How Should the Job Postings Section Function
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Continued from another thread, attempting not to hijack with talking about how the community works rather than the discussion from the thread itself.
All, because it is the job postings board. It is not in a discussion forum.
That's a fair point. I suppose that's a major question that needs to be asked. Is the job board section of the forum not actually a forum but literally just a job posting location and, if so, it seems that it should be locked in such a way that discussion cannot occur. As it is a job posting in a discussion forum, it seems the natural reaction is to use the forum to elicit more information, provide feedback, etc. like other forums do with job postings (SW as an example works this way.) It's very common for immediate feedback on nearly every job posting over there to include questions about location, pay scale, the literalness of the requirements, confusing mismatches, etc.
So this is a question for the powers that be as well as for the community, I guess. How should job postings behave? Should all questions on them be banned? Should they literally be nothing but postings? Should some responses but not others be allowed? Is it to be part of the forum (discussion) or a job board that uses the forum engine but isn't really part of the forum? And if it shouldn't be a discussion should it be technologically locked (if possible) to make it that discussions don't just happen there?
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While I can appreciate the point of view of the others... without the posting, that particular discussion probably never would have happened.
Though, on the other hand would anyone other than those participating ever read it far enough to get anything of value out of it in the future?
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@Dashrender said:
While I can appreciate the point of view of the others... without the posting, that particular discussion probably never would have happened.
Though, on the other hand would anyone other than those participating ever read it far enough to get anything of value out of it in the future?
On the other, other hand, who else is reading the thread except for those interested in it? If you were simply looking at the job posting as a job seeker you would have the OP in all of its glory and any discussion you may or may not want to go through to see what others think of the posting, see how the company responds to reverse interview questions and probing, etc.
So there are two questions that I see:
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Does the discussion create value for anyone? I believe that the answer here is yes. Anyone who took the time to participate in the discussion itself we must assume found it valuable hence why they put in the time. We can also assume the potential for value for someone else, an anonymous lurker or the OP / OP's company where the feedback could be leveraged if they so chose.
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Does the discussion create a negative value for anyone? That's really the question, I guess. Is someone losing value greater than the value that is created?
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I don't know seems like people just like to argue on here more than anything anymore.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I don't know seems like people just like to argue on here more than anything anymore.
Well, in a discussion forum, isn't that a key aspect of the value, though? Taking different perspectives, ideas and opinions and comparing them and attempting to defend, through logic or observation, the things that we feel to be true and testing them to see if they are true or not allowing all of us to grow?
It's a discussion forum, not a question and answer site (a la ServerFault.) So while there can be discussions where there is no differing of opinion, once you have peers testing different ideas something akin to an argument is the natural means of testing the ideas and vetting them.
In some ways you could say that it is arguing to point out issues with a job posting. But you could also say that it is equally arguing against things people have stated before to tacitly and quietly allow things to go without discussion too.
If we aren't vetting ideas, pointing out where things could be improved, etc. aren't we stagnating and, kind of, just giving up?
Now maybe a job posting is not the place for this and that's a fair thing to think and I can see value in going either way. Personally, I feel that discussion and public discussion vastly outweighs whatever benefit there is to silence. But I'm often in the minority and I can see a lot of feelings around wanting this to be a silent posting situation.
But I am wondering - why? I think why having a discussion around it is good (or can be good) is fairly obvious and has been stated. But what is the benefit of silence? Is it that we want to placate job posting companies in the hopes of getting more postings? I can see that. Is that worth the tradeoff? Is there a benefit that I am not seeing?
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I like getting differing opinions because it forces us all to think. Whether it makes us look at options we had never considered, learn that an alternative might be better than what we thought or simply requires that we take the time to evaluate our own opinions and formulate a logical understanding of why they are better - all of these things are good. A healthy exchange should not just improve us as technical peers, but it exercises our logical processing capabilities to hone the manner in which we think about the decisions that we make and the opinions that we hold.
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For example, here is a specific example of a way in which I have grown around job hunting:
When I was younger I used to think in terms that everyone wanted to hire the best people and everyone wanted to work at the best companies. There are companies and people that fit that mold, certainly, but there are many more than do not. Most people, even most IT people, don't seek "the" job, they seek "a" job. And most employers don't want to hire the rockstar, they want to hire a suitable team player that isn't too expensive that they can manage efficiently. They might actually be trying to avoid hiring the best because they know that the best will demand too much money and always have the leverage of going somewhere else to work.
That's a huge change in perspective. Understanding the goals of both the employer and the employee is paramount. The out of work person needing to pay the bills has a completely different job hunting style and measure of success than the person looking for a dream job that only comes along once in a lifetime. Employers looking to hire "someone" andn employers looking to hire "that special someone" do totally different things. But often they also do the wrong things because they haven't really empathized with their potential candidates.
But these are all perspectives that I learned from these discussions.
Knowing, for example, that the best professional and the best candidate for a specific job might be two completely different things, is a big deal. And knowing that the best job and the right job might not be related, in a manner of speaking.
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So, where are the nay-sayers? This is a discussion forum, so where is the discussion? I am going to agree with Scott on this subject, but I don't maintain that I am absolutely right. What do other members think about this?
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I think that it shines a negative light on the company since I have no ability to change the job posting. My question is this, if my boss or HR saw this post would it be positive for me? Not likely. If they saw it would it be a negative view? Maybe or maybe not.
Also, it devalues the job itself. People are less likely to be interested when a negative light of any kind is shined on it. I know that isn't necessarily how you think, or maybe any of the top posters. However, there are guests and non-regular users that do watch each posting made here.
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@IRJ said:
I think that it shines a negative light on the company since I have no ability to change the job posting. My question is this, if my boss or HR saw this post would it be positive for me? Not likely. If they saw it would it be a negative view? Maybe or maybe not.
I guess this is a question about your boss and if they value feedback and improving the company or if they are not trying to cultivate a good workplace. Places that I have valued working would think that this was great and be very happy with the feedback and hopefully take it as a way to improve the business.
Companies where I have worked that were not good, would be upset that their flaws and their lack of care for their own companies and jobs were exposed.
So it depends on where you work and their goals, I think.
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@IRJ said:
Also, it devalues the job itself. People are less likely to be interested when a negative light of any kind is shined on it. I know that isn't necessarily how you think, or maybe any of the top posters. However, there are guests and non-regular users that do watch each posting made here.
Sure, I can see that. But his is a big question - do we block discussions to make job postings look better because it appears that people can discuss them but are not? Or do we help job hunters figure out when a job looks good or not? Do we hide issues to support posting jobs or do we expose problems? In an open, honest community, I feel that the discussion is critical. Not discussing obvious problems and providing feedback seems like pandering and feels rather dishonest to people who might look at the job.
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If you want to provide feedback, make a discussion thread in the discussion forums about it. Keep the discussion on the job posting itself relevant to the posting. Such as a clarification on something.
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@IRJ said:
I think that it shines a negative light on the company since I have no ability to change the job posting.
That you have no ability to fix the posting and as it sounds like you are saying that the company has no interest in making the posting a good one or even hearing feedback, I feel like maybe this isn't a community problem but a company problem. Why is there no way to fix it? Why is feedback not something that they are interested in?
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Also, and this is huge, it appears that the goals of the OP are to get people to look at the posting, correct? But if there is no active discussion on it, the posting will effectively disappear in a day or two. So having a controversial or interesting job discussion is actually, by far, the best way to get eyeballs on it. Without active discussion, job postings in a discussion forum are very hard to find.
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@JaredBusch said:
If you want to provide feedback, make a discussion thread in the discussion forums about it. Keep the discussion on the job posting itself relevant to the posting. Such as a clarification on something.
That's a valid approach, potentially. It would be really nice if we had a thread splitting option to take those discussions to a new thread.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Also, and this is huge, it appears that the goals of the OP are to get people to look at the posting, correct? But if there is no active discussion on it, the posting will effectively disappear in a day or two. So having a controversial or interesting job discussion is actually, by far, the best way to get eyeballs on it. Without active discussion, job postings in a discussion forum are very hard to find.
I don't agree with that. It isn't like posting a thread in IT discussion or Water Cooler. Those effectively disappear, but there aren't many job postings so those stay relatively visible. If your intention is looking for a job, you would go into the job posting section and see what is available. If you see a listing that is a few weeks old, you could comment or PM the original poster and ask if it's still available.
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Do we have rules specific to the job posting section? If not, we probably should. Maybe any and all discussion should be limited to simply yes/no questions about the specific job in question.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I don't know seems like people just like to argue on here more than anything anymore.
In some regard that may have some merit. However as Scott pointed out, that is part of the value.
In the realm of IT, and really so many others we get to a point in processing a task that we just do that task the way we have always done it. Or the way our former staff members always performed it. Building a new desktop was you always needed the CD/DVD to install it. You had to do this before that, and so forth.
But someone came along and found a new way to deploy it. It was fresh, new, and risky.. at least until it wasn't. But I wager that when that person changed jobs and went to do an 'image' build that the people around him/her were like; "No, we have always done it this way"...
You can prove a point with a 'constructive' argument. I've always used the GUI to configure this or that,. but I've learned that the CLI is better. While I'm still learning the CLI I'm sure that there are scripts that run better and so on and so on....
I think some limited responses should be allowed. Is it possible to Force Moderate the Jobs Section?
@art_of_shred said:
Do we have rules specific to the job posting section? If not, we probably should. Maybe any and all discussion should be limited to simply yes/no questions about the specific job in question.
I agree. Certain rules to keep on topic might be needed.
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I have been following this a bit and I think we will need to add some rules for the Job Posting Section. I will discuss with my community management team today and let you know about any changes.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
If you want to provide feedback, make a discussion thread in the discussion forums about it. Keep the discussion on the job posting itself relevant to the posting. Such as a clarification on something.
That's a valid approach, potentially. It would be really nice if we had a thread splitting option to take those discussions to a new thread.
This would only be good as long as there is a link to that discussion thread very high up in the Job posting thread so people can see there is discussion going on regarding this posting.
