile phone development is a bonus

Software Engineer / User Interface Designer

Widgets Conglomerate is a large, pioneering company who needs to enhance its cutting edge development team with a solid, talented and well rounded software engineer. If you have at least 4 years under your belt designing and developing high quality, enterprise software, and can identify issues, opportunities, and pitfalls at that level, we want to talk to you.

We’re looking for someone to help us build the next generation of responsive, social billing applications that engage employees and customers by providing real-time messaging and data. You can expect to work with the latest technology, lots of creative input and a challenging project.

Here’s what you’ll need to be considered:
- At least 2 years doing C# and/or ASP.NET development for developing efficient and attractive user interfaces.
- Full understanding of SQL Server and can do your own table modeling and can write your own stored procedures.
- Advanced experiences working with HTML/Javascript frameworks to create lightning fast and responseful Intranet pages. Knowing SOAP and/or REST will get us even more excited.
- iPhone development would be ideal. Part of this application will be used by our field personnel on their iPhones every day.
- You need to be able to communicate with business users, and be able to produce technical and functional specifications before you start designing or writing a single line of code.
- You need to know how to write efficient, scalable code that won’t break in a year and can be enhanced as more features are implemented without breaking the whole thing.
- Have you ever led a team, or been a supervisor, or want to be in a leadership role? We need someone who is a leader with vision, and has the ability to share that vision with a team and lead them towards it.

One of the things that all the recruiters agreed upon is the fact that most of their clients are putting up job requirements that are a bit… unrealistic. It’s understandable that companies want the most for their money and are trying to get people who are capable of performing the duties multiple, former employees.

However, these people are rare, justifiably want to be well compensated, and aren’t on the market as the companies they are currently working for want to retain them.

That said, I just read a job listing for a new startup in Pittsburgh. Here’s the list of credentials that they want in a User Interface Designer.

1. Understanding, Knowledge, and Experience with All (yes, indeedy, they said ALL) Common Programming Languages (Java, C#, SQL, Visual Basic, HTML C++, Etc.) (Portfolio of Work Required)
2. iPhone SDK 3.0+ Knowledge and Experience (Portfolio of Work Desired)
3. Android Platform SDK Knowledge and Experience
4. Front-End and Back-End Database Knowledge
5. Website Design and Development (Portfolio of Work Required)
6. Excellent User Interface Development Experience and Knowledge
7. Adobe Flash
8. Adobe Dreamweaver
9. Strong Graphic Design Understanding: Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
10. eCommerce Knowledge and Experience
11. SMS & MMS Knowledge and Experience
12. Experience and Knowledge in Search Engine Optimization

Ok, whoever this person (if he/she exists) is, is a rockstar among rockstars. Most likely less than 100 people in the entire United States of America could confidently have all of this on their resume – and back it up.

Here’s the kicker, in the job posting, there’s the text “The successful candidate will have 2 to 4 years of experience as a software engineer/UI designer…”

Um, yeah. A 4-year professional will have all that experience.

Considering that, which one of them would give up whatever highly paid, secure job they have now to go work for a startup in Pittsburgh, get paid in promises and stock-options, work 18 hour days, be unappreciated, and then – most likely – be discarded when the company fails?

That’s my new, favorite job description. Also, if you are reading this, and you land that job, please take a moment to leave a comment here and let me know you exist.

Link to job description:
http://pghcareerconnector.com/jobs/JobDetails.aspx?id=11114

<cfscript>
factory = createObject("java", "coldfusion.server.ServiceFactory").DataSourceService;

sources = {};
sources = factory.getDatasources();
</cfscript>

<cfdump var="#sources #" />

Pretty simple.

<cfscript>
driverManager = createObject("java","java.sql.DriverManager");

conn = driverManager.getConnection("jdbc:macromedia:oracle://111.11.11.111:1521;SID=mySID;serverName=111.11.11.111;user=**********;password=**********");

stmt = conn.createStatement();
recordSet = stmt.ExecuteQuery("select * from table order by 1 desc");
results = createObject("java", "coldfusion.sql.QueryTable").init(recordSet);
</cfscript>

<cfdump var="#results#">

The trick was to add the username and password as properties of the connection string rather than having them inline.

This fails

driverManager.getConnection("jdbc:macromedia:oracle:username/password/111.11.11.111:1521;SID=mySID;serverName=111.11.11.111;")

It was one of Tessa’s first hand-me-down’s from Sabrina.

Michelle took this video when Tessa was about 2.5 months old because she had recently discovered her own voice and was squawking and squealing on a regular basis. That is, of course, until we turned the camera on (kids have an amazing ability to NOT do what you want when you are filming them).

We went back home to Pittsburgh for Sabrina’s first birthday so we could celebrate with the whole family. My mother had a cake for Sabrina, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She’d never even seen a cake before, so she had no idea that it was sugary deliciousness.

Well, after some initial investigation, she decided that cake was pretty darn good…

The one thing that wasn’t nice was that the street on which it was located was one of the main ways to get into town, so you constantly heard the thundering roar of, what is endearingly called, Chickenbuses. The air then, for 10 minutes, reeks of diesel fuel.

These buses had three distinguishing characteristics:

1. They were always painted vibrantly with a myriad of colors
2. They were always packed with Guatemalans
3. They left a cloud of diesel fumes in their wake

I was lucky enough to have my camera on me when one was driving by the street Michelle lived on.

In the process, I came across this video from when me and some old friends went to Corolla, NC. We went crab fishing with all the kids and after we captured a bucket full, we decided to release them back into the wild.

Nothing too exciting, but one of them refused to back down and you can hear the kids squealing in the background.

I stumbled across this diagram that I created to explain to others how the final system might look at a high level. This would look slightly different today if I created it from scratch as we’ve had some maturation of some of our processes and technologies, but the overall flow would be the same.