[msie]

First of all, if a developer is applying for a job with me and he sends me a Word Doc CV, I’m going to delete his email. Why? Because a word doc is an editable format. But I don’t need to edit his CV. If you really need to send a traditional CV, make it a PDF. It’s basic IT competence.

He sounds like a horribly picky (for no good reason) boss to work for. Only Rockstars need apply.

[ChristianMarks]

If he can't edit a pdf with a binary editor, or log into a dial-up connection by screeching into his telephone (no modem) then no true hacker will work for him. Other than that, he has a point.

[dalke]

"He has a point."

Granted. But is it isn't a useful point. Some companies insist on text CVs only, which is much easier to edit than a MS Word or PDF document. They state this requirement along with the position information. (For example, http://www.psteam.com/general/about/jobs.asp says " Plain ASCII text CV's only please.")

Rather than rant, this company should state its requirements for, say, "unusual and/or puzzle-based CVs only", and then feel free to toss out any non-conforming submissions.

In general that rant is very company specific, and provides little generally useful advice. Consider this line: "so out of touch with the development community, that they’ve gone to a suit-and-tie recruiter."

I used to be in touch with the Python developer community, back around 2000, with core commit rights and everything. But knowing other developers in the Python community isn't at all the same as knowing people who would hire Python programmers, especially since I didn't want to move from Santa Fe, NM. While a local recruiter is much more likely to know who is hiring in my area.

Also, the posting suggests that they are looking for people willing to work long hours for low wages, and who likely won't be pressuring management for raises to match their market worth. It also suggests that hosting a London hackathon for £9K GBP hackathon isn't a good way to find job leads, otherwise they would have done so by now.

[liamgooding]

Hey Dalke, firstly thanks for the long comments and feedback.

You make an amazing point and on future job openings we are going to be far more specific in order to be fair to developers who want to apply directly.

However, from experience no mater HOW MUCH detail I give, recruiters will still spin me the same shit:

"A company just when bust in your area and I have some amazing developers looking for work, here's some word docs attached"

Also, that's a really good exception RE someone moving to a new geographic location and might not have any contacts or referrals... I think we can work on this by expanding our own digital footprint internationally over time, but it's a special circumstance I guess recruiters might come in...

However, then I think how hard is it to google? If I lost my job and decided to move to spain, building a database of tech companies in Madrid would take an evening. Sending personal emails to the CEO (assuming small teams) in each case would only take a few days.

So no, other than knowing the local salary market (google that too) I still think I'd find better people by circumventing recruiters

>Also, the posting suggests that they are looking for people willing to work long hours for low wages, and who likely won't be pressuring management for raises to match their market worth.

No it doesn't. Yeah, like all startups we offer a touch below market rate in exchange for options but nowhere do I imply "long hours for low wages"? Maybe the unlimited vacation time was overlooked????

[dalke]

Why are you giving more details to the recruiters? Based on what you wrote, shouldn't you say "we don't work through recruiters" and hang up?

I gave the geographical one as an example that was easy to understand. I work in a specialized subfield of computational chemistry. I work for myself. There are three major classes of developers: 1) people working in software companies, 2) people working in academia, or 3) people working at pharmaceutical companies. I'm in group #1. The developers I know are in group #1 and #2, because those working in #3 are usually working on in-house software that typically remains private for several years before doing any publications.

If I wanted a job, I would want to work in #3, because I like working directly with scientists. On the other hand, I don't have good contacts outside of the actual developers in various companies. While a good recruiter would.

Even better, consider an in-house software developer at AstraZeneca near Boston (group #3) and who wanted to work for another pharma or biotech in the area, of which there are many. Odds are that person wouldn't have that many contacts, because most in-house developers can't talk about their jobs in public, or work on public projects related to their job. It seems that a good recruiter would be the way to go even there.

"building a database of tech companies in Madrid would take an evening"

Yes, that's a large city. Santa Fe has 65,000 people. People in those situations have to be a lot broader in the search, which takes time. There's lots of small companies that I could have worked for, ranging from chemistry or GIS to futures trading or human factors analysis, and there's no centralized listing for those.

While in a large city you can search for "<specialization> Madrid", and odds are that someone at least has put a decent list together already.

"No it doesn't."

I was reacting to "They’re going to complain about overtime." I worked overtime. I worked a lot of overtime when I was starting off. I am convinced that overtime is generally an indication that the company wants its employees to work for free. Want to convince me otherwise? Pay your employees time and a half for working overtime.

I worked overtime even in a company with two days per month vacation time. Which I like nearly everyone else never took, because we felt we needed to work hard in a startup. Many even came in to work on the weekends. And in the end, those stock options? Worthless.

I was also reacting to the "bad-ass senior developers their extortionate hourly rates." I am a "bad-ass senior developer" in my field. There's a reason I charge "high hourly rates" - my time is worth it. That you think the rate is "extortionate" (and not simply "expensive") implies that you don't think bad-ass senior developers are worth market rates. Since you likely want bad-ass senior developers, this suggests you would rather pay people less than they are worth.

[liamgooding]

BTW sponsoring hackathons IS a good way to get awareness among developers for hiring, worked in the past and plan to do more in 2014 :-)

Experiment, experiment, experiment

[dalke]

"get awareness among developers for hiring"

Certainly. So is giving everyone £25 for showing up to a meeting. Remember, your reference £9,000 is only paid out when you've actually hired someone. How many hackathons do you need to sponsor before you have an employee?

(While there may be a secondary marketing advantage if the attendees of your hackathon are also potential customers, most likely that's not the case. And of course, there are additional time overheads for any route.)