原贴地址：http://www.codeanthem.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-hire-crappy-programmers-the-job-post/
I read plenty
of articles about how to recruit
great
developers
,
but what if you are only interested in the crappy ones – what then?
Perhaps you aren’t willing to spend good money to make money, or you
just think getting work done is overrated. Whatever the reason, this
series of articles on Crappy Programmers will do the trick. Welcome to
the first installment: ‘How to Find Crappy Programmers’.
The job post is your potential programmer’s first impression of your
company, so make it count with these offputting features:
1. List a String of Acronyms for Technologies
No matter if the person writing the post
or doing the interviewing has any idea what they mean. All that’s
important is that they were used in your code base at some point in
time.
There’s nothing developers love more than playing buzzword
bingo in job posts.
JMS, XML, J2ME, AJAX, SSRS, SSIS, JSB,
WCS, JSTL, HTML, DHTML, XHTML, MOSS, SOAP, BO, WPF.
You get bonus points if the technology is
over ten years old. Don’t worry if it seems like you’re filling
positions with checklists, developers like
having years of
their work marginalized into a neat little box.
2. Put an Arbitrary Number Next to Each Skill
It’s important to pay people based on the
years of experience they have, not their talent, proficiency or overall
competency. To that end, be sure to put a number next to each skill
that represents some number of years. A job posting for a Technical
Lead might then look like this:
10+ years total in the IT field
8+ years with Microsoft technologies
5+ years with relational databases, like SQL Server
3+ years with C#
1+ years with WEB technologies
Then you don’t have to consider anyone
with less years of experience, even if their skill level is higher.
After all, since the person is older, they will fit in better with the
other old managers. Don’t actually mention age though (that’s illegal) –
the proper career terminology is “culture fit”.
Plus, since they were already well into
the workforce while most of the current technologies were created, they
have a firm grasp of the fundamentals,
like PowerBuilder.
3. Say Nothing Positive About the Position
We’re all very desperate for a job “in
this economy” and you did say that the multiple positions would be
“filled soon”. Don’t waste space talking about what sort of projects
you might work on, what the team environment is like, how the developers
work together or anything technically appealing whatsoever.
By completely ignoring what a developer
looks for in a job, you’re letting us know up-front the sort of
don’t-care attitude at the company. This sets the stage and limits
developers asking for things when they come on-board, like non-broken
chairs or licensed software.
Agile is for hippies.
4. Use Euphemisms for the Negative Aspects of the Job
Obviously, if anyone knew what it was really
like to
work here, no one would take the job. After all, that’s why our other
developers have all left and we’re constantly
hiring. Clearly
we will need to lie, so here’s an easy translation matrix:
| What the Job Post Says | What it Really Means |
| Standard work hours are 40-50 hours a week | We expect developers to live in their tiny tiny cubes 24-7 |
| This is a support position | We don’t allow our developers to have a life outside of work |
| You will work closely with the PM, DBA and QA | Our environment is highly political, riddled with ridiculous rules made by people who don’t understand software, and we get very little done |
| This position involves working with our real-time application | I don’t know what real-time means but it sounds good |
| Great opportunity for growth | Only a desperate person would deal with this shit |
| Job candidate must be resourceful, responsible and able to work well under pressure. |
Our corporate culture is basically the ‘Lord of the Flies’ |
5. Require Resume to be in Word
doc Format
Requiring resumes to be in the
proprietary and platform-specific Word .doc format, instead of .pdf,
.html, or .txt formats, is a nifty little test early on in the hiring
process. You want to make sure that your developers are adept at
jumping through HR hoops, even on technical matters.
We do not want our developers to have any
basic principles in their work, or to have a keen understanding of
interoperability or usability. We also like it when recruiting firms
paste their logo at the top of our resumes and add lame summaries – our
resumes were too much about us that.
This is a special treat for Java/UNIX
developers.
So there you have it, folks. By following
these simple steps, you are well on your way to hiring crappy
developers.
But wait, some good developers might
still slip through this cover, so stay tuned for our next installment of
the Crappy Programmers series by subscribing here
.