Company and role description

The most common mistake is sending a message that contains neither the company name nor the specific role. Something like “Hi, I have an interesting opportunity for you, are you open to a chat?” tells me nothing. I don’t know who you work for, what the job is, or why you think I am a good fit. Even when a company name is mentioned, the role is often described as “We are looking for a passionate developer to join our innovative team”, which is not a job description. Tell me what the company actually does, what is your goal, how big the engineering team is, and what the person in that role will concretely be doing day to day. Not aspirational buzzwords, but real responsibilities.

Tech stack and how you work

This is the part engineers care about the most and it is almost always missing. Which languages and frameworks does the team currently use? Are you plannig to change them? Is the codebase a monolith or microservices? Do you have CI/CD and write tests? These questions matter because they tell me whether I would actually enjoy working there and whether my skills are a genuine match. If the technical details are not in the offer, I will assume there is a reason for that.

Salary range

Not mentioning the salary range is one of the most frustrating things about job offers. It wastes everyone’s time. I might go through a screening call, a technical interview and a take-home assignment, only to reach the final stage and find out the budget is well below my expectations. At that point both sides have invested hours for nothing. If you include a salary range upfront, only candidates who are actually comfortable with it will proceed. There is no downside to being transparent about this, unless the number is something you are already embarrassed about.

I won’t give you my phone

“Let me know if you’re interested and we can jump on a quick call” does not scale for me and neither for you. I have to write back, we have to agree on a time, exchange calendar availability over messages and then actually wait for the call. Phone number is not needed in the recruitment process, even if it might sound crazy for recruiters. If you want to schedule a call just include a booking link: Calendly, Google Calendar, whatever you use, there are plenty of options nowdays. One click and it’s done. It respects my time and it shows that your company has a structured process. If you cannot figure out how to share a booking link, that already tells me something about how the company operates.