The important piece to remember is that this costs companies $300 per posting on sites like Github ($350 for JoS, $400 on 37Signals), but $0 to post on their own site. So companies like Twitter (http://twitter.com/jobs) are still going to post on their site first, and are only going to post their hard-to-fill jobs on these boards.
So yay for GitHub and 37Signals for offering more alternatives to Dice and Craigslist, but remember that the best jobs still come directly from the employer's website.
I was going to write something scathing about it, but that'd be useless. All I'll say is imitating Wes Anderson is tired and boring. Looks like it was fun to make and some people will like it for sure, but I think it pales in comparison to the Etsy recruiting video:
I hate to bring this up this tired discussion, but is this a NYC vs SF thing? The Etsy video could almost be considered dark and pessimistic, while the Twitter video is full of whimsy and infantilization.
The twitter video looks like it's recruiting for a private high school (join our clubs! have friends! be awesome! we're so wacky!). The etsy video looks like a formalistic Hollywood trailer from the 80s.
I don't want to go back to high school or be stuck in the 80s. :(
How funny! I was going to mention Etsy, also, but their jobs page isn't working right (http://www.etsy.com/jobs/) and I didn't want to start an off-topic thread about them, because I have nothing but awesome things to say regarding Etsy.
And I love both videos, but I'm based in Minneapolis. So that might mean that both coasts like 1 so I like them both, or just that people from Minnesota like everything:)
Yeah searching for a specific location throws up "Anywhere" listings. If I am searching for jobs in a specific location I want to work in that location. Could be taken both ways so perhaps the ability to disable "Anywhere" jobs?
Looks good, just try to keep it free of recruitment agents. I have seen lots of job websites rendered useless once recruitment agents start posting – that is, you have no idea what company you are applying for.
Also, could you add flags, like mentioning if there's help for relocation. I am interested in jobs located in nearby countries, but don't want to waste their time if they only want local candidates. I know from friends, that some companies seem to provide lots of support including temporary accommodation, yet barely mention it.
Every time someone makes one of these I'm just dumbfounded by how much money there is in it. I mean granted, they're sideline businesses for the three I'm most familiar with, but they are sideline businesses which would pay for almost a full engineering team...
They kind of have to be sideline businesses. Expensive niche job boards work well only if you already have a valuable community and reputation. They can't be created out of thin air, you need to have "main business" to piggyback upon.
Most of the value is created elsewhere, job board just helps with extracting it.
I'm happy this exists. I'm disappointed it is so US-centric again. There are other countries, and a 'filter by state, zip code' does not cut it. (Yes, yes, some European company could - and probably should - create a similar site.)
My question is how much difference will there be between job posting here and on other niche boards. I searched in Chicago and everyone on the GitHub jobs is also on the Joel on Software's job board. Maybe the results are better for other places that have more good software jobs.
Are there too many job boards chasing the same quality listings?
It's early days; too early to compare Github to JoS. Note that we posted 2 reqs to Github but would never post to JoS; the overlap you noticed is imperfect.
(We're hiring in Chicago too, but we have no trouble reaching Chicago candidates and so didn't spend on a third posting).
Sorry, I'm writing very badly today. We didn't post an ad for Chicago, even though we're actively hiring there, because we feel like we have pretty good candidate outreach in Chicago already; that, and we wanted to see how Github job ads did.
what would be great is a filter to show jobs that allow telecommuting, and what percentage of the job is onsite. Something like at http://jobs.rubynow.com/ Makes it enormously more useful for us freelancers
Came here to say the same thing, this is a must have. They should allow to pick "remote" or "telecommute" for people posting jobs too. For now I see posts using different wording such as "anywhere", "telecommute" and "remote". This is very important for devs.
Any reason (I can't think of) why they might choose such long URL's for the job listings rather than something short like /positions/air-bnb/ruby-developer-needed/?
Just makes the URL's a bit more readable especially if we're sharing them about :)
I was going to say why do we need another one but there has been a surprising number of jobs posted in the short time it has been up. Guess it cant hurt to have another board for smaller type companies.
Neat! The title made me think it was job positions open at github, this is far more useful. Not that I'm 'available', but I know some people that are and I'll pass it on.
I saw that too but didn't find it awkward. It was pretty clear to me they meant their organization is distributed like 37Signals or the SO guys. Reading the job post confirms that.
It actually will. There's a lot of things we weigh the contextual job ads with. A lot of it is the (public) code you write and the location on your public profile.
We do ask that people explicitly opt-in for the ads (available for hire checkbox). One of the decisions we made while trying to weigh connecting jobs with job-hunters and not becoming an advertising company.
I'm not "available for hire", yet I like to see what companies are offering jobs in my area. Is the checkbox going to be used for more than just showing ads?
Right now, no. In the future, yes. So if you're willing to keep an eye on our blog (we'll warn you before we make this info public) you can check it. Or you can just search on the jobs site itself — http://jobs.github.com
So yay for GitHub and 37Signals for offering more alternatives to Dice and Craigslist, but remember that the best jobs still come directly from the employer's website.
(Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who loves their new recruting video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6epAkC9wg)