8 ms·

Yup you’re missing something. In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift thr

by Dwolb 3y ago

Yup you’re missing something. In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift through hundreds of applications. Here’s the main mission filter: “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” technical filter: “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” and culture filter: “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” If you didn’t get these things or why they were important, early Amazon wasn’t for you. On the other hand, if you saw these lines and said “holy cow this is the future and I want to be a part of this”, then you’d roll the dice and apply. This style of recruiting isn’t a numbers game and doesn’t appeal to the average person.

hardware2win 3y ago
Ehh, I think you are making this up and your theory is sound just because Amaz turned out big I see stuff like this weekly "blablabla need skilled engineers for my unique brilliant idea company blabla" Nothing is exciting about this
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I feel like a lot of those look like imitations of the concept. I've certainly seen some wording like that which was transparently not relevant to the job.
- wittycardio 3y ago
  [dead]
cafebabbe 3y ago
Now let's have look at similarly-worded ads for the 2000s dotcoms
- baxtr 3y ago
  On the other hand: if no-one ever tried something new, all would be the same always.
klik99 3y ago
“to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” - In 1994, this would have intrigued me, in 2004 I would view with skepticism, in 2014 I would laugh “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men" “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.
- muskmusk 3y ago
  As the comment above you pointed out, then this job wasn't for you. If you made a job add for e.g. the job of an Olympic level swimmer most people would consider the add bonkers, not those who are actually olympic level swimmers. Believe it or not there is in fact people who can maintain systems in 1/3 of the time most competent people think possible. There is also people who love the thrill of going as fast as possible and who would prefer this over a more leisurely pace. Of course the amount of people this applies to is probably less than 1%. But those people are going to really like the job.
  - klik99 3y ago
    As someone who prefers working in fast paced environments and have responded to calls like this in the past, I have found that people who say "I want someone who moves fast" often are really bad at managing and have unrealistic views of how long things take. People who write that phrase might think they have Steve Jobs reality distortion fields, but are mostly deluded. The fact that this particular posting was made by someone who actually walks the walk is not obvious - I don't judge people by what they say but what they do. All I'm saying is that this would have been mildly intriguing because of the ecommerce angle, which was a new problem at the time, but would require sussing out of the Bezos fellow to see if he's the real deal or deluded. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you were reading this blind in 1994 you wouldn't say "WOW This is an AMAZING OPPORTUNITY!", but, if you were the right person, "Hmm, this could be interesting, I want to hear more". I actually find this pretty interesting and cool that the first call was so banal. Weird that this read of it is so controversial...

by Dwolb 3y ago

hardware2win 3y ago

Ehh, I think you are making this up and your theory is sound just because Amaz turned out big I see stuff like this weekly "blablabla need skilled engineers for my unique brilliant idea company blabla" Nothing is exciting about this

_ea1k 3y ago
I feel like a lot of those look like imitations of the concept. I've certainly seen some wording like that which was transparently not relevant to the job.
wittycardio 3y ago
[dead]

cafebabbe 3y ago

Now let's have look at similarly-worded ads for the 2000s dotcoms

baxtr 3y ago
On the other hand: if no-one ever tried something new, all would be the same always.

klik99 3y ago

“to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” - In 1994, this would have intrigued me, in 2004 I would view with skepticism, in 2014 I would laugh “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men" “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.

muskmusk 3y ago
As the comment above you pointed out, then this job wasn't for you. If you made a job add for e.g. the job of an Olympic level swimmer most people would consider the add bonkers, not those who are actually olympic level swimmers. Believe it or not there is in fact people who can maintain systems in 1/3 of the time most competent people think possible. There is also people who love the thrill of going as fast as possible and who would prefer this over a more leisurely pace. Of course the amount of people this applies to is probably less than 1%. But those people are going to really like the job.
- klik99 3y ago
  As someone who prefers working in fast paced environments and have responded to calls like this in the past, I have found that people who say "I want someone who moves fast" often are really bad at managing and have unrealistic views of how long things take. People who write that phrase might think they have Steve Jobs reality distortion fields, but are mostly deluded. The fact that this particular posting was made by someone who actually walks the walk is not obvious - I don't judge people by what they say but what they do. All I'm saying is that this would have been mildly intriguing because of the ecommerce angle, which was a new problem at the time, but would require sussing out of the Bezos fellow to see if he's the real deal or deluded. Hindsight is 20/20, but if you were reading this blind in 1994 you wouldn't say "WOW This is an AMAZING OPPORTUNITY!", but, if you were the right person, "Hmm, this could be interesting, I want to hear more". I actually find this pretty interesting and cool that the first call was so banal. Weird that this read of it is so controversial...