Standout Jobs

Guy Kawasaki recently wrote an interesting post on how to get a job via Craigslist. He posted a job ad there for a position at his new startup, Truemors (at least I’m assuming that’s the case!)

The experience is revealing in a few ways:

• He was able to get a good number of high quality candidates.
• People applied quickly, but the people they hired applied later in the process. The quick movers most likely didn’t customize their applications enough to stand out.
• How you apply is as important as anything else. Guy points out that the best fit for the job was someone that applied in a way that no one else did. That candidate took the time to stand out and apply specifically for the job in question.

Guy’s now written a follow-up post: How to Not Hire Someone Via Craigslist.

The most important recommendation that Guy makes is this:

Sell. Almost every help-wanted ad focuses on buying, not selling—that is, the qualifications that candidates have to meet and the fences that they have to jump over. However, in the war for talent, this is ass backwards. This ad, for example, should mention things like “award-winning shop,” “work alongside famous designers,” “interesting projects for Disney, Apple, and Audi.”

That’s spot on. I’ve often thought about taking 10 or so job descriptions, removing the companies’ names and replacing them with other names. Would you really be able to tell the difference? Does anyone sell effectively through their job postings?

We are currently hiring a CSS & Web Designer. This is an intermediate / senior position.

We want to know if you:

• Have experience designing/building web applications (not just web sites)
• Can’t stand when something is 1 pixel off
• Believe code validation is a must, not a “nice to have”
• But, recognize the need to move quickly, iterate often and Get Things Done
• Have startup experience
• Want to work in a fast-paced startup environment
• Believe in the value of social media and networking, but not the hype.
• Believe in giving back, participating in the community and doing good.

How many of your answers were “yes”?

As our CSS & Web Designer you’ll be a core contributor to the success of Standout Jobs. You’ll be part of a team that’s building great applications and have a significant role in launching a startup company from the ground up.

Before you send your resume over, ask yourself, “How will I stand out as a CSS & Web Designer?” Then send us what you’ve got.

Please send us a portfolio (or a link to one) or links to projects you’ve worked on so we can take a look at your work immediately.

Note: This is a full-time position in Montreal.

To apply: email us at csswebjob@standoutjobs.com.

Don’t take it from me, MarketingSherpa has released a case study about the value of videos on your website for attracting star talent. The company they looked at was Lifetime Fitness.

You can read the case study for free until August 30th: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30106.

The first key result is that they saw an increase in applications for managers, sales associates and personal trainers - the 3 groups targeted in the videos.

More importantly, the quality of applicants increased.

The number of manager applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased from 9% to 19%.

The number of sales associate applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased from 29% to 37%.

The number of personal trainer applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased from 30% to 38%.

Lifetime Fitness is now looking at the longer term value of the videos in terms of customer service and employee turnover. Kendall Harrell, Manager, Organizational Development is quoted in the case study, “The cost of turnover in sales, personal training and management can be immense. If the videos can reduce turnover even by single-digit percentages, it’s paid for itself.”

What’s most interesting isn’t specifically the use of video. It’s Lifetime’s recognition that they needed to develop and promote their employer brand.

The case study puts it perfectly:

Every marketer knows that a strong brand attracts customers, but what if your brand doesn’t have much pull with prospective employees?

Harrell goes on to say, “In most conversations I had related to recruiting, people said, ‘I like the company,’ but they were thinking as a consumer, not as an employee. People were fairly indifferent about Life Time Fitness as an employer, and that’s almost as bad as not liking us.”

Video resumes certainly generate a fair amount of buzz. Lots of people are talking about them.

Meridith Levinson recently wrote a comprehensive piece: Video Resumes: The Pros and Cons for Job Seekers. She’s covering all the bases — the value of standing out and differentiating yourself, but also the fear of looking bad, production quality, or discrimination from hiring managers.

Video is a great tool for communication.

But where it plays out in the recruiting process for job seekers remains uncertain. I think it has a place - most likely for specific jobs where a visual presence is critical. For example, I can see a company looking for a salesperson asking for a video resume where the candidate gives a 30-second simulated sales pitch. Could be a unique way to get a feel for the person’s presentation and sales skills.

CareerBuilder added video resume functionality recently and so far the results have been fairly good, with over 1,000 video resumes being uploaded.

Ryan Healy thinks video resumes are a fad. If that’s the case a lot of companies are in trouble because they’re invested a great deal of time and energy in the space.

Standout Jobs doesn’t focus on candidate videos or video resumes. We’re flipping that around and asking companies to do more in their efforts to pitch candidates. Companies don’t do enough to show off their culture, team, environment, etc. Video is one great way of doing that.

Mint is building a free, simple, and secure personal finance web-app. Designed to be effortless, Mint consolidates your financial life in one place. Easily see how much you have, how much you owe, and where your money goes.

QA Manager

Responsibilities & Deliverables

• Help develop the short- and long-term vision for quality.
• Develop the QA hiring plan: what can be done in-house, outsourced, how many people needed and when
• Develop complete test plans and test cases, lead executation of testing effort (~50% hands-on, initially)
• Define and measure entrance/exit criteria for all releases; establish acceptance testing strategy
• Drive QA Automation: define, develop and execute QA Automation test strategies and processes (web UI and API based)
• Lead day-to-day QA processes and schedule testing resources

Experience & Requirements

Absolutely Required

• Solid understanding of QA methodology, processes, and the technical aspects of web applications
• 4+ years of hands-on experience in Software QA, predominantly for a hosted web application (ASP)
• 2+ years of proven successful management of QA teams as either a team lead or direct manager
• Prior QA Automation experience, both hands-on and managing QA automations projects, using Quick Test Pro or similar
• Experience with Web 2.0 application QA (scalability, performance, 24/7, …)
• Knows how to leverage automation successfully to allow a small team to deliver a high-quality product

Strongly Recommended

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Effective interpersonal skills
• Proven QA experience with browser UI test automation using Windows native applications
• Proven QA experience with Java, Linux, MySQL, Tomcat, Apache environments
• Self Motivation and ability to work independently. Must have proof points of being a self starter
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills and attention to reporting accuracy

Nice To Have

• Strong command of Linux; able to contrast the merits of various distributions, you can even perform basic system administration in a pinch
• Experience with issues involved in production website operations: networking, load-balancing, monitoring
• Prior early-stage startup experience

To apply, send a resume to jobs@mint.com, with the subject “QA Manager”. Your cover letter should describe why you’re awesome.

Front-End AJAX / Javascript Engineer

We are seeking a smart, experienced engineer who gets things done to join our team and specialize in building responsive and elegant web UIs with JavaScript, DHTML, AJAX and server-side Java.
The ideal candidate will have 2+ years of experience designing modular, object-oriented JavaScript UIs. This is an exceptional opportunity involving substantial equity.

Responsibilities

• Help us build responsive and elegant web UIs with JavaScript, DHTML, AJAX and server-side Java
• Design, implement, deploy, and extend the infrastructure which supports our secure, scalable, and quickly evolving web application
• Depending upon the candidate’s experience and interests, we also have important and rewarding challenges in the backend and data/analytics tiers.

Experience & Requirements

Absolutely Required

• Deep Javascript / AJAX / DHTML experience, especially framework experience such as GWT, Prototype, Dojo, YUI
• Able to design, code, unit test, and debug complex, DOM-based web software applications supporting multiple browsers
• Fluent with HTML and CSS, and able to code them by hand
• Experience designing modular, object-oriented JavaScript
• Proficient with at least one JavaScript debugger (Venkman, FireBug, etc.)

Strongly Recommended

• 2+ years of Java experience
• Strong OO design skills, and understanding of design patterns
• Strongly familiar with at least one Java web presentation framework
• Fluent in SQL (mySQL experience preferred).
• Prior experience developing a production Internet application
• BS or MS degree in Computer Science from a competitive school

Nice To Have

• Flash experience
• Experience with issues involved in production website operations: networking, load-balancing, monitoring
• Familiarity with personal finance software applications, statistics, algorithms
• Previous startup experience

To apply, send a resume to jobs@mint.com, with the subject “Front-End Engineer”. Your cover letter should describe why you’re awesome.

Robert Dempsey, CEO of ADS, found Standout Jobs and liked the idea so much he decided to film his own recruiting video.

ADS is a top-notch Ruby on Rails development shop in Orlando, Florida. They’ve worked on a number of great projects including SaySwap and GHive.com.

One of their biggest challenges is hiring. In our conversations, Robert noted that he needed new ways of reaching out, promoting ADS and giving people the information they need to make informed decisions about applying. A video job ad was a great first step in accomplishing those goals.

Several days after posting their video, ADS hired a Ruby Developer. The video played a key role in attracting the candidate (who lives hundreds of miles from Orlando):

“I’m very happy that I found Standout Jobs,” said Robert. “It was extremely easy to produce our own job video. Once Standout Jobs helped us launch it, we saw an immediate response. A few days after the video went live we hired the perfect person for our team. Not only did the video help interest that person in ADS and the work we’re doing, but it gave him insight into who he’d be working with. I expect the video will continue to send us top candidates and generate buzz about ADS over time.”

Robert does a great job of explaining the value proposition behind video. More than that, he knows that he’ll have to continue to promote his employer brand and reach out to potential candidates in new, authentic and informative ways if he wants to attract the best talent.

Whoa, we’ve been dugg!

The server went down from the load earlier, but after an emergency install of wp-cache and some Apache optimizing, we’re back up and running. Whew!

Standout Jobs was well represented at last week’s TechCrunch 9 party with the attendance of co-Founder, Fred Ngo.

But it wasn’t enough for us to attend, schmooze and hang out. Fred brought along expert videographer, Tracy Peterson to ask some of Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs and business folk about their challenges and frustrations with hiring top talent.

The result is a quick, entertaining video that sheds some light on how hard it is to hire great people, and what some companies will do to get people on board. From celebrity partners to getting arrested, to plain old solid advice, we’ve got it all.

Quick thank yous to those that took the time to speak with us at the party:

• Kelvin Cheung, Member of Technical Staff, Ooma
• Keith Teare, CEO, Edgeio
• Mark Williamson, Director - Internet & Service Business, Dash
• Ed Schaffer, VP Operations, oDesk
• Guarav Dhillon, Founder & CEO, Jaman
• Emmett Shear, CTO, Justin.tv
• Kyle Vogt, VP Engineering, Justin.tv
• Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO, Sxip
• Robert Scoble, Scobleizer & PodTech
• Guy Kawasaki, Founder, Truemors & Top Blogger
• John Furrier, Founder & CEO, PodTech
• Mary Hodder, Founder & Chairman, Dabble

Etsy is a company I’ve noticed a few times. For starters, they have a very good jobs page, where they do a great job of exposing their company culture with a variety of text and pictures. Their job postings are also interesting; check out the job for Senior Software Engineer: Search. They ask candidates to submit answers to interesting technical problems.

Etsy gets the value of exposing and promoting their company culture.

And now they’ve taken it a step further. Fred Wilson drew my attention to a post on the Etsy blog titled Open Etsy.

It’s all about showing off the innards of Etsy in a way that few companies do. Although it’s a very long blog post, I can guarantee you that a ton of people will read it inside out. It’s interesting. It’s passionate. It’s meaningful. And so far they’ve had over 100 comments!

Etsy is building a great employer brand.

And that’s valuable not just for potential candidates but customers and potential customers as well. It’s 100% authentic, conversational marketing and recruiting. And I think that’s great.

More companies should follow Etsy’s lead.