Frequently Asked Questions

Jobstr is a forum for authentic and introspective dialogue where you can:

• Ask people anything about their jobs, and
• Host a Q&A to answers questions about your job.

It’s as though we took the age-old cocktail party question of “What do you do?” and made a website out of it. So come on in and put your keys in the bowl.

We like to think that Jobstr readers are of the intellectually curious variety, and we created this site hoping to foster a spirit of authenticity we found lacking on traditional Q&A sites and discussion forums. You can go to any number of career websites to find out what a job pays, or to read an employer's sales pitch -- written by a corporate PR team and triple-vetted by their Legal and HR folks -- as to why they're the finest employer in all the land. Not all that interesting, if you ask us.

Jobstr's a forum for asking about what really matters. The stuff that requires introspection and soul-searching. Ask a Veterinarian what it's like to inform a child that his beloved dog was just put down. Ask a Meter Maid what it's like to be universally reviled simply for doing his job. Ask a Border Patrol Agent whether he feels like he's really making a difference.

At the end of the day, we're all searching for fulfillment in our professional lives, and Jobstr hopes to enable that dialogue by serving as a home for direct and authentic dialogue with practitioners themselves.

We review every request to host a Q&A, and we'll occasionally ask a prospective host for some additional info to satisfy us that they're genuine before we publish the Q&A.

For advertising-related inquiries, email us at advertising@jobstr.com. For anything else, please use our Contact form -- we read everything.

Just type a screen-name and your question into the "Ask Me Anything" fields on any Q&A page, and your question will be published immediately. (Note that you'll be prompted to login, or create a username/password if you don't already have one.)

Absolutely. No matter what you choose as your username when you create your Jobstr account, you can pick any screen-name you want each time you ask a question.

You’ll receive an email as soon as a Q&A host answers your question. If you’d prefer not to be notified when your questions are answered, just log in and go to your My Account page, where you can turn off email notifications. Note that this will only disable email notifications for questions you ask from that point forward, but you may still get notifications for any questions you've already asked.

Oh good, we're not the only egomaniacs here!

Anyone can submit a request to host a Q&A. We hope you do -- that's what makes the site tick. Just submit the Host a Q&A form, and we’ll review and publish it within 24 hours. We rarely reject submissions, but if you want to ensure approval, be earnest, articulate, and authentic in describing what you do.

Sure, “Astronaut” or “Stuntman” have sexy cocktail party appeal, but some of the most fascinating dialogue often comes from seemingly mundane 9-to-5’s. So even if you think your job is just a paper-pushing trudge through Cubicle City, go ahead and Host a Q&A -- you’d be amazed at what people will ask if given the opportunity.

Sure thing. No one will know anything about who you are or where you work unless you include it in your job description or your answers. Some hosts find that anonymity allows them to be as candid as possible in their answers. On the other hand, many hosts prefer to publish their real names and/or link to their website, blog, or social media profiles, to give their threads an added touch of authenticity.

We created Jobstr to work entirely around a host's schedule. It's not a real-time question-and-answer session where you have to make yourself available at a set time. Once your Jobstr Q&A is live, readers can ask questions at any time (and you'll get an email notification when they do) but you're under no obligation to answer them immediately. Some of our more eager hosts love answering quickly, while others prefer to wait until they've got some free time and answer a few questions at once. Whatever works for you, works for us.

You can edit any of your info by logging in and clicking the “Edit My Info” link on your Q&A page.

If you deem a question to be off-topic or inappropriate, just click the “Delete” link to banish it back down the series of tubes from whence it came.