I forget sometimes that I have this soapbox. We are looking for a web developer. A 2.0 kind of developer. Here’s the job description I wrote, that was turned down:
Do you know the difference between usability testing and asking people what they think of your web site? Do you know the difference between HTML 4.0 and XHTML and do you know when to use one and not the other? Do you know what csszengarden is, how it is done, and why it matters? Do you know what a content management system is (and you do know that Frontpage isn’t one, right)? Do elegance and simplicity mean something special to you?
We need you. If you have seen some of our web sites, you know we really need you. This is the easiest job in the world because it is so easy to improve what we have. This is the hardest job in the world because we want our web presence to be great. In fact, we want it not just to be great, we want it to be world-class. We know about CMS, CSS, Javascript, Wikis, Weblogs, Web 2.0, DOM, JSP, PHP, Ruby on Rails, AJAX, (pick your own buzzwords) and we even have the skills. We just have not had time or resources to pick and choose and implement them in a coherent, planned, professional way. Now we do and that is your job, but you’ll be a key member of a team that has the skills and committment to work together to serve the students, faculty, staff and community colleges of Virginia.
Ready for a challenge and the opportunity to create amazing things?
Here’s the more mundane description we went with (pdf).
And on a serious note, I love working here, this is a great job with great people and a great opportunity to really make a difference and add a litany of skills and projects to your resume, in an enterprise that really makes a difference. I think the pay is good, as are the benefits.