How to read what a job ad’s not saying
Most people understand that when a real-estate advertisement promotes a property as ‘ideal for first-home owners’, they mean ‘nobody would live here if they could afford somewhere else’. And when those ads label a house a ‘DIY dream’, they mean ‘the roof is currently held on by duct tape’.
I don’t often hear of the same critical assessment being given to job advertisements.
‘Join a fun team with a love of clothing, graphic design and coffee!’ said the summary blurb of a new job notification, in my inbox. I’m not in the market for a full-time job, but I like to know what’s happening in my industry and locale, so I remain subscribed. I was especially intrigued to learn what wonderful job opportunity apparently required a love of both coffee and graphic design.
So I clicked, to read the rest of the ad.
It was like unwrapping a shiny gift box, only to find it contained a list of ransom demands along with a pinky finger on ice.
The only thing separating naivety from stupidity is awareness. When a magician waves his left hand at you, look at what his right hand is doing. And when a job ad lures you with attractions, check the bait for a hook first. This is not cynicism, it is sense.
‘…Tasks of the role include graphic design, clothing design, web development, managerial duties, coffee runs…’
I realised two things at the same time. The first: the applicant’s ‘love of coffee’ isn’t to gel with a culture of companionable breaks — it’s just to make you feel better about being the monkey who fetches it. The second: there are four career tracks mentioned, right there. Not including the coffee monkey thing.
A candidate with acumen across such a range is likely to be an industry veteran. Career tracks rub shoulders with other ones along the way, so with enough time in any given industry, a worker will gather some knowledge of associated fields. A career map is a giant Venn diagram, really.
That the advertisers have asked for someone with such an experience and responsibility spread, reasonably eliminates entry-level applicants. Though, granted, it makes the coffee monkey bit rather audacious. In a corporate hierarchy, one expects to outgrow that sort of thing.
‘…Skill in Motion Graphics advantageous…’
And now we’re up to five career tracks. They want a senior big gun.
‘Would suit graduate.’
What? Well, that explains the coffee monkey thing. Although, not the creative kitchen sink they’d thrown in before it.
Their looking to graduates is a very telling remark, particularly as the ad makes no mention of salary. If you want high quality, you have to pay for it; recent graduates are the least entitled to be demanding in their compensation.
‘Computer provided.’
Really? It had been reasonable to assume that was a given. But the fact they threw that in there, as though it makes them a gracious benefactor, now just makes them look like an audacious asshat. They’re advertising for an employee, not a contractor—of course they should be supplying the tools.
To give that company the benefit of the doubt, though, perhaps the role really doesn’t require any deep levels of proficiency in the creative career tracks it calls for. The position could be more like a stone skipping across the surface of all of them. But in that case, the ad’s writer should have sampled the role’s specific assignment breakdowns, rather than list unique career titles. As it stands, the advertisement tells the viewer that the company want almost everything for the price of almost nothing. And a company looking for that is either shifty or stupid.
Of course, a bad job advertisement doesn’t necessarily mean it represents a bad job. It could just mean the advertiser used a coffee monkey as a copywriter. But without having your wits about you, your chances of ending up exploited are much higher.
Have you ever found an experience to be not as advertised? Share your story in the comments!
25 Mar 2017
My job at the prison bore no relationship whatsoever to the job advertised or what i was interviewed for. I expected it to be a challenge but it was, instead, grossly below my level and most under resourced. Within three months i had new supervisor, whose reply to my requests for the promised conditions was “It is what it is” – and that was a government department. I ended up leaving a role I expected to stay in till retirement because of the stress of having to produce numerous silk purses with no pigs ears.
I have come across other jobs too where the advertisement was written by HR and not the supervisor of the role, therefore asking for totally irrelevant skills, or imposing unnecessary restraints. The supervisor said, “I didn’t ask for that, HR put that in”.
25 Mar 2017
‘Silk purses with no pig’s ears’ — How clever of you to amend the classic adage to something even more unreasonable that it already described! That certainly encapsulates the irrationality of such absurd demands.
25 Mar 2017
Reminiscent of Pharaoh’s command, “You will not be given any straw, but you must still make the same number of bricks.” Good thing you exodussed!
25 Mar 2017
I avoid like the plague any job where the ad says they require “a high level of presentation” – because what they mean is they want to hire some eye-candy in makeup and heels, and that’s totally not me. As anyone who has ever seen me will attest.
25 Mar 2017
Is that what it means? I thought it was an ego thing; symptomatic of managers who put more stock in how their business looks than in how it performs. I used to work for a manager who refused to let my department have a ‘casual Friday’, even if we made it a gold-coin-donation fundraiser, because jeans were “unprofessional”. He’d have a point if customers ever saw us, but my department was a backstage entity that barely even saw daylight, let alone customers!
25 Mar 2017
A complete contrast to my old job, where if anyone came in dressed in ‘professional’ clothes, they elicited cries of “ooo, job interview?”!
I’ve mostly seen the presentation requirement in sales and reception type jobs – very much an image thing.