Posting cool jobs?

January 24, 2024 9:49 AM

I’ve been looking for jobs on and off for the past three years, and have often come across roles that look amazing - for someone who is not me! Is there any appetite for allowing Jobs subsite posts that round up links of interesting jobs, or any other part of the site where sharing them would make sense?

I recognize that allowing “cool jobs” posts could get hairy (large volume/no personal connection/one person’s Cool is another person’s Not Cool, etc.), and trust that the rule against such posts was made for a reason. That said, so many Asks are about jobs, and some of the jobs I find seem ideal for a MetaFilter audience. I’d love to hear what other folks think, pro or con.

posted by rrrrrrrrrt to Etiquette/Policy at 9:49 AM (17 comments total)

Mod note: Posted without mod intervention for now. First, we'd love to hear what other people think as well .
posted by loup (staff) at 9:50 AM on January 24

I think it's incredibly unlikely that a third party could accurately assess whether a job was really cool, or really bullshit. So I'd vote no.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 11:46 AM on January 24 [1 favorite]

Honestly, I'm more interested in my own suggestion for Jobs - the ability to make more than one "position wanted" post in the jobs page, so you can update your desired career goals as your life develops.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:25 PM on January 24 [6 favorites]

Is there a rule against posting a third party job listing right now? My understanding is you can, and your contact information is a way for another member to get a little inside info. I guess you are proposing an option to leave off the personal contact info when you aren't connected to the job post. In that case could there be an alternate field where you briefly say why you're sharing it?

Objectively cool or interesting job postings, like NYC's rat czar, already go on the blue. Maybe they could cross-post to jobs with the right tag.

If we were to do this, there should be a filter to only show jobs offered by other members.
posted by michaelh at 12:46 PM on January 24

Sure they sound cool, but do we really know if random cool job is for a non-evil employer, a scam job posted just to collect resume data, or anything else not nice? Of course we don't. How would we manage self-linking? Given all the things this site is currently struggling with, I don't really see this as being something that would help the community. Would it expand the user base? Bring in more money? Reduce overhead? If it's worthy as a post for the blue, by all means post there. If you want to aggregate the cool jobs yourself and post a mefi project, maybe that'd be neat. I personally think we should be narrowing mefi's focus, not expanding it. Or if this is something the non-profit mefi wants to do (when we get there) then the board could revisit it then. But now, with the site's limited resources? Big nope from me, sorry.
posted by cgg at 6:59 PM on January 24

rrrrrrrrrt, I like your idea and I believe mutual aid is a great way to help build community. One approach that wouldn't take any development resources at all is to have an ongoing careers/working/employment thread either here on MeTa or maybe on IRL.

Comments in that thread could be as simple as, Hey, check out this neat job posting. Or they could be more conversational, with ongoing and regular jobhunting/career questions/chatter that folks might not want to post on AskMe. Kind of like the weekly free thread, but with a career focus. I've run several ongoing IRL threads over the past several years, and between the sidebar and a few comments in free threads and on profile pages, you can end up with quite a few folks taking an interest and adding it to their recent activity.

If the thread gains traction and remains active, we'd have an effective proof of concept that could justify the development resources we'd need to build it out.
posted by mochapickle at 7:27 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]

I like mochapickle's point
posted by kensington314 at 8:33 PM on January 24

I strongly prefer the jobs subsite remain a Mefite to Mefite thing rather than a link aggregator, but I’ve never used MetaJobs so take that as you will. Mochapickle’s megathread suggestion sounds reasonable enough tho.
posted by rodlymight at 7:46 AM on January 25

Are postings removed from the Jobs subsite after some criteria is met (post is filled, posting expires, whatever)? Because right now it looks like 23 jobs have been posted in the last 19 months. That would make Jobs by far the least used subsite. I mean, IRL had more than twice as many posts over the same period and IRL is basically a ghost town now.

I don't know whether it would look like rrrrrrrrrt's suggestion or more like mochapickle's, but I'm for anything that breathes even a little more life into a severely underused subsite.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 8:04 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]

> That would make Jobs by far the least used subsite

RIP Travel.

I can see the urge to share, but the chances of you finding a cool job that is seen here by another Mefite who is also looking for a job, in the same location, with the relevant requirements, etc seems really low. I think it would add work for the mods but for not much engagement or practical use.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:51 AM on January 25 [3 favorites]

Because right now it looks like 23 jobs have been posted in the last 19 months .. I'm for anything that breathes even a little more life into a severely underused subsite

I had the opposite reaction — over the years, the site has accumulated several odd little features and niches that never took off. Chat would be a prime example: a dedicated server which recently required maintenance effort from frimble and MeTa updates from loup, but has only actually been used by four people in the last week.

Maybe the new ownership structure should think about scraping some of the low-engagement barnacles off the boat...
posted by Klipspringer at 10:22 AM on January 25 [3 favorites]

I think it's an interesting idea! but there are, as people have expressed, concerns about vetting. I generally would trust the community here wouldn't just share garbage job spam. If it was interesting enough that they thought to themselves 'man, i'll bet this is the perfect job for someone on mefi' AND took the time to come here and post it, thereby putting their own account reputation on the line to a certain degree, that's not nothing.
I also agree with EC that being able to list oneself in more than one area would be nice. There's a lot of potential for community engagement on Jobs that could be fostered in the future. Are there much more important priorities? Of course! I appreciate Loup/mods not dismissing this idea out-of-hand.

Chat would be a prime example: a dedicated server which recently required maintenance effort from frimble and MeTa updates from loup, but has only actually been used by four people in the last week.

Maybe the new ownership structure should think about scraping some of the low-engagement barnacles off the boat...

I don't think a week's usage is a useful metric for determining engagement. I have been a regular chat user off-and-on for years depending on work/school situations and consider it a valuable resource for the community. It also becomes a place to gather in emergent news situations and talk in real-time about what's happening.
Just because it's not important to you, doesn't make it Unimportant.
posted by ApathyGirl at 12:28 PM on January 25

I also logged in a couple months back and usage was just as low, whole days went past with zero messages.

Chat isn't doing me any harm - just think it's good to occasionally speak up against the natural tendency to not rock the boat and maintain every single thing forever regardless of engagement levels.
posted by Klipspringer at 12:42 PM on January 25

Interestingly, this post led me to go take a look at Jobs, which led me to notice this post for my area, which led me to share it with a number of Indigenous people I know...

https://jobs.metafilter.com/2021/Indigenous-Justice-Lead-Providence-Centre

...so I think I'm lightly in favour of this? I know this organization and know they're quality, it's a fascinating gig, and I would have been happy to help them get the word out however I could (and am, now). I think it would have been a great fit for Jobs, and I would have been happy to post it to Jobs if it weren't already there.

Why not just introduce the existing "Report" function for Jobs and let people call out spams/scams if spotted?
posted by Shepherd at 12:55 PM on January 25 [4 favorites]

I can see the urge to share, but the chances of you finding a cool job that is seen here by another Mefite who is also looking for a job, in the same location, with the relevant requirements, etc seems really low.

Yeah, that's why Jobs isn't used much, would be my guess.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:41 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]

Why not just introduce the existing "Report" function for Jobs and let people call out spams/scams if spotted?

Totally. I’m absolutely all for posting any cool or interesting Jobs.
My main beef with Jobs is when people don’t respond to or acknowledge your interest in the job, or close the post or update it to say “filled” or whatever. It’s super shitty and makes you feel shitty about yourself. Out of the handful of times I’ve contacted a Jobs poster via whatever contact method they set up, only once did the person answer me right away to say it was filled and then closed the posting (thanks one person!)
posted by chococat at 2:46 PM on January 25

My main beef with Jobs is when people don’t respond to or acknowledge your interest in the job, or close the post or update it to say “filled” or whatever.

Speaking as someone who was recently in the job-hunt trenches (but not any more) - that is not unique to MeFi, sadly.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:51 AM on January 26 [2 favorites]