Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kaokun 4720 days ago
Thanks for your feedback kolektiv. Allow me to follow up on a few of your points:

a) If you have any advice on how to get our name out in the geek community then let me know. You are right that a lot of our community stuff is Perl or Geo focussed, but that's where our expertise is so that's where we can contribute the most. How well received would we be at a Python or Ruby event? Or are there more generic events we should be aware of?

b) When it comes to interns and more junior roles we really need to physically see you, every day, with face to face interaction. You just get more bandwidth and more effective communication that way.

Your point about working smart is 100% right. Internally we have 'work smart not hard' as one of our mantras, and that's not well reflected in the job ad at all. Thanks!

c) We don't say anything about money precisely because London is expensive and getting more so every year. One way to work smart is to write an intern job ad that we've hardly touched since 2006, despite the fact that intern salaries have increased consistently every year since then. We also like to be flexible based on people's experience - is it really worth putting on a job ad "£25K - 50K" when that's the range we're willing to consider for different candidates?

d) We're a small company of ~15 people with 4 engineers. That means if we hire you as our fifth engineer you're immediately making up 20% of the engineering team! You're damn right we want to make our interview process intense. I think it's fair to forewarn candidates about that.

Thanks again for your feedback. I hope you'll share some more, especially on point (a) about getting our name out there more.

2 comments

a) If you have any advice on how to get our name out in the geek community then let me know.

Come speak about something interesting at HN London. 400-500 people a month in the heart of London. http://meetup.com/HNLondon

My contact info is in my HN profile if you're interested.

> is it really worth putting on a job ad "£25K - 50K" when that's the range we're willing to consider for different candidates?

Yes. It anchors your offering quite a bit. £25k is somewhat north of the UK mean income (not the London one, though), and especially as a foreigner allows me to get an idea on what my budget might look like. £50k is somewhat less what your competitors are paying for decent talent (no, not just finance, although it's a dumb career move to write off finance wholesale), so if I'm making £50k somewhere else and looking to level up, I know that I'll be wasting both yours and my time, on the other hand, if I'm making £30k, and my boss tells me it's a good salary, I know that that's a good chance I could make more.

Also, I plainly enjoy the honesty. "£Competitive" my ass.

Agreed 100% with this advice. A large range beats 'competitive' or 'Dependent on Experience" any day.
Great feedback, thanks mseebach.