Haha, I would be surprised if anyone intentionally plans this to happen this way, but I would guess that in many cases it plays out more or less like that.
Agree. But the best way to do this is to give a free trial period. We were hoping that giving a light version of the product free (not just for 15 days) would have a similar or better effect. It didn't work, and this post was written to describe why (at least in our opinion and for our case).
Recruiters charge for their ability to bring you top quality candidates (they help you attract and select people). We sell software to manage the recruiting process. It's not one or the other.
Think for example accounting software and tax advisory services. You'd get both and the second would be far more expensive than the first.
You're right that the button in the main page is outdated and perhaps gives the wrong idea.. but if you go to http://workable.com/pricing it clearly says "try it free for 15 days" and has a big box underneath explaining how the free trial works :)
Of course we will, just saying that it was not intentional. In most places it is mentioned (there is a signup button on the pricing page and at the bottom of each page which says 15-day trial) but we didn't notice that in some other places the button text can be misinterpreted.
What seems to you like a marketing effort started from a real customer need, believe it or not.
Would I use a boilerplate? No. Do I think boilerplates are useful as a start for many people? Absolutely. I wish I could show you some of the job descriptions that companies put up using our software. They are hideous, wrong, uninformative, clearly showing you that people have no idea how to write a good job description.
We started off by creating some simple templates, as a guidance, so we help our customers make something nicer. We ended up building a small library and thus we decided to share them. (I guess that counts as marketing, but at least you get something useful)
Back to the original question.. are boileplates a bad thing? My answer is "it depends on what you would do without them". If you can write a half-decent description of the person you need, in your own words, then by all means don't use boilerplates.
If you're a very small company, hiring for the first time maybe and you need to start off by customising something, get some inspiration.. boilerplates are useful.
We make software for the small and medium company. We feel that software is not just the buttons. It's also the method. It's every kickstart you can give your customer to do his job a bit better. (for some, our guides on how to hire is the best form of help, others want to get the canned thing and make a few changes..)
Surprises me how many of companies are spending a lot of effort in building an employer brand and attracting critical talent, yet the recruitment / applicant tracking system they are using is still email and "send us a resume".
By the way, we're always looking looking for Rails developers (onsite or remote) to be part of a team that builds better hiring software for SMEs. Check out our work and apply online here: http://workable.com/about
In general I agree. Note that this is only one post of a blog about the difficulties of starting up in Greece, and it's the post that lists the positives to draw upon. It does not claim that someone from Germany should move to Greece to start his company. It claims that despite the difficulties, there are upsides one could take advantage of, and they are not negligible.
Hackathons have an "inspirational" value. By forcing an artificial constraint they demonstrate to participants how much they can do in a single determined sprint.
There may be little further connection to what it takes to make good software (let alone a good business), but there is value in realizing that something of utility can be built under time and money constraints.
It is kind of silly, though, how many of those are popping up, and how they are turning into competitive formats. And I'm sure some people misunderstand the point of the idea. So what? That's true for many things and it doesn't make them worthless on its own.
