You can tell a lot from a job advert. They're like a mini-battleground of competing management and development dogmas. You can always tell when a company hasn't got its recruitment act together, you can often see when they're attempting to iterate on an unsuccessful architectural strategy and nearly always whether the devs or the suits are in charge of quality control. It's almost as good a proxy as the quality of the interview meeting room. 

LMAX is a great company, but if they need seniors they should talk about the new challenges. For BAU and cake eating they could just as easily train up talented jnrs. 

c

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 2:00 PM, andrew <[address removed]> wrote:

- Does anyone have any thoughts on job videos vs job adverts in general?

  Generally I hate  hate hate having to watch a video for educational/informational reasons. I didn't learn to speed read so I could sit and listen, slowly, to someone explain something.

   Ged mentioned subtitles - well, he didn't, but he got oh so close to it - and I think that would improve the video no end. There were some bits toward the  end where the lmax guys started struttin' and mentioning the techs they worked with, and I couldn't make out much more than "disruptor technology". If you *were* interested in the job you'd have to stop/start the video a few times to hear them all to do some research on what they were saying, which isn't really an issue with *one* job ad-as-video, but with more it would be annoying. Subtitles would solve that.

- Are you more likely to watch a video over reading an advert?

  I'm more likely to read an advert. And, I suppose, if i think i'd like the role, *then* watch the video. So the ad would be the filter to make sure I thought I had the right credentials and that the role was the kind of role I'd like, and then the video would further-sell me on the position/culture.

- How did you find our first video?

  I like it, although I didn't save it to my favourites list and will not watch it again this sunday-movie night.

- Did it give you an idea what working for LMAX Exchange would be like? 

  It sort of did?
  I was curious why, if they're positioning for a senior dev role, so much of the ad focussed on the more youth-side of the company. A focus on the other senior members of the team would have been more useful, as they're probably the people a senior dev will associate/talk with - more than the grad/junior types anyway.

  I thought the focus on cake was v. weird. That's... that's really not much of a reason to join a company, especially if you're titling yourself as a "senior dev", you'd imagine that person would be more interested in career trajectory, growth etc. The cake stuff would be a good selling point for grads and junior types who tend to like free stuff. But what sort of company wants someone who thinks "free cake? well whoo hoo that's where I want to work"?

  The mentioning of agile-style development without explicitly saying "agile" (or maybe they did, subtitles would have helped) was interesting too. The  culture of agile development certainly came off - and the guy sitting on the desk did give a vibe off of "laid back culture" - but i was curious as to why they didn't use words like "feature teams" and "agile", but instead alluded to them. Was there a worry that tech jargon in an ad would scare of candidates?

  Overall it seemed catered to a junior role ~ young people, free cake, lack of technical terms ~ so for advertising for someone who is serious about their career, no, I wouldn't call it a success. However, for setting the *company culture*, then yes, it was very useful.

 

- What didn’t it tell you that you’d have liked to know? How could we improve it?

  I, for what it is worth, would not use a video ad for a specific role just yet, because the whole concept is "new". Rather, why not use it to demonstrate aspects of the company culture (which is what this lmax ad seems to do) to sell people on working at a particular place. So put it at the bottom of the traditional ad, or link to it, or whatever.

  I would drop the mention of free stuff, unless the free stuff is really, really cool. Tech hardware, for example, is cool. So are company retreats to exotic locales, holidays, and money. Cake, for all it's blessings, is not cool. Nor is pizza. I've always found it very insulting that developers are advertised to with "free cake! free pizza!", which, on me, has the  double hit of

  1. we think devs are fat slobs who like unhealthy food

  2. we won't pay you very well, but will offset that partially by giving you free unhealthy food

Both of which overall imply a deep disrespect for developers.

  Then again, if that *is* the kind of culture they've got - low pay, unhealthy devs - then the free cake angle is a winner, because you're going to be targeting people who, for some odd reason, like being unhealthy and low paid.

andrew

On 7 March[masked]:27, Ged Byrne <[address removed]> wrote:

I'm a little disappointed that after mentioning the cake budget the camera didn't pan back to reveal a really, really fat team.

The video does a great job of selling LMAX as a place to work, but I don't think it works as a way to advertise a particular role.

It must cost much more to produce a video like this than a single advertisement.

Also, when crafting my application I'll still want all the details in writing for reference.

Are there any accessibility issues?  Are you denying your job advert to anybody with hearing loss?  Is there a transcript available?

On 7 March[masked]:53, Barry Cranford <[address removed]> wrote:

Hi all,

I know we often speak about all that is wrong with tech recruitment on the LJC mailing list... and discussing improvements for CVs, job specs or tech interviews. One thing I have never been a great fan of is job adverts. They are a necessary evil within the industry, they all become extremely similar and it is very difficult to understand what companies, their teams and the environments are really like since everyone is an “Award winner” or has the “Most exciting opportunity"

We have been following the trend of companies creating videos of their companies and have recently been discussing whether it would be possible to do away with job adverts in favour of us creating job videos for our clients. We have just finalised our first RecWorks job video for senior developers at LMAX Exchange. We wanted to let the team speak rather than us or the management to give an indication of what the company is really like. I’m extremely interested to hear what you guys think and whether you feel this would be a better solution to job adverts.

Video: https://vimeo.com/88250563

I’m keen to hear feedback, either personally or through the list:

- Does anyone have any thoughts on job videos vs job adverts in general? 

- Are you more likely to watch a video over reading an advert?

- How did you find our first video? Did it give you an idea what working for LMAX Exchange would be like? 

- What didn’t it tell you that you’d have liked to know? How could we improve it?

Kind regards,

Barry

| recworks.co.uk | [address removed] | LinkedIn | Skype barrycranford | [masked] |
| Office [masked] |  Fax: [masked] | 

For all our latest jobs, visit www.recworks.co.uk/jobs

RecWorks Ltd  |  Registered in England and Wales. Registered No. [masked] 

Email disclaimer: This email contains information which may be confidential. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s) do not copy this communication, or disclose it to any other person. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender immediately, delete the message from your computer system and destroy any copies.  Except where this email is sent in the usual course of our business, any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RecWorks Ltd. Although RecWorks Ltd operates anti-virus programs, it does not accept responsibility for any damage whatsoever that is caused by viruses being passed. Replies to this email may be monitored and/or recorded by RecWorks Ltd for operational or business reasons.

--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])
This message was sent by Barry Cranford ([address removed]) from LJC - London Java Community.
To learn more about Barry Cranford, visit his/her member profile
To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]

--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])

This message was sent by Ged Byrne ([address removed]) from LJC - London Java Community.
To learn more about Ged Byrne, visit his/her member profile

To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]

--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])

This message was sent by andrew ([address removed]) from LJC - London Java Community.
To learn more about andrew, visit his/her member profile

To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]

--
Please Note: If you hit "REPLY", your message will be sent to everyone on this mailing list ([address removed])

This message was sent by Caoilte O'Connor ([address removed]) from LJC - London Java Community.
To learn more about Caoilte O'Connor, visit his/her member profile

To report this message or block the sender, please click here
Set my mailing list to email me As they are sent | In one daily email | Don't send me mailing list messages

Meetup, POB 4668 #37895 NY NY USA 10163 | [address removed]