What the front-end applicant wanted

Hey, we know you, we follow you on Twitter and you’re a funny dude/tte with balling front-end skills. Applications are so boring and we don’t want to read them any more than you want to fill them out so join our Slack chat and get to know our team let’s see how we like you as a person. Oh, and if we decide not to hire you, we’ll be super honest about why so that you can learn and grow in your field, because we value our industry and our role in it as a support and mentoring system.

What the front-end applicant expected

Tell us why you’re interested in this job. Don’t be afraid to say, “Because you’re hiring!”; we understand that you probably came here from a job posting board and we want to give everyone the opportunity to work at our company, even if they weren’t familiar with us when they applied. Also tell us what you want out of your career. Don’t be afraid to say you eventually want to work at Google just because you want to work here. We understand that life is about change.

What the front-end applicant got

Tell us in 49-232 characters why you would be a good fit for our company. Be sure to use words and phrases you find in the 5 minutes browsing our company website and manifesto, because the robots we have screening the applications like buzzwords and we can’t expect you to stick around longer than that. After that be sure that you have a portfolio on Behance, even if you maintain an updated portfolio somewhere else. Individuality means everyone using the same tools. An active Dribbble profile automatically moves an application to the 2nd round of reviews, where an actual human sees it, so don’t even waste your time if you don’t have one. Also tell us an arbitrary fact about yourself to prove you were reading, even though we have a program to automatically reject or approve applications and this question is irrelevant to them.


What the hiring manager wanted

I would be a great fit for your company because I have worked on large scale web applications for Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Reddit, Behance, Dribbble, and just about any other website you can think of. I’m what is considered a “unicorn”: I am a competent full stack engineer, marketing specialist, user experience expert, and graphic/print designer. I’m excited to have the opportunity to bring my amazing talents to your company, because I think the product you’re making is very important to the human race and I want to be a part of it! My reputation, skills, and contacts combined with your current team’s vision and company values will make this product an outstanding success in its field.

What the hiring manager expected

I would be a great fit for your company because I love coffee, open office plans, and spending all my time switching to the next cool front-end framework that’s trending on Twitter. I’m excited to have the opportunity to work at a company with the culture of a startup but the stability of a corporation; I like wearing torn jeans to work but I also like my 401k. I believe minimalism is the key to usability, and all my designs are created with low contrast elements that will look great as Behance thumbnails. Typography is the voice of a brand, and nothing says “cool” like Futura; over 90% of my work uses a Futura lookalike. I don’t have any real experience, but I do have a Dribbble profile where I rebound all the top shots with a muted color palette. Because style. I’m confident that you’ll be offering me a job at roughly 15% above average pay solely because I know how to check off all the hipster boxes, and not based on any sort of ability or qualities of myself as a human being.

What the hiring manager got

I would be a great fit for your company because I’m a front end developer and you’re looking for one.


Yeah. That pretty much sums up how I feel about my current job search.

Leave a Reply to Smokie

  1. bigblind
    Mar 11, 2016

    Haha!

    Would love to see what a post for a backend dev would look like.

    Reply
    • Smokie
      May 22, 2016

      Ha! Probably pretty much the same. So much of a disconnect between the job description and what the team actually wants/needs it seems. What is going on with our industry?

      Reply